31 Days of Halloween 2015: We Are Still Here

[31 Days of Halloween 2015: WE ARE STILL HERE is now available on DVD, Blu Ray, and On Demand.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

*Note: As with last year’s 31 Days of Halloween marathon of horror movie reviews, we’ll be diving deep into the new release section looking for modern horror fare, hoping for the best, but frankly expecting the worst. And a further note for this review: yes, I'm slacking off and reposting a review from earlier this year. But hey, it's a good movie.*

A couple movies in to an old farm house only to find it isn't just a fixer-upper, it's haunted, in WE ARE STILL HERE. Paul and Anne Sacchetti (Andrew Sensenig and Barbara Crampton) hope that a change of scenery will help them get over the grief of losing their teenage son, Bobby. But almost immediately, Anne senses a presence in the home that she's certain is the spirit of her son. There are other strange phenomenon as well, like the unnaturally hot basement. Paul is skeptical, but after the contractor he hires to check out the basement suffers mysterious injuries, he isn't so sure. Then one night the Sachetti's neighbors Dave (Monte Markham) and Maddie (Susan Gibney) stop by to cheerfully inform them about their new home's history as a funeral parlor where the bodies didn't always make it into the ground. He goes on to explain that the owners at the time, the Dagmar family, were run out of town on a rail.

We Are Still Here (May 22nd and 23rd at midnight at the Capitol Theatre)

[WE ARE STILL HERE screens Friday May 22nd and Saturday May 23rd at midnight at the Capitol Theatre. Writer/director Ted Geogegan will be present for a Q & A after the film both nights.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

A couple movies in to an old farm house only to find it isn't just a fixer-upper, it's haunted, in WE ARE STILL HERE. Paul and Anne Sacchetti (Andrew Sensenig and Barbara Crampton) hope that a change of scenery will help them get over the grief of losing their teenage son, Bobby. But almost immediately, Anne senses a presence in the home that she's certain is the spirit of her son. There are other strange phenomenon as well, like the unnaturally hot basement. Paul is skeptical, but after the contractor he hires to check out the basement suffers mysterious injuries, he isn't so sure. Then one night the Sachetti's neighbors Dave (Monte Markham) and Maddie (Susan Gibney) stop by to cheerfully inform them about their new home's history as a funeral parlor where the bodies didn't always make it into the ground. He goes on to explain that the owners at the time, the Dagmar family, were run out of town on a rail.

31 Days of Halloween 2012: I Sell The Dead

An appreciation by Bob Ignizio

Arthur (Dominic Monaghan) and Willie (Larry Fessenden) are a likeable if unsavory pair of grave robbers, and very likely murderers as well.   As I SELL THE DEAD begins, the two have been sentenced to death for their crimes.  From his prison cell, Arthur recounts to Father Duffy (Ron Perlman) the events which led him to this fate.  As a child, Arthur (played in his younger years by Daniel Manche) learned the tricks of the ressurectionist trade from Willie.   At first the duo’s main employer is Doctor Quint (Angus Scrimm, familiar to horror fans as “The Tall Man” from the PHANTASM films), an unscrupulous physician in need of fresh corpses for his medical research and not too picky about where they come from.  But things turn from the merely morbid to the supernatural when the Arthur and Willie learn there’s an even better market for the bodies of the living dead.  Business picks up considerably once they start dealing in vampires, zombies, and other assorted oddities.  But not only is the product more dangerous to handle, there’s a rival group of grave robbers who don’t take kindly to anyone infringing on their turf.