Corpses

Fred, a down-on-his-luck mortician, is trying to make an improved embalming fluid when he accidentally invents a serum that, when injected into a corpse, revives it for an hour. He decides to use his new power to raise an army of the dead & help him save his business from being foreclosed thanks to his evil ex-wife Helen, who is now married to the local chief of police. But at the same time, the chief's daughter, Rhonda, is having a relationship with Fred's assistant Jerry, who is unaware of Fred's activities. As zombies begin flooding the town, the young lovers find themselves in the midst of a small war.

Corpses is an ultra-cheap knockoff of the 1985 classic RE-ANIMATOR, made a good nineteen years after & having a similar plot. Both films feature a protagonist – Re-Animator had a brilliant medical student, while Corpses has a mortician – who invents a serum that can raise the dead. But unlike Re-Animator's serum, which was so powerful that it can keep the dead undead indefinitely & can even revive severed body parts, here it is only capable of reanimation for up to an hour. This is probably an attempt to create some difficulties for the narrative.

The film might have a decent story & plenty of cheerful dark humour (my favourite kind of humour), but the execution is decidedly average. The actors give it their best shot, although Jeff Fahey, who has starred in a LOT of cheap films over the years, makes a slightly mediocre hero, despite delivering a decent performance (as usual). The zombies' rampage is funny but in a dumb way & has nothing new to add to the zombie mythology – there is nothing here that will get zombie fans raving – but the film does have enough black humour to keep undead fans watching. The film is somewhat defeated by an opaque ending that doesn't make sense.

Normally I don't post to IMDb, but I feel like I have a moral obligation in this case. I like zombie flicks and I have a high tolerance for budget movies, but this one is BAD. You can tell in the first 5 minutes that it's going to be insultingly horrible. If zombies playing catch sounds scary then this is the movie for you. If amateur acting (like random people off the street quality) appeals to you, this is the movie for you. If seeing a down-and-out Jeff Fahey excites you, this is the movie for you. I could go on and on. Don't reward the industry by watching this scat, you'll only encourage more like it.

I am not an extreme person, but this movie deserves negative stars.

The undertaker Fred (Robert Donovan) is bankrupted and misses his former wife Helen (Belinda Bonini). She has left him and is going to marry Captain Winston (Jeff Fahey), whose daughter Rhonda (Tiffany Shepis) is the girlfriend of Fred's assistant Jerry Gordon (Stephen Williams). Fred has accidentally developed an embalming formula that brings the dead back to life and he is able to control the zombies because they need a dose every hour to stay alive, otherwise they die. When Fred receives an eviction letter from the bank that intends to build a mall in the location of his funeral home with the agreement of Helen, he decides to use his zombies to steal money, pay the bank, achieve power and get Helen back. However, when Jerry accidentally drops the fluid of his formula, he loses the control of the situation in his mortuary and the dead seek revenge against him.

"Corpses" is a cult-movie absolutely underrated in IMDb. The gore comedy follows the style of Peter Jackson's "Braindead", with lots of black humor and blood. There are excellent lines along the story, and I loved the character of Rhonda Winston, responsible for some of the most hilarious moments, like for example, when she says to Helen that thinking does not suit with her obnoxious stepmother. This B-movie is a great entertainment and I really liked it a lot. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Dr. Morte" ("Dr. Death")

You've heard of bottom of the barrel? Well, lift up that barrel, dig about 20 feet into the ground and that is where you will find CORPSES. The combination of me, On Demand and the listing of a Jeff Fahey movie did not bode well this evening. To be honest, I only made it 20 minutes in before hitting the "stop" button. But I want to throw this out here as a warning to EVERYONE! Do not watch this movie. It is so bad and poorly done that I actually couldn't believe Fahey was in it. And brother has been in some prime garbage before. The sad thing is director Rolfe Kanefsky made a film I thought was pretty darn good (the spoof THERE'S SOMETHING OUT THERE). This one, about a mortician who re-animates the dead (with dayglo fluid, ugh), is about as bad as it gets with lousy make-up, flat as a board camera-work and terrible acting. Like I said, DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE!!!

"Corpses" is a totally retarded but enthusiast and engaging video-horror that aims for fans of comedy horror and brainless splatter. It's a terrible film, really, but quite entertaining if you leave your thinking capabilities at the door. The nearly bankrupt mortician of a small community accidentally invented a new embalming fluid that brings the corpses on his table back to life. Instead of making his discovery public and win a Nobel Price, he uses the invention to raise an army of docile zombies to settle the score with his obnoxious ex-wife, who ran off to live with the local sheriff and continuously tries to close down the mortuary. It's up to the undertaker's geeky assistant (who uses a ridiculous moped as transport) and his rebellious girlfriend to prevent more undead people from walking the streets again. The best thing I can say about "Corpses" is that's an adequately produced homage to cheesy 80's splatter; Stuart Gordon's legendary film "Re-Animator" in particular. The characters are walking talking stereotypes, the gory make-up effects are immensely over-the-top and the dialogs are deliberately incompetent. Gore, humor, stupidity, more gore and a little bit of gratuitous sleaze… Sometimes, that's all a undemanding horror fan requires to be satisfied.