The Laughing Dead

"The Laughing Dead" is a typical 80's horror film filled with blood and gore.The acting is abysmal,the atmosphere is completely non-existent,but for the gore-hounds there are some nasty splatter scenes including decapitation,head smashing etc.The make-up and special effects are pretty good.All in all I quite enjoyed this one,so if you like obscure horror movies give this one a look!Recommended.7 out of 10.My favourite gore scene is where the guy has his own torn off arm shoved down his throat!

A bus load of tourists, several oddballs amongst them, travel to Mexico to learn about the ancient Aztecs and Mayans, but end up fighting zombies, human sacrifice, etc. I first saw this years ago on a bootleg VHS, now just revisited it on DVD. The film does boast some pretty good splatter but not until the second half. It's also pretty funny at times. However it also suffers from bad acting, a fairly dull first half and a plot that just confused the hell out of me. Admitably I felt tired at the time, perhaps that's why I was losing a grip on what was happening. If you like bad, gory movies then be sure to check out this one.

Truly one of the worst movies I've ever seen but that doesn't mean it has no redeeming value. I love how Patrick Roskowick's character is a totally over the top out of control ADHD brat who swears like a drunken sailor all the time. In other words, a typical American teenage boy. The kid is feisty, obnoxious and self absorbed but you know that deep down he has a heart of gold. (Just kidding!) When "Ivan" (the terrible) dons his special Aztec (or is it Mayan?) ceremonial sacrifice costume he changes his attitude.

The gore and blood spatter are ridiculously over the top and the "special effects" are as good as in any 1960s 8mm home movie shot with Dad's Kodak by a nerdy teenage boy in the AudioVisual club at school. In other words: Bad! But who cares?

I read an online review that said: "The child actor in this movie gave the all time worst performance by any child actor in history." Clearly the person who wrote that knows nothing about really bad child acting! Patrick's "Ivan" was the Sir Laurence Olivier of child acting compared to some bad child actors I've seen (yes, I'm looking at you, Jake Lloyd!) All in all, The Laughing Dead is a movie I would have never even remotely considered watching but gave it a chance. This movie actually has a few laughs in it. It really does try to be a horror/comedy. Sometimes it's funny when it didn't mean to be but that's beside the point. So, it's bad, but not all bad. As predicted, this was Patrick Roskowick's one and only movie. Too bad. I wanted to see him in The Laughing Dead 2 - Ivan's Revenge.

The delights of this movie lie in the fact that so many of the characters are played by writers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror rather than by professional actors. Somtow's talents as a popular writer are hardly in evidence here, though he is clearly a gifted musician and composer; that really is him playing the piano. The scene in which he rips out the hearts of children one after another is hilarious rather than grotesque. Tim Sullivan brings as much soul-tortured emotion and dramatic range as he can to a silly script; his flailings and roars while being possessed are delightful. Gregory Frost, whose fiction is noted for comedic rage (much like the work of John Cleese and Carl Hiaasen), exudes a haughty if inexplicable fury at everyone around him, while real-life jokester Raymond Ridenour has a great time being himself (while named for science fiction editor Gardner Dozois). Larry Kagen, at the time a bookstore owner,is fervent and rather sweet as a doting husband who rises above his wife's attempts to henpeck him. Krista Keim, as his wife, is totally believable as a crystal-worshipper; according to Frost, she really did believe in the powers of crystals at the time the movie was shot. Premika Eaton delivers every line poorly and was cast because she is Somtow's sister, not for any innate talent; she is, however, pretty. Ed Bryant, a great favorite among horror fans, steals every scene he appears in; Sullivan reports that they had to shoot the 'great big armadillo' scene several times because the two of them couldn't stop laughing (and adds that Bryant was squicked by the scene of his own death). Tim Powers is barely visible as a zombie; look for his red flannel shirt in the zombie scene near the end.

The Laughing Dead is an incredibly cheesy low budget film without any value. It handles about a bus-load of social misfits (guided by a priest who lost his faith and impregnated a foxy nun) on a sightseeing tour around Aztec ruins in Mexico. There, they're awaited by a bunch of demons, zombies and mad-raving creatures in order to kill them during the 'Death Festival'. The first 45 minutes of 'The Laughing Dead' is very tedious viewing since they're presenting us a character drawing nobody really cares about. The priest and the nun are re-united and he learns he's the father of a bratty kid. There's no intrigue and the acting is very lame so the first half is very tough to sit through. After that, The Laughing Dead turns into a joyful splatter movie with cheesy make-up effects and a repulsive amount of blood. People's heads are chopped off (and used as a basketball), buses drive over torsos and one poor bastards even has his own arm shoved down his throat!! The film is bad and extremely amateurish, but there's a market for this kind of crap. So, if you're in to gory nonsense you can check this one out.