Corpses : Release Year - 2004 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Overall Rating : 4/10 Directed By : Rolfe Kanefsky Jeff Fahey (Maniacts) Tiffany Shepis (The Hazing) Robert Donovan (Pretty Cool) Supplied By : Rolfe Kanefsky Film Reviewed By : Rick Blalock -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PLOT Small towns can hide big secrets, and none is bigger or more dangerous than the plan Fred, the local mortician has. Through pure luck, he has discovered a serum that when injected into the body of a corpse, revives them for an hour at a time. Seeing the positive side to this, he plans on using his new powers to resurrect an entire army of the living dead to do his dirty work, including robbery, destruction and murder. Fred’s botox-loving, self-obsessed ex-wife, Helen, (who is now engaged to the local chief of police, Captain Winston) is determined to run the funeral home out of business. When Fred learns of this and sets his undead soldiers to get her back in his life, and take care of Captain Winston once and for all, including anyone else who stands in his way. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE REVIEW Corpses is the story of a mortician at a local funeral home whom is down on his luck and will do anything in his power to save the funeral home that is also the subject of a foreclosure, Upon experimenting, the troubled mortician has discovered a serum that can rejuvenate the dead for approximately 1 hour. The mortician uses the newly reborn dead to kill more victims in order to generate more revenue to keep the funeral home in business. This plot sounds quite interesting, doesn't it? Well it sure does, but in Corpses' case, this is a movie that I looked forward to seeing that just so happens to be a complete debacle. This movie in the beginning seemed to have all intentions of being a straight forward zombie flick. Mr. Kanefsky, has told me and I am quite aware, that this was quite the disastrous movie experience and didn't come out quite as planned. I understand all of this and I am not here to judge off of that, it is simply not my place to judge. But what we are left with is a zombie comedy, or if you will "zomedy". At times this film is reminiscent, of films such as Troma's "Redneck Zombies" throw in a little "Shaun of the Dead" It is all the sort of off the cuff comedy that has been popularized as of late. The comedy ranges from good to bad, some good but quite a lot that is bad. I really laughed hysterically when the resurrected prostitute walks, she walks as if her two legs are stapled together, and appears to have an IQ of a doorknob. Also what this film lacked was an explanation of the mortician Fred's serum, because the film never really explains the orgin of the serum...it's just there. I think that is the film had built up the beginnings of the serum that it may have benefited, after all, the serum actually masquerades as one of the film's main characters. Another thing that doesn't really help to outcome of this film is that, all of the editing that probably has been done, really seems to make the movie a bit too fast paced. Most of the time you wish for a film to pick up it's pace but in this case it moves in a thrown together fashion and the viewer is fed information too fast. Acting wise, we have Mr. "Lawnmower Man" Jeff Fahey. His character is the police chief Captain Winston. Fahey, he is a somewhat all the time serious actor, in Corpses he seems a bit used to that. I say this because, while this being a comedy, he seems to act out his dialogue in an almost too serious manner, somewhat as if he was a little afraid to let loose although in the end his role turns comedic, he really looks and feels out of place. Doing the exact opposite here is Robert Donovan, he fits right into this film, whether intentional or not as if the part was made for him. He plays the kooky ambitious mortician Fred, that is exactly what Donovan brings to the table. a level of kookiness...clearly one of the best performances of this film. Stephen Williams, is also here as Fred's gullible assistant and the Boyfriend of Captain Winston, the character played by Fahey's daughter Rhonda. Williams' Character Jerry, although there to support the leads never does much of anything to help the film in any way. Now on to the female characters of Corpses. First we have the botox and liposuction queen that is Captain Winston's fiancée, Helen played by Melinda Bonini. No offense to Ms Bonini, but this had to have been the most annoying character in the whole film, her acting was below average and she just was plain bad. Bad enough that when she screamed in the film it had to have been obviously redubbed with a prerecorded one. Although i'll give Bonini some credit it she does have the best line in the film..... when Tiffany Shepis is walking off, the botox lover that her character is says " I wish I had that ass!". All I can do is respond to that with a huge grin, good going Rolfe! Okay and last but certainly never least we have the forever talented Tiffany Shepis as Rhonda, In this film she shows just why she has been getting the recognition from every horror fan across the globe. What I am meaning here is that Shepis is ONCE AGAIN thrown into a proverbial pool of bad acting and outshines everyone and I am not saying this to be bias, just go read the facts! Here she plays the rebellious Rhonda, who will do anything to be with her Boyfriend Stephen despite all of her fathers wishes. Tiffany is no stranger to portraying a bad girl, despite being totally sweet in reality, the bad girl often comes out to play as well....and who's to say that anyone is complaining about that? Great performance by Shepis, one of the reasons I wanted to watch in the first place and one of the reasons this review is up, literally. This film on the outside looks good, but as you deeper explore into the inside it is not what it appears to be. I like this film, but it is my job to give an honest review of it and this is as honest as I can put it. This film is a great laugh and maybe a great addition to the zombiephile's collection but it is truly a film that has a lot missing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GORE METER 5/10 Some of the death scenes in this film looked really brutal, some looked like they hurt. Like in this one scene an old greasy perv looking zombie is after Rhonda fully equipped with an erection and Rhonda "breaks him off a piece of the Kit-Kat bar" if you know what I mean. . -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MUSICAL SCORE 3/10 all I remember is the opening theme really, and it was ok it sounded like the typical zombie flick tune. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OVERALL IMPRESSION OF THE FILM Like I said, I like this film a little, but as a whole it wasn't all that great... if you are an "all things that consists of zombies" collector this is a nice add...also it's almost a given that any Tiffany Shepis fan would have this on their DVD shelf... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- STILLS