Say a prayer for THE DEAD already…

With Halloween just around the corner, and Lionsgate releasing THE DEAD (like Bogart going to Casablanca for the waters), I thought I’d present this little mock-up of my own design, in case the hungry zombie movie munching hordes clamoring at a movie called THE DEAD need more misleading encouragement. See Filmbo’s Chick Magnet for where I originally both heard it was coming out and that the reason may have less to do with art and more to do with a “sellable title.”

I guess it’s to their credit that the DVD people decided to mislead the public into thinking that THE DEAD is a comforting Christmas movie starring Anjelica Huston as a middle-aged spinster who gets a second chance when an Xmas miracle brings her together with a lonely old bachelor rose peddler, probably with enough homespun malarkey thrown in to make even late-period John Ford wince, aye.

Of course Huston’s adaptation suffers the same problems as his UNDER THE VOLCANO, namely a willingness to overload the polish and period detail, keep faithful to the events of the story, and hope the epiphany-inducing apocalyptic frisson will magically appear. The end result is a fascinating but airless look at a dysfunctional family of Irish drunks and singers and the like, with a great little ending wherein we hear the reading of the last paragraphs of the story (from Dubliners, aye! So ye have not read yer auld homework after all) over the dead drifting snow in the Dublin streets. At least so I remember from my old murky VHS dupe. I look forward to seeing how jaundiced full frame memory and correct screen aspect ratio future collide.