Horror Film Review

Bone Sickness (2004):  This review shouldn't exist.  You see, I didn't know this was shot on video until it started, and normally I would have immediately hit stop and cussed for a while.  To me, movies shot on video are not movies.  They're what you make when on vacation or if you're getting married.  If you decide to suffer the process of filmmaking so your vision can be realized, then have enough self-respect to shoot the damn thing on actual film.  I think what pisses me off the most is the name of the production company, Morbid Vision Films.  You're not making films!  You're making cheap, porno-quality videos.  Anyway, for reasons I still don't understand, I let it play.  And Lordy, did I pay for it.  And now, you will, too.

This is where I usually summarize the plot.  I'd really rather not.  Gawd, it's so bad...  (sigh)  So there's this woman whose husband is really sick.  Like, no cure sick.  Broke, at the end of her wits (half of them, anyway), she turns to her creepy friend who's into alternative medicine.  And who also works at a cemetery.  Yep.  Ground-up-dead-folk therapy.  Probably not approved by the FDA.  As silly as this is, there's more.  Someone, not the creepy friend and not zombies, is murdering people.  What's that go to do with the zombie theme?  I have no idea.  Then there's a bizarre and disturbing bit where zombies are apparently raping women psychically.  More disturbing still are the gratuitous nude shots.  Women, of course.  Lots of boobs and even naughtier parts south of the border.  Honestly...who needs to see that?  Gross.  Turns out, the serial killer is the sick husband.  How?  Dunno.  Why?  Dunno.  Do I care?  Hell, no.

As far as I can make out, the sole purpose of this "film" is to try to make you puke.  Some of the gore isn't bad, but too much of it is simply stupid.  First of all, if you drive an axe into someone's head, you'll get blood splatter.  Duh.  You will not, however, get blood pumping out in great gouts.  Need an artery for that.  Anyone who's watched one episode of CSI knows that.  Dumber yet, is the bit where a guy eats his gun.  Got the blood and brains on the wall behind him, sure...and then blood begins squirting out of the exit wound.  From where?  Oh, yeah...from the plastic tube the FX guy taped to the actor's neck.  And then there's the endless scene where sick hubby is vomiting up nightcrawlers.  It's a one minute scene that lasts five.  And finally, the zombies themselves.  One is just a skeleton ala Army of Darkness and is more goofy than creepy.  The others I guarantee are the director's buddies dressed up in Halloween masks.  Some aren't bad, but still...your first thought is not, "Man!  Cool-looking dead dude!" but rather, "Hey, it's a dude in a costume."  That's the running theme of Bone Sickness.  You want to suspend your disbelief and bury yourself in the world created by the filmmaker.  Unfortunately, reality keeps getting in the way, and the reality is a steaming pile of crap.

Breakdown

Acting:  Words fail me.
Story:  Words just failed.
Direction:  Words can't describe this mess. 
Production Values:  In a word?  Subterranean.  The $3000.00 budget is painfully obvious.
Gore/FX:  Amateurish overkill. 
Scares:  Nary a shiver.
Ending:  The only way I could have cared less would be if I were dead myself.
Verdict:  Should you....ah, jeez...don't.  Go watch old episodes of ALF, or go into your backyard and watch bugs copulate.

Rating:  1 out of 5 (only reason it's not 0 out of 5 is because some of the gore wasn't terrible)