The Story:
Wow. There's so much going on here, I don't know where to begin, and hope I don't forget anything. Okay, let me just start with the plot.

A mysterious, pretty blonde named Dolores (Zoe Daelman Chlanda, whose schizophrenic performance is quite impressive as the film progresses) comes to the small town of Port Oram, a mysterious trunk in tow that she's VERY protective of—and that seems to hold the root to a very deranged past we see in her mind every now and then. But when she's not snapping with visions of depraved sex and death, Dolores seems quite nice and normal. She's an experienced mortician, and lands a job at the Beech funeral home, partly because she looks just like the deceased daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Beech, which leads Mrs. Beech to form an unnatural, nurturing attachment to Dolores. Meanwhile, working at the funeral home are a couple of freaks. First, there's makeup artist Corey, a woman I saw, and within moments was thinking, "this chick's gotta be a dude." And it is! It's director Alan Rowe Kelly himself!!! Awesome! Anyway, Corey is dating the completely mentally messed up funeral home worker Jake, who actually reminded me of a young Dawn of the Dead years Tom Savini…aside from Jake's bad teeth and wandering eye, that is. Jake only landed this blue collar job thanks to his brother Mitch, the town sheriff. I'll admit, I had a huge crush on Mitch, and for some reason, despite all his greasy hair and bad teeth and eyes, I found the muscular Jake oddly sexy---and at the credits, I found out why. Hunky actor Jerry Murdock plays BOTH PARTS!!! A testament to his acting, and I actually think he outshone himself while in disgusting disguise as Jake. Anyway, morgue assistants Jake and makeup artist Corey have a side business together…they steal bodies from the funeral home and sell them on the black market. Delicious! Just about EVERYONE in the movie is completely insane—I particularly like the inexplicably witch-like, white-faced, black-lipped goth nurse in the morgue. What ensues is a nasty yet digestible assortment of mayhem ranging from murder and body snatching to necrophilia. While the film's plot is mostly straightforward, there's just enough left unrevealed to keep your mind imagining the unthinkable as we move to an ending that will see Dolores completely snap in a whirlwind of embalming fluid.

I have to say, this sort of low budget film usually isn't my thing, but this one's going to stay in my collection. Alan Rowe Kelly shows us that you can make a really good sick film with little money. It looks as if it were filmed on video but then given some sort of treatment to make it look more like a dark, grainy film from the 70s. And I loved that Mr. Kelly (great last name) wasn't afraid to let darkness be darkness instead of saturating it with artificial light. It's part of what gives the film an odd realness, whether it was intended or just due to lack of money! With very few exceptions, the performances made it seem like we were really dealing with a bunch of psychos. There was plenty of disturbing gore that didn't look fake, and really brought to mind the way you feel when you watch a movie like Bloodsucking Freaks, where what disturbs you most is that you're more entertained—almost humored—by what's going on, rather than offended by it, especially considering it almost feels real at times. I think the director/writer nailed this one. While the film is 2 full hours, unthinkable for a horror movie, it manages to keep you interested the whole time. It even has sort of a tidy ending for those who need to feel a film has a beginning an end—even if a whole load of stuff isn't explained in the middle.

The DVD

Video:
The film has an aspect ratio of 1:85:1 but is letterboxed. As for the picture quality, it's no surprise that it wasn't so hot, mostly really muddy, with really bad ghosting—and it had nothing to do with edge enhancement. And of course, the colors were really drab. But I wouldn't have it any other way, because it captured the very horrific atmosphere of people dancing with corpses (sometimes literally) in a funeral home.

Sound:
The 2.0 audio was clear for the most part, but suffered from noise & hiss during loud parts, like screams, of which there were a lot. The bass can also get excessive and muffled at points, particularly during the eerie musical stabs.

Extras:
There are some goodies here. Aside from 10 chapter breaks, you get:

DEAD & BURIED—19 deleted scenes, that, unfortunately, don't have a "play all" feature. Since the movie was so long as it is, I wouldn' t say any of these scenes should have been put back in. But, ironically, some of them would have filled in gaps in the story, showing us stuff we were left to assume. More interactions between the characters established relationships, too. And, in actuality, I wouldn't want any of that back in, because as is, the film leaves you pleasantly bewildered. A couple of small roles seemed to have been cut out due to these removed scenes, unfortunate for a few actors. Also, note that the scenes aren't particularly in chronological order.

TRAILERS & BLOOPERS—3 different trailers of the film are included, each one different than the next, all rather intriguing. The bloopers include the cast goofing off at times, other times making mistakes, and it's somewhat comforting to see them all as real human beings…

PHOTO GALLERY—20 still shots from the film and behind the scenes.

Final Thoughts:
This is a corpse and gore lover's treat. I'm going to recommend this to a very particular audience here. If you like those odd horror films that are too twisted for mass consumption, and appreciate the gritty feel of a low budget film that almost seems real as a result, you're going to totally …uh…dig I'll Bury You Tomorrow. It's a killer.