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Dead & Rotting
Directed by David P. Barton
Released: 2002
Starring: Stephen O’Mahoney, Tom Hoover, Debbie Rochon, and Trent Haaga
Three construction workers make a big mistake by crossing a local witch, Abigail (Rochon). When their prank goes wrong and the witch’s familiar is boiled alive, she decides to take revenge. Abigail seduces all three of the construction workers in order to create ghouls from their sperm. Then she uses the ghouls to capture her enemies so that she may teach them a lesson. When the leader of the pranksters, Hollis (O’Mahoney), manages to escape Abigail’s clutches, he decides to fight fire with fire by asking for the help of a witch from a neighboring town.
Dead & Rotting came as something of a surprise for me. My expectations were absolutely rock bottom but I always enjoy seeing Debbie Rochon
(Terror Firmer,
Hellblock
13) as well as Trent Haaga (Citizen Toxie: Toxic Avenger IV,
Terror
Firmer). I was pleasantly surprised by Barton’s direction. The pace is quick (the movie is less than 80 minutes long) and the gore effects are done well considering the obviously low budget.
Most of the actors do a good job and it’s easy to see how much fun the movie was to make. However, the scenes with the stoner/gangster kids (who the construction workers hire to do their dirty work) are painful. The “Dead and Rotting” poem is a recurring theme during the movie and gets redundant after a while. The ghouls are pretty impressive although they are curiously backlit for much of their screen time.
Dead & Rotting is a goodtime movie with some great gross-out effects and nutty characters. This is the kind of entertaining indie filmmaking you can usually expect from Tempe Video. If you’re not into
micro-budget stuff, then you’ll want to avoid this one. But if you can
look past its faults, you'll have fun. If nothing else, “This one’s for Shugi, Bitch!” should enter your vernacular.
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