Woodyanders Review of Dead Things

Dead Things (1986 Video)

An enjoyably atrocious horror splatter short

[8/10 · 26 January 2009]

Todd Sheets rates highly as one of my favorite directors of extremely awful and amateurish, yet enthusiastic and hence oddly entertaining micro-budget Do-It-Yourself out-of-the-mainstream indie horror schlock. Well, this is one of Todd's early shorts and, of course, it's quite terrible, but still really funny and enjoyable just the same. A deranged hillbilly father and his equally demented hick son brutally butcher any folks who are unfortunate enough to venture into their remote neck of the woods. This baby possesses all the right wrong stuff to qualify as an endearingly abysmal piece of nickel'n'dime horror splatter junk: we've got pathetic acting from a lame no-name cast, fumbling (mis)direction, laughably lousy gore (grisly highlights include an axe dismemberment, a throat being ripped out with a claw hammer, and a baseball bat bludgeoning), tinny sound, cruddy eye-straining shot-on-video photography, cardboard characters (the wacko rednecks in particular are incredibly broad caricatures), a wafer thin story, a paltry clichéd script, and no suspense to speak of. Only the inspired use of catchy and spirited bluegrass music manages to impress, with bonus points added for including the catchy ditty "Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms" on the soundtrack. A hilariously horrendous hoot and a half.