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001 - The Boneyard

posted: 2023/12/03

So I watched a cheesy horror film yesterday and it was a ride! The film's been bonking around in my head the past 24 hours so I'm going to let you in on this one, because it's certainly a film! A film that happened...

A film called... The Boneyard

The movie opens like one of the better episodes of X-Files with two cops approaching a very generic looking house in a US Town. Turns out the house is home to a reclusive psychic with whom the older of the two cops has worked previously. It's got some minor mystique, reasonable pacing and tension topped with a solid relief moment. So far this film is looking pretty solid.

Turns out said cop got itchy feet after a weird case fell in his lap and his first instinct was to seek out the reluctant psychic lady who helped him out years ago.

The case: a mortician is accused of killing a couple of children who went missing. During the police interview which we only see as a tape recording, the mortician explains that he had the unfortunate burden of looking after a sort of zombie yokai called a kyoshi. He had to feed it fresh human meat to keep it sleeping.

So far so good.

So now with the poor guy behind bars, the cops and our reluctant psychic decide to go see these bodies the mortician was lording over in hopes of identifying them. Well that idea kinda gets blocked by the morgue's officious overnight admin played by Phillis Diller.

Wait...what? For real? Let me just say I think that woman enjoyed doing this film cuz she goes full Shatner at times.

So PD won't let them head into the part of the morgue where the action happens because the cops didn't get all their paperwork sorted so our psychic buddy gets stuck in a closet with a video feed. The 3 children appear on the tv screen and they seem to be dried up like a mummy or one of Skyrim's 10,000 drauger. So far this movie has done a pretty descent job setting up our cast of characters, our setting, and our story. The acting isn't perfect but so far it's solid enough and the cinematographer clearly had fun.

Anyways, our psychic can't get anything from the video because as we all know visions come from touching evidence, Fox Mulder would appreciate the attention to detail, so she messes with a piece of hair or something and gets a vision of a frightened couple dressed like their in a play of Edo Japan where a very Fu Man Chu looking sorcerer cuts off a couple of their fingers and feeds it to a wrapped up child sized body. Ngl I think they actually tried doing some research on this part.

Not going to say it's perfect, I'm not Japanese and don't have the life experience to know better, but it definitely felt a lot closer to what Japanese horror I have seen than a lot of other American horror movies that attempted to steal Japanese ghost stories.

Anyways, after seeing the creation of a single child sized monster she has a vision from within the titular Boneyard. She's in a store room filled with corpses. Just as a fresh cadaver is carted in with some help from the cops, our psychic sees the 3 child like horrors pull their covers off and start to get up. At the same time our newest cadaver gets prodded with a scalpel as the coroner starts his autopsy and the corpse springs up screaming in pain.

Based on the coroner's reaction I gather this isn't a common occurrence in the morgue. Who knew?

But finally, the horror is on! From here the movie spends time as a creepy horror film with evil yokai who fuck with people before eating them. There is of course a cop with a sub machine gun, cuz 'Murika! Surprisingly the gun actually works and is somewhat effective at nixing yokai. 'Murika! Fuck yeah!

So two yokai down but not without the one force feeding it's own flesh to Phillis Diller. This is where she officially goes ham. Holy shit, PD is just having fun at the movie's expense at this point. Anyways, our plucky survivors are trying to sneak around the remaining yokai when suddenly wouldn't you know it but PD goes full deadite on the team. Why she tripled in size while children remained child sized I have no clue, but you better call Bruce Campbell cuz we got big goofy demons now.

PD Monster KO's pretty much all of our supporting staff now, leaving us with two couples: the old cop and his psychic buddy, and the young cop and the not-so-dead cadaver lady, who btw was an attempted suicide. Yeah, this movie takes a pause to front and center depression and suicide before returning to the yokai horror. It's seriously all over the place!

Cadaver Lady electrocutes PDM and they get attacked by and subsequently impale our last yokai. So the day is saved, right? Time for waffles?

Nope!

Because PD's hyper aggressive poodle ate some yokai muck earlier and has turned into Kevin Nash with a shitty hair cut. Seriously, if this movie hadn't already gone off the rails this is where it would have.

They blow up the damn thing after it knocked a gas pipe loose and it still wasn't dead. Good thing someone had sticks of plastique. Where did those come from? Don't ask me, I'm as confused as you are! So psychic lady tells the poodle monster to "fetch this!" and tosses a lit stick at it, which like the gud doggo it is, it catches in it's mouth.

Unlike the gas explosion which only shot a fireball up through the passage our intrepid heroes were escaping through, the pseudo-C4 blows out the fucking walls and we get the Schwarzenegger approved hero staggering out of the burning building shot. Triumphant! With fanfare! Wait, wasn't this supposed to be a horror film?

Like this movie goes places. Like, ALL places! I can honestly say I was not prepared for what I watched. Did I enjoy it? Honestly? Yes! Would I recommend it? If you're a purist, probably not, but if you enjoy action movies, horror movies, and the Evil Dead series, then grab the beverage of your choice, grab a good snack and buckle up because this movie is taking you for a ride!