SeveredNitrate Presents The Boneyard (1991)

 Salutations Severedheads. 🧟

I am your hostess Necrosecta and this is SeveredNitrate where we review horror flicks. This week's flick is The Boneyard (1991)

SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Duh...

TRIGGER WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Death

-Gore

-Explosions 

-Cops (ACAB)

-Psychometry 

-Profanity

-Implied child murder/death 

-Onscreen child death (?)

-The Dog dies (?) (I won't take off a star because I don't consider killing a 9-foot monster poodle animal death)

-Depression

-Smoking

-Zombies/Ghouls

-Murder

-Suicide 

-not enough research on Asian mythology

-Guns/Pipe bombs

-Dead bodies

-green ooze 

-Trauma bond couple (?) 

-Trauma bond family (?)

-Way too little information on the movie

Our Average Looking Cast: 

-Deborah Rose as our heroine psychic Alley Oates

-Ed Nelson as our trench coat-wearing cop Jersey Callum

-James Eustermann as the dumbass Gordon Mullin

-Phyllis Diller the dragonlady we love to hate Miss Poopinplatz

-Norman Fell our resident hippie Shepard  

-Denise Young our bland suicidal gal Dana

BEHIND THE CLIPS:

Writer/Director: James Cummins (also known for: Harbinger, The Thing, and House)

PLOT: 

We open up on a rather cloudy day with Detective Jersey Callum knocking on a rather run-down house. This house belongs to our heroine and local depressed psychic, Alley Oates. She's woken up by Jersey's bumbling rookie cop, Gordon Mullin. She rises like a monster from under a pile of clothes, swinging away at Gordon with a feather pillow. 

She orders Jersey and Gordon to leave, but Jersey begs her to help them one more time with a new case they have dealing with children who were found at a funeral home being kept alive by the funeral owner, Chen. Who's been feeding them human remains. 

At first, Alley wants nothing to do with the case, because the cases have mentally taken their toll on her and she's not sure how she can come to terms with that kind of pain. However, she changes her mind when thanked by a little ghost girl she'd worked a case on. She tells Jersey one more time and only if her name is kept out of the media. 

Alley reflects on what Chen said about the three children during his interview; they are kyoshi also known as the undead. His family has been feeding them for hundreds of years to keep humanity safe from these kyoshi. But now, he's the last of his line and the ghouls are becoming less manageable so he turned himself in to rid himself of the burden. 

Jersey takes Alley to the local mortuary where the children are being kept so she can get a reading on them. However, what she finds, is a whole lotta nightmare fuel. After meeting back up with Jersey, Gordon, and Shep they start trying to find a way out. Alley is introduced to Dana, a suicide attempt victim who had been brought in while Alley was having a vision in a separate room. Alley sympathizes with Dana, knowing that sometimes life can indeed hurt too much. 

They have to save Poopinplatz after she comes to the basement to get her doggo, Floofsums. They're too late though as one of the ghouls feeds Poopinplatz a piece of its flesh (and yes, it's as disgusting as it sounds). Inevitably, this turns Poopinplatz into a 9-10 foot humanoid ghoul monster that takes out Shep and injures Jersey. But she's defeated by Dana with a shock to the heart. 

With the one Gordon kills and Dana killing Poopinplatz (PP having killed one of the other ghouls), that leaves one ghoul and Floofsums, who ate part of a ghoul earlier. Gordon kills the last child ghouls, but Alley takes on the final boss. 

Don't worry about Alley though, she takes the poodle out with a pipebomb from the evidence storage. At the end of the night, our four survivors are a bit worse for wear, yet there is an air of hope for their future. Dana and Gordon do end up together but not onscreen. And it seems like Alley and Jersey will become a couple as well, but that is left uncertain. 

THOUGHTS:

Love, love, love, LOVE this movie. The special effects are top-notch (trust me, I rarely get squeamish but I did here). Deborah Rose was amazing as Alley, she's the heart of this movie, and all the emotion weighs on her. And Ed Nelson (Jersey) is no slacker. Despite Gordon and Dana being the weakest part in my opinion I still believed their connections with Alley and Jersey. It's just when Gordon and Dana were alone onscreen I got bored. 

This horror movie is character-driven so may seem a bit slow, but that's just the director and script letting the emotional moments breathe. Other reviews complain about the movie trying to take itself too seriously with having these moments. Which is such a dumb argument, horror should have good character-building, aren't we supposed to root for the good guys and not just hoping that the body count rises? We should care about these people as humans so that the horror is more intense. Otherwise, we're just in it for the gore. That gets old after a while. 

People have also complained about Deborah Rose's weight in the movie. I like how real Alley feels, she's going through a rough time and we sympathize with her. All the characters feel real. Not like the polished Hollywood stars, one might find in a typical horror movie. No one is perfect and that's how humans should feel. 

This movie has amazing acting, the script is strong (even though I think it should have had a few more editors looking into it), and the movie is shot cleanly. And apparently is a Thanksgiving movie. 

The character Miss Poopinplatz is hilarious! Her voice is so unique and it is obvious that she is having fun. Now, Poopinplatz is played by the famous comedienne Phyllis Diller. If you're my age you probably know her in A Bug's Life, Happily Ever After, and Mad Monster Party. This is what she becomes in the movie: 

The special effects remind me of Dead Alive and Evil Dead 2. 

Anyone who rates this movie less than 3 out of 5 stars or 8 out of 10, then they're stupid. I'm not saying this movie doesn't have flaws. There is definitely some choppy editing. I wanted there to be more of a psychic connection between the three kyoshi and Alley. Seeing as she is said to have this connection to children after having a miscarriage due to ovarian cancer and surviving it. After Alley has the vision before heading to the basement that's close to the last time it's brought up despite it being a major part of her character. 

But there is a LOT to love about this movie. I'd like this to have a comic remake and maybe a book adaptation. It definitely, needs to be reprinted on 4k/Blu-ray. The other versions printed by Code Red and 88Films are expensive. If the movie does get a new version I'd like it if the studio could reach out to Deborah Rose and get an interview with her. She'd be hard to find but her input would be worth the search. She hasn't done anything for a while and there's no contact info for her. Sadly. I would have liked to see her in more stuff. 

There is a German version of the movie that is said to be the Director's Cut at least on Amazon. Seeing as I know some German I'm thinking about getting it. 

The kyoshi are weird. Chen is traditionally a Chinese name, but the word kyoshi/kiyoshi is traditionally a Japanese word. Mostly names but also an honorific for an advanced instructed. And it means "cleansed" or "undefiled". So, to call the zombie-esque children kyoshi is not really accurate. I looked up zombie/ghouls in both Chinese and Japanese folklore and didn't really find anything close to what these kids were supposed to be. There are the hopping demons that's it though. But these cultures focus more on spirits and/or ghosts, not so much zombies and ghouls. THAT I KNOW OF. If you know otherwise please educate me because I tried to find the info I swear. 

TIDBITS: 

The movie was shot in 5 weeks. Started principal photography in late November to early December 1989 and was shot in Statesville North Carolina. It was made for less than $5 million. 

Most of the people who worked on the film are either dead or unreachable. 

The opening theme is fantastic. Sounds kind of like Tim Burton. It's not but still. 

You can watch it for free on Tubi, FreeVee, Roku Channel, and was featured on Creature Features (Youtube) and it's still up. 

The name Poopinplatz. Let's discuss real quick. Platz means place and Poopin means exactly what it sounds like. 

If you know you know. 

Have you seen The Boneyard? What did you think of it? What did you like or dislike? Do you have a request for me? I'm happy to watch something new feel free to ask. Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the review! 

'Till next time stay twisted darlings. 

Lapshi! 

-Necrosecta