SYNOPSICS
The Laughing Dead (1990) is a English movie. Somtow Sucharitkul has directed this movie. Joey Acedo,John Anthoni,Hank Azcona,Bruce Barlow are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1990. The Laughing Dead (1990) is considered one of the best Horror movie in India and around the world.
Zombies, demons, and a mad doctor await a bus-load of folks looking for a tour of Aztec ruins. Father O'Sullivan is a Catholic priest who has lost his faith in God and who cannot forget the nun with whom he once had an affair (and a son). O'Sullivan serves as tour guide for archaeological student Cal, New Agers Wilbur and Clarisse Lemming, runaway Laurie, and tourists Dozois and Frost on a bus trip to Mexico. No one is more surprised than O'Sullivan when his love, Tessie, also boards the bus with her bratty son Ivan. In Mexico, Cal reveals his knowledge of a crucial ancient text, just in time for the Day of the Dead festivities. Meanwhile, evil Dr. Um-tzec is planning an apotheosis for himself that will culminate in his incarnation as the Death God, and what he needs to accomplish this is the hearts of sacrificial children ... lots and lots of hearts. While Father O'Sullivan grapples with the emotions of seeing Tessie again, he is approached by Dr. Um-tzec to perform an exorcism; but ...
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The Laughing Dead (1990) Reviews
Poor horror movie is fun if you know the background
The delights of this movie lie in the fact that so many of the characters are played by writers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror rather than by professional actors. Somtow's talents as a popular writer are hardly in evidence here, though he is clearly a gifted musician and composer; that really is him playing the piano. The scene in which he rips out the hearts of children one after another is hilarious rather than grotesque. Tim Sullivan brings as much soul-tortured emotion and dramatic range as he can to a silly script; his flailings and roars while being possessed are delightful. Gregory Frost, whose fiction is noted for comedic rage (much like the work of John Cleese and Carl Hiaasen), exudes a haughty if inexplicable fury at everyone around him, while real-life jokester Raymond Ridenour has a great time being himself (while named for science fiction editor Gardner Dozois). Larry Kagen, at the time a bookstore owner,is fervent and rather sweet as a doting husband who rises above his wife's attempts to henpeck him. Krista Keim, as his wife, is totally believable as a crystal-worshipper; according to Frost, she really did believe in the powers of crystals at the time the movie was shot. Premika Eaton delivers every line poorly and was cast because she is Somtow's sister, not for any innate talent; she is, however, pretty. Ed Bryant, a great favorite among horror fans, steals every scene he appears in; Sullivan reports that they had to shoot the 'great big armadillo' scene several times because the two of them couldn't stop laughing (and adds that Bryant was squicked by the scene of his own death). Tim Powers is barely visible as a zombie; look for his red flannel shirt in the zombie scene near the end.
i was on the set of this movie when i was 8
well the cool thing about this movie was that my aunt was in the movie. I went to the set when i was 8 and played with all the zombies while they were in makeup. i went down all the slides and wrestled with my brother. I watch this movie with my friends when we need an "its so bad its funny" movie night. you can see in one scene the time change from day to night to day again. just like plan 9 from outerspace. also there is a bleeding heart where you can see the wires for the mechanism. It took them a long time to film the struggle over the knife in the final scene, they shot it the whole day i was there. were fate a bit different, I would have been a stand in for the kid during the basketball scene with the zombies. Love this movie for sentimental and just plain stupidity.
Who's Laughing Now?
Christian fell asleep...Hell, I was in it and *I* fell asleep. As Ms. Kelleghan states, most of the actors were not actors, we were writers who knew Somtow and were invited to play characters, some of which he named after us (Ray Ridenour's character is named "Dozois", because award-winning sf writer/editor Gardner Dozois was originally slated to play the part). Me, I channeled equal parts of Roddy McDowell and Thurston Howell III; but Ed Bryant (damn his eyes) stole the movie simply by being Ed. Nobody could top the delivery of "big IL' armadiller." The crew in general seemed to like us a lot, mainly I suspect, because we were all giddy idiots thrilled to be making a film in Hollyweird, unlike, say, actors, who are usually fighting over who has the biggest RV. However...you watch this thing at your own peril. GF
Just skip it to 40th minute
Well, actually this movie is not so bad. But the first 40 minutes are just boring. After that movie starts to focus on the real plot. It's biggest mistake is its too long. You'll have to watch a lot of nonsense parts. And there is a really stupid & boring love story included. Special FX are good especially the scene with a hand in the throat. For the acting, well the cast did their best to drag this movie down. Especially the Mexicans. And the music, well half of the movie there plays a romantic melody, the other some mexican music, and on action scenes o rip-off of Nosferatu's soundtrack. Well this movie's biggest drag is its just a soup of genres. You have love stories, splatter, Basketball, Monster fights, Zombies with sport shoes, possessions, devil worshippers. There is one thing i cant figure out, did they made this movie to be funny or they were really trying to make a horror movie.
arrghh...
i haven't felt so much pain just by gritting my teeth and sitting through a movie in a long, loooong time. i've seen worse movies - movies that were less inspired and movies that were more wholly inept - but only a handful, if that, were even nearly as painful. i think what really ruined this for me is that it had some vaguely good/okay concepts, but they were so horribly fleshed out that i just kept yelling at my vcr. the dialog was horrible, the acting was pretty damned bad, and the general premise was fairly weak (though if anything else had existed to keep this movie afloat, maybe it would have been salvageable). there's nothing i hate more than when characters in horror movies catch on too quickly, and these people were freaking savants in that regard, especially toward the end. oh, wait, there's one thing i hated more than that - the characters themselves! i've rarely seen a more unlikable bunch. i hated them all. even worse, the only two good actors (well actor and actress) in the film had the two most annoying characters out of all. the dialog hurts, it's so bad and so contrived (did i mention poorly delivered?). the only good points are 1) it ended before 90 minutes were up, and 2) the zombies, which appeared for about ten minutes at the end to play basketball, at least had good makeup. i don't think i can really give unmitigated credit to this movie for anything else.