The October Zombie-Thon - Day 18: Bone Sickness
Posted by Trevor Snyder on 10.18.2008
Earthworms and bodily orifices are never a good combination.
BONE SICKNESS (2004)
Written & Directed by: Brian Paulin
Country: USA
At what point does a shitty movie somehow transcend and become an unintended corny classic? It's a tough question – one that bad-movie lovers such as I have been contemplating for years. And while there might not be a definitive solution, allow me to offer up at least one possible answer. How about when one of the movie's main characters, in an extremely unfortunate case of explosive diarrhea, suddenly bends over to let loose a stream of earthworms from his ass.
Yeah, I'd say at that point we're dealing with something akin to a masterpiece.
And just on the slight chance that you're not convinced, what if I told you the same character then proceeds to vomit a mess of earthworms (worms coming out of both ends…definitely not this guy's finest day), and then – for reasons I can't even begin to fathom – suddenly starts to scoop them all up and put them back in his mouth! And it doesn't end there. Bone Sickness is a wall-to-wall fiesta of blood, guts, goo, and overall disgustingness. There's no mistaking who the target audience for this one is, as this is essentially a gore-hound's wet-dream.
And hey, there's even a story, too…one that combines the off-the-wall nature of zombie cinema with the heartbreaking pathos of medical drama. Well, OK, not really…but it does concern a young man named Alex (Rich George) who is suffering from a degenerative bone disease. Having exhausted every possible medical option, his loving but frustrated wife Kristen (the mighty-boobed Darya Zabinski) turns to their friend Thomas for help. Right away, this seems like a bad idea. Thomas – played by writer/director Brian Paulin – looks more like the drummer for an ‘80s metal cover band than someone with any sort of medical knowledge. It's never fair to judge someone based entirely on their appearance, though, so let's instead concentrate on his solution – which is to grind up the bones of corpses pilfered from the morgue where he works and feed them to Thomas. Uhh, yeah, like I said…bad idea.
Surprisingly enough, ingesting the bones of the dead does not make Thomas any better! In fact, all it does is turn him into, in his own words, a "necro junky" (which would have been a much better title than Bone Sickness). And as if that wasn't bad enough, it turns out dead folks aren't all that crazy about Thomas slurping on their remains, either, and soon corpses are rising from the local graveyard to come get some revenge.
On the surface, this story might make it sound like a fairly generic, unremarkable film, not all that different from the rest of the shot-on-video zombie fare that clogs up the shelves. But that's without factoring in Paulin's fascinating storytelling ability – a sort-of assault on coherence that should either be considered "mildly retarded" or "peculiarly brilliant." It's a tough call. Apparently living in fear that his movie might just start to make sense, Paulin never fails to include moments of complete confusion in order to throw his audience off. Take the random scorpions frequently shown wandering through scenes. I'm sure they must mean something, right? Or what about the bizarre scene where shots of a masturbating Kristen are inter-cut with footage of two long-dead corpses getting it on.
And heck, the scorpions and the necrophilia are pretty minor instances of what I'm talking about. If you want a more striking example, how about the moment when Alex literally vomits up an entire skinless man! I mean, I guess it's better than worms (or…maybe not – it's another tough call), but it still comes out of nowhere. Even worse, this skinless man is never seen nor heard from again. I suppose we're to assume this creature actually is Alex, which would explain his slightly altered appearance from then on. But if that's the case, why not shoot additional footage to clarify? And even if it is the case, it still doesn't make a lick of sense! Seriously, by the time goblins show up on the scene (and yes, I said goblins), you really have no choice but to throw up your hands in surrender and say "alright movie, I give up…do your worst."
Let's face it, I'm sure Paulin gave himself little time to address any story concerns, since his main goal was clearly making a movie that would rival even the most blood-drenched gore-fests out there. This is always a risky maneuver for low-budget fare such as this, as the cheap quality of the gore effects usually ends up casting a depressing shadow over the whole affair. That's not the case here, though. While I wouldn't exactly say the effects are particularly convincing, they're pretty decent for a cheapie like this (especially the well-done zombie make-up), and are almost always entertaining. A common mistake of gore-obsessed amateur filmmakers is to simply pick one or two types of effects (like a head exploding) and just do them over and over. Paulin, on the other hand, has obviously put a lot of thought into his gore, and delivers a number of fun and unique moments that definitely aren't for the squeamish.
Of course, you could also argue that Paulin has put perhaps a little too much thought into these sequences, and not enough into the story itself. This becomes unquestionably apparent in the film's final act, when Paulin allows the film to live on long past its main characters, just so that he can spend way-too-much time depicting one of the least convincing zombie apocalypses in cinematic history. Sure, there are a number of cool gore gags here, but in a movie that already feels a tad too long, you can't help but wish Paulin had recognized where his story's real climax had occurred. Still, up to that point his blood-and-guts' showcase is a lot of fun, especially one particularly impressive effect involving a cop getting his head ripped in half (we also get the now seemingly obligatory "baby ripped from the mother's stomach," which is quickly becoming the go-to effect for any filmmaker hoping to "shock" his audience).
Make no mistake about it, when viewed purely on its merits as a straight horror film, Bone Sickness fails on nearly every level. Its characters are one-dimensional, the performances are weak (although at least the fairly attractive actresses had no qualms about shedding their clothes), its plot is barely comprehensible, and it's never scary (hell, the only truly frightening moment is a brief shot of Fox News). And yet, while I never once thought "this is really good" while watching it, I was never diving for my remote in frustration, either. Bone Sickness is one of those flicks that somehow turns its overall ineptness into a sort of inexplicable charm. Even though I recognize its numerous faults, I still found myself somewhat won over by its "anything goes" mentality. It is utterly ridiculous, and all the better for it. We might never be able to definitively explain what makes a "bad" movie into a "so-bad-it's-good" movie, but we'll always have Bone Sickness as an example of what it looks like when it happens.
