[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

The Bone Yard (1991)

Directed by James Cummins, perhaps most famous for being one of the main make-up artists on The Thing, The Boneyard (as it appears on the opening credits) follows a couple of policemen who, along with the medical examiner, are confused by the mummied corpses of three children in the local morgue, affectionately known as the titular boneyard.

In an effort to solve what seems like an unsolvable puzzle, they enlist the help of Alley, a woman with an uncanny ability to mentally 'see' images and events from objects she holds. When the ME, who has quarantined himself with the corpses, agrees to send a hair sample upstairs from the morgue to the ground floor of the police station, Alley thinks the children are not young humans, but demons created during a black magic ritual in ancient China.

After a first half which is very heavy on exposition and includes scenes are the two cops talking at length in a corridor, the second half turns into a funny and involving a zombie (I use the term advisedly) movie with great use of atmosphere, some good shocks and model work which is similar to that seen in The Evil Dead and Braindead. It's probably best that I don't say any more in case you want to buy the 88 Films Blu-ray and watch it without knowing any major plot details, but any film which involves very creepy zombie children, a massive zombie dog which wouldn't have looked out of place in Killer Klowns from Outer Space, and even an innovative use of a fork lift truck.

It's no zombie classic and certainly isn't as funny or self-referential as the films mentioned above or something like Re-Animator, but I thought it was, particularly in the last act, great fun and I'm watching it now with the commentary by James Cummins and producer Richard F. Brophy.