Synopsis
A misanthropic, struggling photographer just wants to watch TV and eat candy while his wife is out of town, but when a desperate old pal resurfaces, his plans are thwarted, with spooky consequences.
Directed by Clay Tatum
A misanthropic, struggling photographer just wants to watch TV and eat candy while his wife is out of town, but when a desperate old pal resurfaces, his plans are thwarted, with spooky consequences.
Ghost Therapy, Милейшие мертвецы, 平民死者, Śmierć cywilna
delightfully strange; reminds me of when American indies were consistently idiosyncratic and sincere and everyone is just giving it their all - The Sixth Sense for the Factory 25 crowd
Charming, funny and unpredictable, The Civil Dead is American indie comedy at its finest.
The premise of a human-ghost friendship is not the most groundbreaking premise, but the air-tight writing and off-the-chart chemistry between Clay Tatum and Whitmer Thomas are what seals the deal. The humor is dry but effective in a typical indie manner, and it works with the overall restrained style of the story. The details were attended to perfectly, and efforts were obviously made to subvert the genre, so much so it ends on a truly abrupt, confounding note so it wouldn't follow any known path of its sub-genre. Highly recommended.
I constantly say in reviews that the backdrop or poster looks like a bit of me and 90% of the time it’s just a couple guys looking glum … so when I saw this backdrop I wanted to watch this pretty much immediately, I also really like the art style of the poster - I have no idea what it’s about but at this point I trust my gut with stuff like this.
I normally don’t mess around with sci-fi/horror indies as I find them to be very messy a lot of the times but this worked really well and I’m sure if this was my type of genre I would’ve adored this and the second it turned…
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
mr. whitmer thomas delivering the single best joker performance in cinematic history
A mean-spirited, unfunny movie with a despicable protagonist and the most disappointing, predictable ending of all time.
I knew 5 minutes in exactly how it would end.
Also, Clay Tatum has a punchable face and the most annoying voice I’ve ever heard.
We’re gonna get a lot more of these, aren’t we? Movies like this and Jillian Bell’s I’M TOTALLY FINE. Movies that pretend to be wacky comedies about shit like aliens and ghosts but that are actually wacky comedies about death. Movies that say they aren’t about covid but that are absolutely about covid.
An ex-girlfriend of mine died suddenly last year. It was chilling. She was a few years younger than I am, healthy, happy, etc. Came home from work one afternoon and dropped fucking dead of a pulmonary embolism in the shower while her teenage son was playing video games in the next room. I went to the funeral because I kinda felt like I should. Her kid was…
Didn’t see a synopsis before watching, so for the first 20 minutes I was scratching my head trying to figure out where it was going.
Once the plot was revealed, I was zoned in!
This is definitely a polarizing movie and even as a fan I could methodically critique each scene to the point it sounded like I hated the end product.
But as someone who has seen thousands of movies in my life, I found this was a wholly unique and exciting alternative comedy that I won’t soon forget.
If you don’t look like Demi Moore, the ghost that haunts you ain’t gonna look like Patrick Swayze, this film really gets that.