Horrible Doctor Bones, The (2000)

Posted on Oct 13, 2004 under Horror |

Directed by “Art Carnage” (Ted Nicolaou)
Written by Raymond Forchion
Starring
- Darrow Igus
- Larry Bates
- Sarah Scott
- Rhonda Claerbaut
- Danny Wooten
Executive produced by Mel Johnson Jr. and Charles Band

No, you’re not going crazy. That sense of deja vu at some of the plot elements in The Horrible Doctor Bones? It’s not just you. Full Moon went back to the same well that provided Ragdoll for another urban-themed horror story involving a group of young hiphop hopefuls. It even shares the same director (though this time Ted Nicolaou goes by the moniker “Art Carnage.”) As it was in the case of Ragdoll, the final product turns out to be a surprisingly adequate little movie; even more surprising is the fact that, beside the bare elements of theme and cultural setting indicated in the synopsis, this movie and Ragdoll don’t really share too many factory-made elements, almost as if Charles Band had given two teams a one-line instruction and let them each come up with their own take on hiphop horror. (So far, in the first paragraph, I’ve used both “hiphop hopefuls” and “hiphop horror.” The lure of alliteration beckons to me like a wanton trollop.)

“I’ve told you before — NOBODY can have prettier hair than me around here!”

Anyway. The titular character is one of the first people we meet, a grave and craggy radio and music producer named Nathaniel Hawthorne Bones (Darrow Igus). I’ll admit, I haven’t read enough Hawthorne to know if the story that follows is referential of Hawthorne’s literary output, or if they just stole the name to fool people like me who haven’t read enough Hawthorne. In any case, Igus has the vibe of a black Lance Henriksen, and imparts remarkable gravitas to a role that requires him to wear a goofy-ass cornrow wig. (On the other hand, the golden australopithecus skull on the head of his cane offsets a lot of goofiness on its own.)

Dr. Bones is up to no good from the very beginning, as one of his bad’n'black (and bad in black) lackeys brings a young leisurely type into Bones’ basement studio and pays him a hundred dollars to listen to some music. Hey, even I, with my antipathy toward hiphop a matter of public record, would probably put up with a little for money. But after only about twenty minutes, the young experiment subject clutches at his ears. That’s right before he contracts a bad case of digital distortions (think Kai’s Power Goo) and his head explodes. And Bones makes it pretty clear to his assistant Theodora (Rhonda Claerbaut) that that was not the effect he was looking for. (Nobody points out the upside, that he’ll be able to keep the Franklin.)

Lose a contact?

Meanwhile, we meet our heroes, the Urban Protectors, an up-and-coming ensemble who’ve been performing together since high school and are still looking for their big break. And with Dr. Bones now holding open band auditions, their turn might finally have come. Our hero is Jamal (Larry Bates), who is himself not a performer; instead, he’s the songwriter/sound guy/creative director for the other four: Lisa (Sarah Scott), the sex-appealing lead and Jamal’s girlfriend; Wanda (Tangelia Rouse), the keyboardist; Phil (Danny Wooten), the guitarist, and Pookie (Derrick Delaney), the drummer. Before they get their turn on stage, though, we have to wait through approximately one and a half acts before them in line. (Hey, I said this movie isn’t a carbon-copy of Ragdoll; I didn’t say it was completely dissimilar.)

With Jamal in the booth under Theodora’s disapproving eye, the Urban Protectors perform their song (and from what we see through the rest of the movie, that may just be the one song in their repertoire). As you know, I’m not a fan of rap, hiphop, or what has somehow come to masquerade as “soul” since the death of Marvin Gaye, so maybe I’m not the right guy to say whether the Urban Protectors’ musical skills fall under the label of an Informed Attribute. From where I stand, their main appeal lies in Lisa’s amazing double-jointed posterior. But Bones sees in them exactly what he’s been seeking, and makes them an offer on the spot to sign with him tomorrow. (It’s pretty visible, though, that Lisa’s ball-bearinged booty also figures in his thought processes, a fact that doesn’t pass Jamal by either.)

In fact, Jamal is the only one of the group who doesn’t want to jump right into Bones’ lap; aside from the googly eyes Bones was making at his girl, there’s just something not right about a record producer who will offer such a rich contract to a group of unknowns on the basis of one song. He can’t shake that nagging feeling, and it becomes a bone of contention between him and Lisa. (”So now a night of hot freaky sex is out of the question?” Actual line of dialogue, I swear.)

When Facelifts Go Wrong — next on Fox!

While all of this is going on, we get to see some more solid evidence backing up Jamal’s misgivings, in addition to the poor guy with the Jiffy Pop head from the intro. First, one of Bones’ zombies has a PowerGoo meltdown on him. That’s right, zombies. They’re not all rotting and shambling, but Bones’ loyal lackeys, all except Theodora and his security chief, are actually zombie thralls, silent and slow but very humorless in executing their duties. Next, we get to see Dr. Bones’ true face, which looks like exposed muscle fiber with chicken bones strung through striations.

That night, Bones cements his position with the band members by calling their dreaming selves into a single dream with him and speaks to each of their fears and insecurities. Setting himself up as their personal deliverer in each scenario and then erasing their conscious memory of the dreams, he makes sure that they’ll subliminally be predisposed toward him come contract-signing time tomorrow. (It’s the hiphop voodoo version of Star Trek 5!) Why did he not call Jamal into the dream too? The charitable answer would be that he plans on jettisonning Jamal soon from the group anyway, so there’s no need to bother winning his trust. The more cynical answer is, hey, somebody’s got to play the hero in the last act.

“And best of all, it’s Atkins-friendly!”

The last act, naturally, is where most of Dr. Bones’ insidious plot gets revealed, and while normally that constitutes a spoiler, I don’t feel bad about “giving away” something that was spelled out on the back of the DVD cover. Bones has long had a hankering toward extending his zombifying powers over the living as well as the dead, probably because he’d like minions who smell a little better. He’s tried time and again to merge his voodoo ritual chant subliminally with a recorded musical track that he can broadcast (his radio station, by the way, is KZMB; don’t you just love subtlety?); however, every time he tries, he ends up with results like Jiffy Pop Boy. Eventually he realized that he needs a live band with which to merge his chant (don’t ask why, voodoo’s just like that), which is where the Urban Protectors fit in: first at an invitation-only soiree for the city’s cultural elite, and secondly on an upcoming worldwide benefit concert broadcast.

And the only thing standing in his way is, well, Jamal — the sound engineer Bones went out of his way to piss off.

Obviously, one doesn’t expect immortal cinema from a low-budget project which began as a blatant demographic niche marketing scheme. That being said, The Horrible Doctor Bones does manage to get several things right. As mentioned earlier, Darrow Igus as Dr. Bones brings a certain solidity to a role which could easily have been nothing more than “The Man” with urban voodoo trappings. In fact, the acting is fairly solid all around, with the regrettable exception of Rhonda Claerbaut as Theodora (and naturally, the lion’s share of clunky exposition is given to the performer least able to bring it off). The pacing of the story is also an improvement over Ragdoll, without as many obvious “filler” hiphop performances. It’s a slight story, but at just over seventy minutes (including credits)it isn’t stretched too thin for its running time.

“Oh, cool — a buffet!”

Unfortunately, the flaws will probably stick in the viewer’s mind longer, simply by virtue of making themselves more obvious. For one thing, there are the cheesy digital FX, of which the recurring PowerGoo effects is only one. For another thing, the climax is far too underwhelming. At one point, the entire club of city notables is turned into living zombies, following Bones’ command as he tells them to rip apart a lackey. Yet when Jamal tries to escape with Lisa into Bones’ basement lair beneath the studio, Bones only pursues with a couple of longtime zombies. It seems to me that having the few dozen zombified pursuers crawling over the expansive environs of the underground catacombs would have contributed greatly to the crescendo of action one expects at the climax of a movie. Unfortunately, that would have meant at least one extra shooting day and a whole bunch of per diems, which are awfully hard to justify in a feature shot in six days.

I could bitch some more about the generic, cranked-out hiphop that movies like this are constructed to showcase, but I have to watch myself: Somebody might rise to the challenge and make an edgy horror flick with an unironic country-western soundtrack and send me a screener. Then I’d end up like Jiffy Pop Boy.