The Boneyard (1991) is unique in that it is the only ghoul film — that I’m aware of — that has Phyllis Diller (gay icon wig aficionado) and Norman Fell (Three’s Company) in it. Ed Nelson (Police Academy 3) also appears.
How they got those three to appear in a ghoul movie at that stage of their careers is anyone’s guess. Perhaps, they were ghouls themselves at that point. Or maybe they needed money to buy Christmas presents for the grandkids…
The Boneyard is all over the place with its plot but spins its wheels in actual execution. It is about a depressed psychic, who is convinced to help out on a case about three Japanese demon monsters found in a funeral home that besiege a mortuary.
The Boneyard
The Boneyard is the brainchild of James Cummins. We met Cummins before in my The Intruder Within review, which is further proof that IT’S ALL CONNECTED!
Paranoia aside, Cummins was a protégé of Chris Walas and Stan Winston. He got to do some work on The Thing. Real talk: protégé is a good lane for Cummins. When he runs the show, it’s not pretty.
One can give Cummins some credit for the story. Unleashing Japanese demons in the land of beer-swilling eagles is a perfectly workable idea. One can also give Cummins credit for the creature effects. The Japanese demons resemble pint-sized monsters from Demon Knight, and one of them is also fairly adept at striking Spider-Manesque poses. Cummins also throws in a couple of fun alpha monsters.
Beyond that, The Boneyard is a slog to watch. It is mostly static shots of flatly lit actors trying to act desperate and serious without any help from Cummins’s setups. You can tell everyone is trying, but…well, it is similar to the video below. Mike Weiss is trying, as well, but things like “pitch” and “timing” are treated more as suggestions than rules in his performance. But, hey, good on him for putting himself out there.
The Boneyard Collector
You know what you are getting from a Phyllis Diller performance. When the camera is on her, she mugs for it the best she can, but she is not funny. Mostly, you notice how much she looks like old Terrance Stamp (RIP) without her wig.
On the plus side, if you have ever wanted to see a Japanese demon rip melting flesh off its skull and rub it in Diller’s mouth, you are in for a treat. That happens in The Boneyard.
Meanwhile, Norman Fell is given maybe the worst fake ponytail in cinema history as he plays a coroner that seems to be a big fan of Howard Hesseman’s character on WKRP In Cincinnati. At one point, it looks like the ponytail is made from fishing line, but only at one point. Otherwise, it merely looks terrible, which is a small win for The Boneyard.
Ed Nelson does his best. One respects his professionalism. I imagine he was wonderful and giving on set. I imagine he got along well with everyone, and they became great friends as they pulled together to make a moobie. They maybe even promised to send each other Christmas cards. While all that warms my cold, dead heart, it is still sad to watch onscreen.
Denise Young plays a suicide victim who shows up at the mortuary and miraculously revives. She then serves as the love interest for Willie Stratford. See what I mean about how the plot is all over the place? Apparently, we are supposed to care about them. They have a heart-to-heart conversation at one point, at any rate. Young’s only other credit is Slavery and the Making of America. Surely, that was a crowd-pleaser. Definitely going on my watch list. Stratford at least got to meet Dean Cain at one point because he got to be in a Dean Cain movie (The Runaway).
Boneyard Tomahawk
Deborah Rose has the meatiest part in the film. She plays the depressed psychic. Rose did not have a big career. Some autistic movie fans might recognize her as Inspector Crabitz from Ski Patrol…and that’s about it.
While Rose did not have a big career, she is a big woman. We can say this because even The Boneyard acknowledges this when she gets stuck trying to climb up a narrow shaft.
1991 big is totally different from 2025 big, however. Rose wears baggy clothes and sports a hairstyle so butch it can only generate a two-inch ponytail. If her character was from 2025, she’d be decked out in an outfit that reveals rolls, have three-inch nails, a hairstyle so fabulous it could only be coiffed by a team of seven homosexuals and makeup applied with a trowel.
Then we would be forced to use words like “beautiful!” and “stunning!” at gunpoint.
Rose is sincere in the role. She plays traumatized with an undercurrent of sweetness. No awards will be given for the performance, but of all the characters in the film, Rose manages to project a modicum of something genuine.
The Boneyard Snatcher
One might guess The Boneyard was made on a bet, but it seems to be made on the premise that Cummins had some ideas for monsters he wanted to get on film. To be fair, his monsters are pretty fun. If the film had given them more screentime, The Boneyard might have been improved a decent degree.
The highlight is when Phyllis Diller becomes a beastie about eight-feet tall that resembles something that might have come from the imagination of Tim Burton. Alas, the excellent goofy practical effect only gets about two minutes of screentime.
The Diller Monster should have been the climax of the film, but Cummins has another ace in the deck: an eight-foot poodle monster. Alas, the poodle monster is not as good as the Diller Beast, but it gets a decent chunk of screentime toward the end of the film.
When it comes to effects, we must also mention the weapon Stratford uses. It is so wonky it actually took me out of the film. I spend a good amount of time trying to identify what it was exactly. At first glance, it appears to be a STEN. Eventually one can see it is a MAC-11 turned on its side with a second grip attached to its rear, along with some other stupid add-ons.
It hurt my brain to watch Stratford wield it. It’s like even he didn’t know what it was exactly.
The Boneyard Buried
Let us bury this movie and seed the ground with salt. It has an element of curiosity about it, but it’s a turkey. As I started watching it, I thought, this is kind of like Night of the Creeps or House (1985) in its tone but at least a couple notches below both of those movies in quality. Interestingly enough, Cummins also worked on House.
Before its runtime is complete, The Boneyard has one more surprise for us. It has an original rock-ballad play over its end credits. Rick Riso (a singer) performs the song, and it is chock full of lyrics about a brave heart fighting for love. This is interesting because I didn’t see any brave hearts in the film fighting for love.
Whatever. Only one song about fighting for love exists in this dojo…
