Gory greetings horroryearbook alumni! Welcome to the fifth (and most likely not last) edition of IT CAME FROM THE MAILBOX, an exciting new column where your old pal Brain Hammer reviews whatever random crap the gold folks at horroryearbook decide to send my way.

My brain is battered from a viewing of Yossi Sasson’s DEAD AND GONE, which was recently released on dvd by Lionsgate. This cracked out film tells the horrific story of Jack Wade, a poor man married to a rich woman that he hates. His wife falls into a coma, and fearful of losing his only valuable possession, Jack sneaks his bed ridden comatose wife out of the hospital and moves the two of them into a secluded cabin in the middle of nowhere.

Jack spends most of his days inside the haunted cabin hallucinating about his wife’s corpse and dreaming about pulling the plug on her life support. He also spends some quality time talking on the phone with Felissa Rose of SLEEPAWAY CAMP legend. Despite the fact that he is batshit insane, Jack is quite the ladies man and he immediately catches the eye of the local smoking hot redhead female police officer with a roaring sex drive! This love triangle becomes even more complicated when the chick who sucked 37 dicks (not in a row) in CLERKS shows up, so Jack does the logical thing and hacks her hand off with an axe.

Now completely unhinged, Jack is pushed over the edge when a pair of backwoods brothers begin tormenting him. Jack obviously watched the Troma classic MOTHER’S DAY a few times before wondering into the woods, because he knows that drano and an axe are the only way to deal with this particular type of hillbilly homo rapists. With a sizable body count on his hands, Jack is constantly assaulted with visions of his crimes and the hideous remains of his victims, which laugh at him and taunt him further into madness.

This is a bizarre backwoods epic in the hallucinatory tradition of 80’s classics like AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON & EVIL DEAD II. The lead character quickly goes insane and is tormented by visions of the dead. There’s some juicy splatter along the way for gorehounds to enjoy. The makeup in this flick is fantastic. The corpses, especially the lead actress look convincingly rotten. Quentin Jones does a great job in the lead role and carries the movie like a champion. Special attention must be given to Gillian Shire, who does an amazing job in the role of Constable Kate and has a magnificent rack.

It took a while for me to get into this one, but by the end of the movie I was a fan. This flick is a lot of fun. For some reason this reminded me of a prime TALES FROM THE CRYPT episode. Something about the combination of pitch black humor and splatter. It’s obvious the Yossi Sasson has a love for horror and a lot of talent as a filmmaker. I hope to see more from him in the future.

DEAD AND GONE is available on dvd from Lionsgate. The bonus feature include a cool behind the scenes featurette, filmmakers commentary, deleted scenes, outtakes, and the trailer. Brain Hammer approved and worth a look.

KEEP THE BLOOD FLOWING!!!

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