Well, what could be funnier than a comedy set in a morgue? I don’t know, maybe getting root canal surgery without anesthesia?! Ron Howard pulled it off in “Night Shift”, but he didn’t really focus on the stiffs. In “Stiffed” we get up-close and personal with a corpse.
Arnold (Peter Griffith) is a dead guy who’s been laid out in a funeral home. However, even in death he refuses to shut his big trap. As he comments on the goings-on he’s being worked on by Morty (Lee Stille) and his ambiguously gay assistant Gordy (Justin LaBond).
Unfortunately, the stuff Arnold (voiced by writer/director Gordon Castelnero) has to say isn’t very funny. and Gordy’s mincing homosexual routine isn’t even as funny as when the dude did it on “Barney Miller” twenty-five years ago. Morty doesn’t exactly generate a ton of laughs, either.
Castelnero is a good director, but he needed a stronger script. “Stiffed” does show potential, however. Hopefully, this filmmaker will keep making movies and really hit his stride.
