REVIEW: MORBUS AKA BON PROFIT
By Marc Gras (*)
A couple of years before RE-ANIMATOR, the Catalan director Ignasi P. Ferré shot this dark film in which a pharmacist — in the purest Herbert West style— creates a serum that restores life to the dead. How could it be otherwise, the zombies roam freely doing their thing until the two heroes of the film (in this case a writer and a very scantily clad girl) will face them in a cabin in the woods. .
Released in 1982, MORBUS (O BON PROFIT) is a film to vindicate for innumerable reasons. Among them is the fact that it can bring together classic horror themes such as zombies, satanic sects, and mad doctors with nudity (the sign of the times; it was not for nothing that it was classified “S”), absurd dialogues, bizarre characters (Victor Israel as Shiu Shi deserves a separate mention), mustachioed undead and hairy armpits in a hilarious combination. Just because MORBUS (O BON PROFIT) is, above all and before anything else, a comedy.
It is very curious that MORBUS (O BON PROFIT) does not usually have a place in the lists of notable genre films of the time. It is evident that it is not a film for all tastes and the most condescending will say that it is so bad that it is good. It has problems with photography and editing, but it must be understood as it was conceived. Its director, Ignasi P. Ferré made his feature film debut with this film and immediately took refuge in porn under the pseudonym Joanot Parcer with CAÇA DE SEXE. EL PASTORET and LA TURISTA VICIOSA, both from 1984 while, at the same time, worked as an assistant director on other genre films such as MÁS ALLÁ DE LA MUERTE (Sebastián D’Arbó, 1986). He would not return to full directing until five years after his debut with QUI T’ESTIMA, BABEL? (1987), already far from genre cinema and surrendered to drama, comedy and television to this day.
The leading couple of MORBUS (O BON PROFIT) are Mon (from Ramon) Ferré (LOS SUPERCAMORRISTAS, GOMA-2) and Carla Day (actually, Carmen Serret). Of Mon Ferré (Joan, in the film) there is not much to say. His last job (out of three) as an actor was precisely in MORBUS (O BON PROFIT). In fact, he had been developing his career within the technical part of cinema and returned to it after MORBUS, obtaining a good Resumé as an electrician and gaffer in innumerable films from the 80s. Carla Day did have a much more remarkable artistic career. After making her debut in LA DESNUDA CHICA DEL RELAX just a year before MORBUS (where she plays Anna, by the way), she became a regular in “S” cinema until she disappeared in 1986 after MÁS ALLÁ DE LA MUERTE.We won’t hear from her again until the director and screenwriter Pere Koniec contacted her for his independent proposal DIFUMINADO in 2014.
But as we said before, the one who takes the prize in MORBUS (OR BON PROFIT) is Victor Israel giving life to the Afghan servant Shiu Shi. Israel, a well-known face in fantastic cinema with titles like PÁNICO EN EL TRANSIBERIANO, APOCALIPSIS CANIBAL and many more, gives Shiu Shi in its original version its own language, an invented and hilarious dialect that accentuates those values that we said MORBUS has.
The icing on the cake: the screenwriter of MORBUS (O BON PROFIT) is none other than Isabel Coixet. Yes, THAT Isabel Coixet (THE SECRET LIFE OF WORDS, MY LIFE WITHOUT ME, THE BOOKSHOP), who has been one of the flagship directors in Spanish intellectual cinema for many years. Other than that, it’s fair to say that she did a good job on MORBUS. Surely, she didn’t take it seriously; and the dialogues and the story itself showed that but, after all, what the project needed was self-confidence and fun.
In 2014, the Barcelona fanzine El Buque Maldito, as part of its limited-edition DVD collection of cult Spanish horror, released 200 units of MORBUS (O BON PROFIT) in an exclusive edition by Diego López, publisher of the fanzine and responsible for the Brigadoon Section at the Sitges International Film Festival in Catalonia. Just two years later, in 2016, film critic Joaquím Parera wrote the script for the sequel, ARA, EL ROTET (MORBUS 2), which can be translated as “Now, the Burpy (Morbus 2)”, commissioned by Ignasi P. Ferré himself, and which, to this day, is still unproduced. A shame.
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Marc Gras is a writer, filmmaker, and comic-book artist, author of several books devoted to pop culture, and collaborator of cult legends like Lloyd Kaufman and the late Ted V. Mikels. His comics have been published in Spain, Italy, Germany, France, and the US and include original works and graphic novel adaptations of films like Don’t Look in the Basement, Licantropo, La Noche del Terror Ciego, Enter The Devil, Bonefill Road, and many more.
You can follow him on his web https://tyrannosaurus.wixsite.com/marcgras, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
