That's my only contribution to the board of this very strange movie.

Along with Edge of the Axe and Deadly Manor, Spanish horror director José Ramón Larraz made this movie explicitly for the burgeoning American video rental market. It has all the cheap thrills you want, but it feels like a Michelin star chef just made you a mac and cheese pizza.

Helen Hewitt (Lorin Jean Vail, The Patriot) and her husband Bob (Scott Thompson Baker, Open House) have just moved into the country villa of her recently deceased Aunt Catherine. Everyone there is pretty much beyond rude and more in your face hostile to them both, which is only the start of the weirdness they endure. I mean, I would have given up when the corpse of Catherine sat straight up when Helen kissed her.

Actually, even before they get there, Helen learns that her father was Catherine's ex-husband and that he died soon after she was born. Her aunt has held a grudge out against the family, but still gives her everything she owns before she commits suicide during the video will by drinking poison milk. Yes, you read that correctly.

Jack Taylor - who was in more horror movies than even I have watched, but I'll list out the Nostradamus films, The Ghost Galleon and Female Vampire to start - plays a blind musician who plays a concert while everyone in the town conspires against the two newcomers. Euro horror queen Patty Shepherd also shows up as a character named, get this, Gertrude Stein.

It's not great, but the idea of a great movie is in here. But you know me. This is exactly the kind of goofball horror that I love.

After her wealthy Aunt Catherine (Dorothy Malone) commits suicide, Helen (Lorin Jean Vail) and her husband Bob (Scott Thompson Baker) move into the old woman's mansion, where they find that the estate is also home to several staff and tenants, all of whom act very strangely. Soon after, Helen narrowly survives two potentially fatal incidents, during which she sees a ghostly apparition of her aunt; naturally she wants to leave, but her money hungry hubby convinces her to stay while he searches for the fortune supposedly hidden on the estate. As he hunts for the loot, Bob discovers the shocking truth about the weird tenants: they are undead, and are waiting for the return of Aunt Catherine, who also wants her niece to join their ranks.

Directed by José Ramón Larraz, who gave us sexy '70s vampire classic Daughters of Darkness (AKA Vampires),Rest in Pieces is a tacky slice of '80s horror trash that, unsurprisingly, delivers plenty in the way of T&A courtesy of its star Lorin Jean Vail, who definitely wasn't cast for her thespian skills. The sexy blonde takes a bath, has sex with her husband, gets out of bed naked three times, and is pushed into a swimming pool wearing only her panties-all within her acting range-but when called upon to emote, she fails to convince. Not that the rest of the cast are much better: those playing the weird tenants are also fairly awful, with wild-eyes and leering grins showing us that they're quite crazy.

The film starts well enough, with Helen saying goodbye to her dead aunt at the funeral home, when the body suddenly sits bolt upright: it's an effective scare, but it's the only one in the film, the rest of the action being cheesy nonsense lacking in genuine atmosphere, frights and chills. In addition to the nudity, Larraz also provides a smattering of gore - the murder of a musical quartet and the dismemberment of their bodies, a severed hand that spurts blood, and a man having his head pulled off during a fight with Bob - but it's not all that convincing. The director wraps up proceedings with a suitably schlocky ending in which Helen, believing that she has escaped the horror, finds herself trapped by the maniacs on an airplane.

5/10. Moderately entertaining nonsense.