 The delightfully hammy Randal Malone stars as Pierce Jackson Dawn, the greatest make-up artist of the early 20th century, who, by 1941, the setting of the movie, is considered washed-up. The name Pierce Jackson Dawn comes from a conflation of the names of two great make-up artists of classic horror films,  Jack P. Pierce  (qv) and  Jack Dawn (I)  (qv). A brilliant script by  Ron Ford  (qv) shows Pierce s mirror reflection warning him and his dog Baby (Malone s real-life dog) that he has been forgotten and must find work. Pierce brings some new film ideas to studio producer Leonard Schein, portrayed snarkily with cigar by  Wes Deitrick  (qv), who pretends to humor him and then shouts for him to get out. Pierce s idea is to collaborate with the great rival horror actors Pratt Borokov (in homage to  Boris Karloff  (qv), born William Henry Pratt) and Janos Blasko (in homage to  Bela Lugosi  (qv), born Bela Blasko). Blasko is endearingly played by director Ron Ford (in a humble joke about his own girth) as a "bloated by drugs" and retired but still arrogant star, who, when flustered and angered by the importunate questions of an interviewer, accidentally overdoses in his kitchen. After consulting the Voodoo Priestess (played by a sexy Athena Worthy dancing with a snake) and hearing of Blasko s death, Pierce visits Pratt Borokov, a role to which  Tim Sullivan (VII)  (qv) brings great gusto as he shows the actor laughing heartily over a newspaper report of the death of his rival. Gardening in his yard, Borokov does not remember Pierce at first and then speaks disparagingly of horror movies. In fury, Pierce seizes the gardening shovel and beats Borokov to death. The dummy-head of the murdered actor is disturbingly well-designed to look like Sullivan himself, though the scene is played for gruesome laughs. With the Voodoo Priestess s advice on black magic, Pierce secures a job at a mortuary, ostensibly to cosmetize bodies in preparation for funerals, but actually to secure access to the corpses of Blasko and Borokov. When he raises them from the dead, they are not as obedient as he expects. Commanding them to gather newsworthy attention, Pierce discovers that they are only too happy to behave as killer zombies, and with their lurches the movie roars into hilarious horror comedy. Without intending to, Pierce finds himself the cause of more and more deaths. Among the great delights of the film are the interviews with movie stars  Anita Page  (qv) and  Margaret O Brien  (qv), who totally enter into the spirit of the thing, horror film actor/writer/director/producer  Conrad Brooks  (qv), horror film actor/writer/director/producer  David DeCoteau  (qv), horror scholar  Tim Murphy (I)  (qv), and horror actor  Joseph Haggerty  (qv), who plays both Maury Mackerman and Cory Mackerman in gentle spoofs of film fan/writer/editor  Forrest J Ackerman  (qv). The whole production is amusingly home-grown, with appearances by friends of the director and cast -- also active in filmdom themselves -- including  John R. Ellis  (qv),  Jon Trapnell  (qv), and a cameo as the Gutted Woman by  Paula Pointer-Ford  (qv) (Ron Ford s wife and long-time film partner).