Mortuary (1982)


When reading a little bit about the history of Mortuary I came across a few interesting things.  I remember this video cover and it does appear the movie turned a hefty profit.  It would have been hard not to based on the 250 thousand dollars it cost to make it.  However, it ended up with a small distributor because, after it was made, the studio that it was made for didn't want it.  Even the distributor it ended up with commissioned the famous poster and made a trailer, neither of which were related to the actual movie.  The reason for this is because they saw nothing in the film they could promote.  That pretty much sums up everything one needs to know about this film. 

Greg (David Wysocki) and his friend Josh (Denis Mandel) break into a warehouse owned by Josh's former boss Hank Andrews (Christopher George).  Andrews owns a mortuary and, as the boys discover, likes to have seances in his warehouse as well.  One of those they see participating is Eve Parson (Lynda Day George), the mother of Greg's girlfriend Christie (Mary Beth McDonough), who recently lost her father in what she thinks was a murder. 

While in the warehouse the two get separated and Josh disappears.  When Greg's van turns up a Greyhound station he comes under suspicion and no one believes what he saw.  He eventually reveals to Christie that he saw her mother there, and that only increases the tension between them as her mother thinks she is imagining the circumstances of her father's death, and that is exacerbated by Christie's sleepwalking.  Thus, when a masked man in a robe starts stalking Christie, no one believes her.  Meanwhile Paul Andrews (Bill Paxton), Hank's son, seems to have an awkward crush on Christie. 

It seems convoluted, and in a way it is, but by the end it's a pretty run-of-the-mill slasher film with a typically ridiculous ending to try to give audiences one last scare.  It doesn't work in Mortuary because it's telegraphed and ill-timed.  That can be said for a good part of the movie; things that should be scary are not because director Howard Avedis is not adept at making them so.  

The only real reason this movie gets any attention is because of Bill Paxton.  This is one of his earliest movies and he puts in a lot of effort to be as strange and creepy as possible.  Both Christopher George and Lynda Day George, the actual big names in the movie at the time, phone in their performances.  I really can't criticize the acting of the younger members of the cast, although it is not good.  Still, this is one of those movies where it wouldn't necessarily improve anything.

On top of that Mortuary is quite dull throughout.  Despite the hints of Satanic cults and such this never plays out, and the murder of Christie's father (shown at the beginning, so not a spoiler for the audience) looks like he is lightly tapped by a baseball bat before falling in the pool.  If only it had kept up that hilarity this would be a nice movie to make fun of with friends, but it largely amounts to a whole lot of nothing.

Mortuary (1982)
Time: 93 minutes
Starring: David Wysocki, Mary Beth McDonough, Lynda Day George, Bill Paxton, Christopher George
Director: Howard Avedis



 

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