Mortuary (1983)

Trailer (which couldn’t possibly have less to do with the actual movie):

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: Someone from the mortuary is killing people in an effort to drum up business for the mortuary.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• Part TWO in the my dad was inexplicably excited about two horror movies with on a local video store list double feature.
• So far at least this movie doesn’t look like a goblin wiped its asshole with it.
• Directed by the great Howard Avedis. You know him. 
• A dad gets the shit beaten out of him with a baseball by by the pool. No reason given, but I’m sure they’ll dive into it later.
• Two jagoffs break into a random warehouse and steal the most random shit imaginable. One of them keeps laughing like he’s inhaled the Joker’s gas anally.
• There’s a satonic ritual going on in the warehouse and they don’t seem to give much of a shit.
• The laughing gas guy gets stabbed with a hose??
• Ok, I was not expecting a colorful roller rink sequence. I think I’d rather watch a full movie about this roller disco fancypants in the silver tuxedo.
• This might be one of the worst-acted movies in Schlocktoberfest history, and that’s REALLY saying something.
• This dude Greg looks about 22 and his parents are still pissed about him staying out late and necking with some girl? Are they Amish Mormons?
• BILL PAXTON!!!!!!
• This has to be the first and last time Paxton played a preppy character.
• This seems like a made for TV movie even though no respectable TV would show it.
• So the plot of this is Greg is looking for his friend Josh, who was seemingly captured by ghouls at the shitty warehouse they were robbing. This is going absolutely nowhere and who gives a shit.
• So Greg’s girlfriend (Christie)’s dad is the one who got his head bashed in with a bat by the pool earlier. I’m sure we’ll learn what that had to do with anything any day now.
• This fucking pool is bigger than one you’d find at an all-inclusive resort in the Riviera Maya.
• Christie goes into the pool in a white nightgown and we don’t even get to admire one nipple.
• So Christie’s mother is in the black robe cult. That’s almost enough to make me not instantly fall asleep out of sheer boredom.
• Bill Paxton was locked up in the mortuary as a kid by his dad? Why? Because of the title of the movie?

“Do you realize it’s snowing in my room, god damn it?!”

• Oh, his dad is the mortician and cult leader. Wonderful.
• Bare corpse tits. Always mixed emotions.
• It’s funny how Paxton could never shake that Texas accent. I’m pretty sure this movie is set in California.
• I’m checking to see how much time is left in this shitshow every 18 seconds.
• I have no further interest in typing notes for this. You’re on your own.
• Welcome to the mortuary where the girls are dead but they’re not hairy.
• This movie has all the excitement of staring at pictures of a real mortuary’s parking lot.
• The coven is doing seances at the mortuary but you know what I bet it’s some kind of fugazi and this isn’t even a giallo. They are trying to contact Christie’s father. That’s exactly what I should do to find out why my dad liked this movie.
• Man, I miss Bill Paxton. But he had a great run.
• Wait, Paxton spelled backwards is Next Stop… to train the station!

• More like Bore-tuary!
• More like Tortuary!
• More like Snoretuary!
• More like No-more-tuary!
• The two youths are making it on the floor-tuary in the living room, but it’s her house and no one’s home, why not just go to her bed?
• I like the realistic touch that right after Christie gave Greg blue balls and he put his clothes back on he still has a visible boner. Which I suppose is better than an invisible boner.
• Greg seems to have forgotten all about his missing friend. But then again, so has the viewing audience.
• They should’ve just made this movie about a murderer at the roller rink and called it Roller Boogieman.
• Paxton comes up to Christie at the back door and creepily asks her to open the window, and instead of walking away and calling the police, she tries to stab him through the window, which is now open.
• Ok that was clearly Paxton but Christie is acting like she has no idea who it was.
• Christie’s mom shows off more cleavage in her pajamas than Elvira and your grandmother combined.
• Paxton stabs Christie’s mom in bed, Christie escapes and runs down the street… back to her own house??? Is there like an infinity space loop around her property?
• Paxton’s scary villain costume looks just like Sammy Terry. But without the rubber yellow dish gloves.

“Game over, man!! Game over!!”

• Wait, that was a mask Paxton was wearing?? Clearly it was just face paint before.
• Paxton is going to embalm Christie while she’s still alive. Why?
• He gives her a sedative first. Why would a mortuary have a sedative?
• We’ve got bush.
• I must’ve missed something, why did Greg go to the mortuary? He would have no idea that’s where Christie was. Unless this town is just the mortuary, Kristy’s house, the school, and the roller rink.
• So Paxton killed Christie’s dad, because he’s nuts, and he kills his own dad, because he’s nuts. Then Christie wakes up and says, “Show me your nuts.”

• Thrilling climax of Greg slowly opening a few doors. Where’s Shakma when you need him?
• Paxton has set up an elaborate wedding party in the warehouse with the bodies of all the people he killed. You know, some ladies would die for this level of romance.
• So Paxton’s mom wasn’t really dead and wakes up and screams to a freeze frame ending. I wish I was embalmed.
• In the credits: Dancers – The LA Knockers

Was it Entertaining:

Any Good Gore: Gore might have redeemed this movie a bit but it was classified as pretty tame by the National Mortuary Association.

Any Nudity: Some fully nude corpses and a fully nude Christie and a fully nude reflection in my TV screen.

“Oh mother, I always enjoy our ten o’clock Teddy Titty Toddy Time.”

Best Quote: Paxton says to a girl that he just “got the new Mozart.” You know, I always thought the stuff Wolfgang put out in the early ’80s was a little too experimental.

Best Scene: It’s hard to say. I guess whenever Bill Paxton is around because it’s like a breath of fresh air after you’ve had your head stuck in a corpse’s ass.

Worst Scene: Just in general it really bugs me in horror movies when a character dies or mysteriously disappears and his friends are concerned for a few minutes and then they’re back to roller boogieing and banging like, “Oh well, to hell with it.”

Final Thoughts: Not the worst schlock I’ve seen but still a dull slog through a smelly mortuary. This just made me more worried about my dad’s lifelong mental state than anything. I can only conclude that he confused it with a different horror movie or porno.

Score: 2.5 Above-ground Embalming Structures (out of 10)