Mortuary (2005)

 Mortuary (2005)

Have you ever picked up a film, and based on its reviews expected it to be absolute garbage, but then ended absolutely loving that film?  That was the case with Mortuary, a 2005 film directed by horror film legend Tobe Hooper.   From the reviews and the film's online critical rating I expected it to be really bad, maybe one of the worst films ever, but as I watched the film, is soon became apparent that this film was absolutely amazing!  Mortuary is a comedic gory zombie horror film about a family who moves across the country to start a new life.  The mother Leslie moved her family into the old dilapidated Fowler Mortuary, where she is beginning her new career as a mortician.  Along with her came her children, teenager Jonathan, and his young sister Jamie.  Jonathan gets a job at a local diner working for Rita, and with her niece Liz, who becomes his love interest, he also befriends her best friend Grady.  However there are three teenage assholes, Cal and his girlfriends Tina and Sarah who start a fight at the diner with Jonathan, and when they go missing the sheriff suspects Jonathan.  But from there the film just gets bat-shit crazy, and goes completely off the rails as it becomes clear that you are not watching a serious film at all, but instead a bloody disgusting comedic zombie horror film.   What is the truth behind the legend of Bobby Fowler, and what happened to the missing teenagers, and the missing sheriff, and what the hell happened to mom?

Mortuary was directed by horror legend Tobe Hooper, who made his name with films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist, but who has also made many b-horror films, some great some barely watchable, but he is one of the most recognizable names in horror.  The film was written by Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch, who also worked with Tobe Hooper on Toolbox Murders a year earlier in 2004.  The film was produced and distributed by Echo Bridge Entertainment (Echo Bridge Home Entertainment for the distribution).   The film premiered at the New York City Horror Film Festival in 2005, and then saw a limited theatrical release in 2006, before going to home video.  The received generally negative reviews from the critics and currently holds a lower than 20% approval on film review sites like Rotten Tomatoes.  

Mortuary stars Denise Crosby as Leslie Doyle, Dan Byrd as Jonathan Doyle, Stephanie Patton as Jamie Doyle, Alexandra Adi as Liz, Rocky Marquette as Grady, Lee Garlington as Rita, Courtney Peldon as Tina, Tarah Paige as Sarah, Bug Hall as Cal, Michael Shamus Wiles as the dopy Sheriff Howell (who has the best line in the film "graveyard babies", referring to teenagers fucking in the graveyard), Greg Travis as the creepy Eliot Cook, and Price Carson as Bobby Fowler.  I loved the cast of this film, I have always loved Denise Crosby whether in Star Trek the Next Generation as Tasha Yar, or in Pet Sematary as Rachel Goldman-Creed.  I also think it is cool that her grandfather is the singer Bing Crosby.   She is so fantastic in this role, she plays the character so well, and plays the comedic parts so fluently and straight faced, she is absolutely fantastic in this film.  Dan Byrd was really the main actor in the film, with his friends Liz and Grady.  Dan was great as the teenage son, and the big brother who fights to protect his kid sister.  I really loved Alexandra Adi, who being ten years older than the other "teens" in the films, looks absolutely amazing, I love her clothes in the film, and her character is pretty badass!  Then there is the bubble headed Tina and Sarah and their mindless boyfriend Cal, who provide the obliquity graveyard sex, as one might expect in a low budget zombie film, it has been a tradition since Trash stripped naked and tells of her fantasy of having a graveyard orgy in Return Of The Living Dead, and being that the trio are punky looking characters, and the graveyard is similarly dilapidated, it feels like Hooper is paying homage to the classic Return Of The Living Dead in the film.   The characters range from being played as straight dramatic characters as one would find in a serious horror film, to the absolutely bizarre as one might come to expect in a low budget b-horror comedy which gives the film a bit of an uneven tone, which might be off-putting to some. 

I fucking loved this film!!!  I found myself laughing with most of the way through, not laughing at it but laughing with it.  This film is crazy, it is completely off the rails fun horror comedy.  The film had great characters, a fun story (who cares about plot holes or if it totally makes sense, it works for what the film is and that is what matters).  The pace of the film seemed quick and full of comedy, action, and gruesome horror effects.  Most of the effects looked really good too...until you get to the climax at the end, where the film includes some terrible looking CGI, but because of its limited use, and because by the time you get to that point in the film it is already just a bat-shit crazy film, why not throw in some cheesy poorly done CGI?   In reality, I am sure they probably ran out of money to have good effects by the time they got to that point in the film, so fuck it, if you are hooked on the movie like me, then you can forgive about anything as the film dives off the deep end in its crazy climax.  If you are going to hate the film for that, then my guess is that you probably hated the rest of the film anyway so whatever.  I think that most likely the people who hated this film are either uptight stuffy film critics (who this film has no intentions of pleasing), or you expected something other than what it was.  If you go into this expecting a serious horror film, then you are going to be disappointed, but if you go into this film expecting a wild b-horror comedic zombie film, then you will probably enjoy it much more.   I went into this with no real expectations, and ended up having a great time, I really absolutely loved this film.