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Mortuary is a horror film with the atmosphere of mystery, some gore scenes and zombies. The story is bizarre and, in fact, quite clichéd. A family moves to a small town where they plan on starting new life while running funeral home. The local appears to be on haunted ground. The first half of the film is atmospheric and well-developed. The acting is surprisingly good and convincing and all characters are pretty lively. The old neglected house surrounded by graveyard seems to be really spooky. Problems begin during the second half of the film when the film tries to be more brutal and extreme. This part is certainly undeveloped and pretentious as the origin of a black fungus has never been explained. Besides, characters behave in a stupid, illogical way, which really hurts in this pic. As far as technical side of the film is concerned, the cinematography and make-up of zombies are good. However, terrible CGI effects completely ruin the end of the movie. Although in many ways ridiculous and sloppy, Mortuary is a decent, quite scary horror movie which I can solely recommend to horror fans. Nevertheless, I've expected much more from Tobe Hooper.

Most avid horror fans no longer consider Tobe Hooper to be a prominent director of the genre whereas I, naive dork that I am, continue to look forward to every new project that has his name attached to it. After all, he'll always remain the creator of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and, more recently, "The Toolbox Murders" turned out to be an engaging and scary little flick. Few positive things can be said about "Mortuary", however, as it certainly doesn't look like a movie made by someone with over 30 years of experience in the field of horror cinema. The plot is stupid and drowning in clichés, the dialogs are awful, the acting performances disastrous and the gory moments (not even that many, mind you) look even cheesier than those in zero-budget 80's slashers. And then still the old school embalming sequences look brilliant compared to the downright horrible CGI effect that are used near the end of the film. Add to all this a total lack of tension, humor or distracting nudity and we've got ourselves one of the worst horror movies of the year 2005. "Mortuary" makes no sense from the first second already and it gradually gets worse with every plot twist or new character that is introduced. A young widow drags her two children to a godforsaken village where she hopes to take a fresh start as … the local mortician! Okay, here we have a woman who clearly never worked with dead bodies before in her life and living in a slum surrounded by eerie gravestones is supposed to help her kids get over the trauma of losing their father? The mortuary has a dubious history, naturally, and bizarre fungus grows from every hole in the walls, turning a bunch of insufferable teenagers into slavering zombies. We never get a proper explanation about the fungus' origin or its exact connection with the deformed ghoul living in the Fowler family tomb. Maybe it's better like this, as I'm sure any form of explanation only would have made the movie even more stupid. This is just an irredeemably bad film, insulting the intellect of even the most undemanding horror audiences. Avoid at all costs!

This movie seemed to have a lot going for it in the beginning. An interesting story, a great location (who doesn't love old, decrepit houses with a cemetery in the front yard), and good performances (this is the third decent performance out of Dan Byrd that I've seen...he's got potential)...and for the first portion of the film, and had a great deal of atmosphere as well. Then something went horribly wrong; I'm not sure what, but as the movie began it's last half, it began to remind me of a spoof film I saw once called "Night of the Living Bread" (which is genius, by the way)...and I'm pretty sure, despite what some have said, that the movie was NOT meant to be a spoof. The lighting crew must've gone home, because you can't see a damn thing for the last 20 minutes except various facial features. The story became very confusing, as it couldn't focus on one of two villains...a deformed crazy-man living in a tomb, or an evil black fungus...hmmm. There was absolutely no climax to the film, and the end was so unbelievably predictable, that as it played out, I began to narrate it just a step ahead...and was spot on. *sigh*

In 1974, Tobe Hooper struck lucky with the low budget horror 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. This has lead to the director getting himself on many a list of horror fans' favourite directors - but for me, he was only ever really average and his filmography since his debut does nothing but prove that. Mortuary only serves in proving it further, as while my opinion of the film isn't quite as low as the average review; it's clear that this is a terrible movie and certainly not the work of a director with as much experience in the genre as Tobe Hooper. The basic plot sees a mother, her son and her daughter go to live in an old funeral home so the mother can take up a position as the town mortician (despite having no experience in such a job). This base leads to a whole load of other plots that spring from it. For a start, we've got the son's developing friendship with some of the locals, the story of the deformed boy who lives in the bowels of the funeral home, and also some strange fungus that attacks people and turns them into zombies...

It's clear that this is not going to be any good right from the word go, but in fairness to it; the first half of the movie actually isn't all that bad. There's nothing special about it, but Hooper introduces his characters well and sets the scene for the horror. It's not long, however, before the film descends into complete messy stupidity and by then it's better to sit back and laugh at the proceedings. Hooper has got his cast all wrong here too. I don't want to sound mean, but a film like this really needs a pretty lead actress to keep concentration up, and Denise Crosby doesn't really suit that role; and also fails to put any effort into her performance. The son character is obviously meant to be cool, but Dan Byrd is too dorky to carry it off and the fact that he's so young looking doesn't give him any credibility. Child actress Stephanie Patton is not bad (the best performer of the three central ones), and Alexandra Adi is the best thing about the film. Despite all its flaws; Mortuary is at least not completely boring, there are a few amusing moments (mostly for the wrong reasons) and certain set pieces work well. But this is not the work of a 'master' and in that respect it is disappointing.

Once again we have a horror movie that has an interesting premise, a somewhat good story and what happens? It just does not live up to its potential as it makes mistakes that turn it from a really good horror movie to a watered down horror movie that has you thinking what might have been. The story, mother moves herself and two children to a little town to start a new career as a mortician. Granted this in itself is a bit hard to believe a father may have been a more realistic choice to lead the film, but whatever I can role with it. The older teenage son is against this move and is the typical teen in that he voices his opinion against the house and everything about what his mom is doing...I usually don't care for that type, but here I have to agree with him. Why she bought the place is beyond me, as I do believe the house was made a bit to rundown to be realistic. I doubt anyone with any lick of sense would want to move in having seen that house beforehand. Well there are mysterious things going on and there is talk of a person who lives in the cemetery in the front lawn and all that and it could have been really good, however, it is so far fetched in some areas, it moves so slowly at first, and then it doesn't want to end. The deaths are not all that gory, a bit of gore here and there, but not all that much. At times the movie seems to be trying to be a horror comedy and this hurts the movie as well. I like horror comedies a bit (I really enjoyed the flick "Slither"), but don't half-heartedly go about it. Either be a horror comedy or go straight horror. Some scenes are a bit out of place thanks to this bizarre shift at times. The actors are the typical b-movie types and so they are okay. Then there is the use of cgi...I am against it in areas in this movie, why they felt they needed it for the last thing is beyond me. You could have made a realistic whatever it was with minimal effort and money and it would have looked a lot more real. And the ending had me going "Huh"? Don't show what you showed in the previous scene and then hit me with that typical 80's horror ending...by the way if you have seen two horror movies with this type of ending you will know what is going to happen. Still though if they had developed the story better, stayed away from the comedy bits, and explained the thing and Bobby better this movie could have been a pretty decent horror flick as it is it has good and bad and is really just a mediocre flick.

A single mum with a teenage son and a child daughter moves to a small town and buys the local mortuary to start a new life. As one could expect there is an urban legend concerning the house and its former inhabitants. Therefore it is unavoidable that the local teenagers go there to impress their girlfriends and do dumb things...

Soon after the family moves there the 'horror' begins as recently deceased persons start to raise as zombies. Then there is a lot of screaming. And a lot of running around. And a lot of bad acting. As well as a lot of horror film clichés and bad jokes. Sadly, there a zero scary scenes, zero surprising moments and zero original ideas in this movies.

I expected much better from Tobe Hooper, but that is what I got.

I really think everyone is missing the point of this movie. Maybe it was the marketing, which made it seem like a true Tobe Hooper horror film. However, after having worked on this movie, I know that it was meant to be more of a parody of its own self, and not to be taken seriously. This is what the writers intended. Also, having worked with Tobe, I know that he always saw himself as a director of comedy, but he just fell into the horror genre. This movie should be characterized as a horror/comedy combo (horredy). It's meant to be more entertaining than scary, complete with cheesy dialog. If you re-watch the film with this in mind, you may have a different opinion of it.

The widow Leslie Doyle (Denise Crosby) has just lost her husband and moves with her teenage son Jonathan (Dan Byrd) and her young daughter Jamie (Stephani Patton) to a mortuary in a small town in California that she has bought with the intention of starting a new business, practicing her knowledge as mortician. When they arrive, Leslie realizes that she was lured by the former owner, Elliot, and that the decrepit Fowler Brothers Funeral Home was completely abandoned and with problem with the septic sewer. While Leslie tries to improve and clean the place and start embalming corpses, Jonathan is informed about the legend of Bobby Fowler, the deformed son of the Fowlers. Meanwhile a weird substance attacks people, transforming them in zombies.

Mortuary has a very scary atmosphere, with an old cemetery and a nasty and creepy house. The make-up, special effects and soundtrack are also very good. Unfortunately, the flawed screenplay spoils a promising horror movie. There are lack of explanations about Bobby Fowler and the creature that transforms the locals in zombies, and lots of mistakes. For example, in addition to the goofs listed in IMDb, the sheriff's car parked in front of the funeral house simply vanishes when he is attacked. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Mortuária" ("Mortuary")

This movie was CRAP. The previews led you to believe it was something worth seeing but it wasn't.

The acting was terrible on so many levels. The only relatively decent acting came from the mother but shes been in the business a while so we can only expect it from her.

There really was no solid plot it kept jumping around. Reminded me a lot of something a 5th grader would try to write for a creative writing assignment.

One minute there's some legend of a mutated child/man who haunts graveyards the next there's black ooze thats stealing peoples souls! It was hard to keep track of exactly what was going on.

And does no one in this town die of natural causes? I mean they stated it was a small town and with their death rate they should be off the map in a week. Also when the living people were taken over they could still talk. The dead were just... mentally incapable it's like they lost their brains when they died! The ending left so many unanswered questions. It was like they just went "O crap we've run out of money in our budget we have to end it now lets slap together something really dumb!" What happened to Rita? What about the creepy guy with the cane? Why in the name of all that is sane in this world would someone move into a house like that in the first place. What about the diner chick? Does she survive? O and where did the sheriff's car go? You mean to tell me no one noticed it was there? This movie was truly one of the worst movies I've seen in a LONG time. It puts shame to the horror genre.

The only good thing about it was that cracking jokes at this was so easy a 5 year old could have done it, and that made it fun to laugh at.

This is the worst movie I ever seen in my life,The only bright spot in this movie was Courtney Peldon, the story line is hard to follow, and being in the funeral service myself, I know they don't let unlicensed people go around embalming bodies or running funeral homes, no one embalms by using a book in front of them, you have to go thru school, then there is a internship to serve, after that you get your license, and what is with the green embalming fluid in the machine she was using? If this is the kind of movies this guy directs, then I will make it a point to never see another movie he has directed, I cant believe that he read over the script, then said, sure I will direct this low budget awful film, again, the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life.

The plot of "Mortuary" goes like that:single mom played by Denise Crosby of "Pet Sematary" fame and her two children,a teenage son and young daughter move from Chicago to a small town.Crosby has just finished Embalming School and has leased a rundown old mortuary Fowler Brothers Funeral Home.Her son finds a job at a local diner and quickly learns the story of Bobby Fowler;a boy so hideous his parents kept his face covered with a 'death shroud'.In the early 60's,the Fowler parents are murdered and the boy missing and was presumed dead,but the myth is he's alive and living in the catacombs under the graveyard and funeral home.First of all I can't believe that Tobe Hooper,the man behind horrifying horror classic "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" directed this mess.The script is laughable,the comedy elements are stupid and unnecessary and finally there is no suspense.The minimal amount of blood doesn't help either."Mortuary" fails even as the parody of campy 80s horror.Avoid this crap like the plague.Sorry Tobe,try harder next time.

Director Tobe Hooper somewhat returns to his rural horror roots (think of 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and 'Eaten Alive') with the better than expected low-budget b-grade 'Mortuary'. Just like those early Hooper features, 'Mortuary' sets the unyieldingly growing horror (tagged with humorous strokes) at an isolated location (where it's a baleful rundown funeral home with a cemetery). But like others have mentioned, after getting off to a good start (very tidy and eerie) with some good looking production designs it eventually goes on to loose shape and become a kinetic mess with some vague developments and questionably dismal computer special effects, but the decomposed make-up FX remains effective. Nonetheless I still enjoyed it, even with the blatant faults.

The story follows the Doyle family; Leslie Doyle and her teenage son Jonathan and younger daughter Jamie moving to rustic California to start a new business in what was known as the 'The Flower Brother' Funeral Home'. Having been abandoned for quite a while, the place doesn't look too crash hot and its hazardously clogged septic tank is leaking sewage. But the place holds a horrific history, as the locals believe it to be haunted and the Doyle's come to realize there's some truth to the urban legend of Bobby Fowler. But also they must content with a strange fungus substance coming from their grounds, which transforms the dead and living into zombie-like creations.

The set-up might not be anything special (while routine, Hooper's direction is surely crafted and well-paced), but the idea behind the terror has some spirited imagination (very Lovecraft like), despite the fatuous nature of it all when revealed. This helps it lean towards a wicked sense of humour. In the early stages it really does enough to pull you in with its underlining creepiness with sharp photography, robust score and atmospheric art direction where it has dark figures lurking in the shadows and slight lighting. It's tightly controlled, as the jolts have no real build-up (although that does occur in the latter half) and are quickly over with some off-screen action happening. Strangely this worked, but when it decided to break out (soon after the fairly intense dinner table scene) it just felt predictably strained, repetitive and overlong with a vastly abrupt and perplexing closing. The willing performances are modest at best. Denise Crosby is good fun. A twitchy Dan Byrd is appealing and Stephanie Patton suitably adds innocence. There are some spunky ladies in Alexandria Adi and Courtney Patton. Lee Garlington is amusing too.

Predictable, but a solidly entertaining offering with a certain ominous ambiance and cheap thrills.

Not that bad like the rating indicates - of course, Tobe Hooper's classics The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist and Lifeforce are miles ahead regarding story and production, but anyway, Mortuary is a nice little flick with some similiarities to some horror classics - e.g. Return of the Living Dead comes to mind (without most of the comedy elements). Mortuary is for sure no new milestone in the eternal crypt of the neverending horrors but spicy enuff and the actors are giving a solid performance. On top we get a a nice nostalgic shot of the 80s and 90s and some good visual designs.

You may give Mortuary a chance, if you got a good appetite for movies like Return of the Living Dead, The Haunting in Conneticut, The Hallow, The Ruins, Splinter etc.