Mortuary - Wenn die Toten auferstehen...

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.

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!

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.

I'd been wanting to see "Mortuary" ever since I first read about it here on IMDb. I'm a pretty big Tobe Hooper fan, and while I hated his semi-recent "Crocodile", his "Toolbox Murders" remake was really good. This movie revolves around the Doyle family. Leslie Doyle (Denise Crosby of "Pet Sematary"), recently widowed, moves she and her two children, teenage Jonathan (Dan Byrd, "The Hills Have Eyes" remake), and her daughter (Stephanie Patton) to a decrepit house (with a graveyard for a front yard) in a small California town to start a funeral home. The house is disgusting and nearly falling apart, but Leslie hopes to fix it up, and begins her business. Jonathan is menaced by local teenagers, and falls for a girl at his workplace, Liz, and the two become friends. Then, after finding out her friend, Grady, is gay (thinking that the two were a couple), they begin kind of dating. But weird things are happening around the funeral home, and Liz tells Jonathan about the story of a deformed man who lived in the funeral home. Then people around the house start to die and an evil force begins to take over.

Tobe Hooper is great, I love most of his films (particularly the hailed classic "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre"), but his recent stuff hasn't been great. "Crocodile" was horrible and I was surprised he was even involved with it. But "Mortuary" is a fun little low budget horror flick that I really enjoyed. I loved the idea and the story was really well written, with plenty of creepy moments and some really creative sequences (particularly the last twenty minutes or so of the film). I haven't seen a horror film centered around a mortuary (or at least not one that comes to mind), and if you think about it, a funeral home is a great place to set a scary movie. The acting in this movie was very good, which was mildly surprising. This is the second performance I've seen from Dan Byrd, and he's got great potential. Denise Crosby, who played the wife in "Pet Sematary" is excellent as playing the mother, and was really creepy during her scenes where the 'evil presence' had taken control of her. Alexandra Adi, who played Liz, was a little weak at times, but overall not horrible.

Atmosphere in this film is really big. It really does feel like a small town - with typical country diners, and nosy police officers. And the house that the mortuary is set in was perfectly creepy and rundown, I loved the fact that it had a cemetery as a front yard - how much scarier of a house could you get? The main downfall of the film is the CGI special effects that are used. They aren't seen too often, but some of them were really bad, like something straight out of a B-horror movie. But this film is a B-movie in a sense, a good one though at that. The conclusion was quick and unexpected, and I was left kind of scratching my head, so that could've also been improved upon. Other than that though, I really liked the movie.

Overall, "Mortuary" is a watchable and fun, low budget horror movie. What it lacks in is made up for by the acting and the setting, and for the most part, the good outweighs the bad, and it's a notch above average. I guess you have to like this kind of thing to enjoy it, but I did. It's a throwback to those cheesy '80s horrors that we all know and love, and I thought Tobe Hooper did a fairly good job with it. Don't take this one too seriously though, that's for sure. 6/10.

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.