La morgue

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.

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")

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.

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.

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*