Love Me Deadly

To be honest, when one reads the synopsis of this film one expects the worst. Surprisingly, this is an engaging and frank study both of necrophilia and of a daughter's inability to let go of the past.

Helped along by a very professional sounding theme tune (sung by Kit Fuller), and a lively score echoing films of much more mainstream cinema, this is a shocking film that will make you think for a long time afterwards. Unfortunately, the good acting and imaginative story is let down by some chronically bad editing - particularly when we are suddenly introduced to the character of Alex - but this aside, you should find much more to enjoy about this movie than you will find to dislike about it.

"Love Me Deadly" is to necrophilia what "Max Mon Amour" is to bestiality: one of the last taboos to be tackled in an grown-up fashion, but which can be appreciated by an audience without needing to visit a seedy sex-shop; where story comes first, and titillation is far down the line.

"Love Me Deadly" follows a young woman in Los Angeles who attends the funerals of men she does not know in order to sneak kisses with the dead. She is soon spotted by a kindred spirit--a man who shares her same necrophiliac tendencies--and it turns out he has his own Satanic group he wants her to join.

This early '70s effort is marketed as a horror film, and in some ways it is, but "Love Me Deadly" plays more like an oppressive chamber drama, drenched in gaudy colors, cheap-looking sets, and peppered with necrophilia sequences. Given the audacious subject matter here, one would think the film would edge into total exploitation, but it manages to keep its wits about it.

Necrophilia aside, the film's main horror angle is the funerary worker/leader of a Satanic necrophiliac cult which he wants the female protagonist to join. This plot element seems hackneyed and the actual nature of this "cult" is not entirely made clear (especially its alleged Satanic motivations, which are never really elucidated), and the film suffers slightly because of this. Mary Charlotte Wilcox portrays the leading character nicely, and the script attempts to unravel her sexual proclivities, tracing them back to a childhood trauma; at times the film reminded me of its contemporary, "The Witch Who Came out of the Sea," in that it deals with similar themes regarding childhood trauma, though it goes about them completely differently. Like many films of this ilk, "Love Me Deadly" also suffers from poor editing and dubbing, which is fairly common for grindhouse pictures of this type.

All in all, "Love Me Deadly" is a mildly entertaining horror film that is not nearly as disturbing as one might expect. The subject matter, though perverse, is handled well, and the lead character evokes sympathy on some levels despite her unusual attractions. It is an obvious precursor to the more extreme necrophilia-themed films that would follow, such as "Nekromantik," as well as the more introspective, quiet ones, like "Kissed." Not a terrible film overall, though it is certainly not for everyone. 6/10.

This steaming-hot slice of 70s grindhouse bliss denotes a lovely young woman(Mary Charlotte Wilcox - BEAST OF THE YELLOW NIGHT, 1971) coming to terms with her compulsive longing for intimacy...with deceased men(um...does rigor-mortis set in down there?). Through frequent off-hand visits to the local mortuary, she networks into a sub-rosa society of like-minded individuals who are more than eager to bring her "into the fold". Unfortunately, her husband(CAROL BURNETT SHOW alum Lyle Waggoner) is unaware of her warped desires, and can't understand why he's not "getting any".

The key issue making LOVE ME DEADLY such a memorably divergent trinket is the prudent sensitivity with which it approaches its grotesque premise. It plays like a schmaltzy, melodramatic LIFETIME CHANNEL movie with necrophilia in place of the customary, commiserative "disease-of-the-week" topic...never has a film been so characteristically at-odds with itself. Amazingly, this ill-advised wonder-work actually delivers in an all-wrong and rather dishonorable sort of way...it's not a great movie, critically speaking, or even an especially GOOD movie...but considering the unsavory subject-matter at hand, it's a surprisingly groomed and buttoned-down production which takes itself quite seriously(and for sheer novelty, what more could you possibly hope for?).

5.5/10

This great, sadly neglected piece of 70's sleaze is much better than the later, more well-known NEKROMANTIK.For me, the most disturbing scene was not the corpse sex, but the blood draining sequence. This must have turned heads back in '72. Recommended.

This movie had great promise. The theme was very off-beat & interesting - homosexuality (remember, it was made in 1973) and necrophilia. Unlike what the IMDb movie description says, I didn't find any trace of satanism in the story (there is a cult, but it is necrophiliac, not satanic ). There is decent amount of blood & gore (I saw the uncut version). Unfortunately, the plot is not tight and fails to keep viewers attracted throughout. Acting is passable - the main character (Mary Charlotte Wilcox) is very wooden & it's hard to feel any emotional attachment with her. Overall not a bad movie, if you enjoy off-beat horror movies, this might work for you.