Accademia mortuaria

The influence of "Police Academy" (for better or worse) had reached far and wide... making its way, bizarrely so, to mortuary school. Basically retooling the same narrative, but a different occupation. Two brothers inherited a mortuary academy, but before they can take control they need to pass the classes. This leads to some unwanted interference by those already in charge, as the students end up having to save the academy from bankruptcy with an out-there idea. So throw in the standard comic misfit hijinks, a series of mortician schooling snippets leading to punchlines, romance and low-brow gags wrapped up in a bow of morbid curiosity involving necrophilia and corpses. It's all very hit-and-miss, incredibly off-the-wall and tastelessly unapologetic, but in the end I mainly watched it for the always delightful combination of Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov as mortician owner/and assistant of the Grimm Mortuary and Academy. Also you can't go wrong with character actors Tracy Walter and Anthony James playing less than desirable students. And not forgetting cameos at the backend by Wolfman Jack and Cesar Romero.

Ripping off the Police Academy movies, Mortuary Academy is about a pair of witless brothers named Grimm who inherit from their uncle both a large funeral home and a training school for morticians. I wasn't crazy about The Loved One which is always cited as THE film about the funeral business but it's Citizen Kane next to this one.

Christopher Atkins and Perry Lang are the brothers who inherit, but they're not licensed morticians and those pesky state laws require a license and a bit of training. So the brothers have to go to their own school where the current ones running the home want to see them fail.

That would be Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov who like things as they are where they are looting the business and pushing it to bankruptcy. Bartel also has a nice taste for necrophilia and his scenes cross over into the gross as he thinks he found the woman of his dreams, a teen virgin who died accidentally. Cross over quite a distance I might add.

I'm not sure Police Academy movie fans will even like this one.

My review was written in May 1988 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.

"Mortuary Academy" is a genuinely amusing feature, getting a lot of laughs from black humor involving necrophilia. Specialized nature of this poor taste material naturally will limit audience saturation, but pic works very well on its own terms.

The "Eating Raoul" acting team of Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov adapts quite comfortably to similar roles as the manage and top lecturer at Grimm Mortuary and Academy, which has just been inherited by brothers Sam and Max Grimm (Perry Lang, Christopher Atkins) on the condition they graduate as morticians.

Rambunctious group of oddball students gets up to antics that would do the "Carry On" team proud, climaxing in the mechanical whiz in their midst (deadpan Tracey Walker) reanimating a dead heavy metal band to perform one last gig with the aid of animatronics, and thereby earn enough money to save the academy, which Bartel has bled dry.

Hilarious running gag has Bartel falling in love with a young cheerleader who choked on popcorn at a drive-in movie (corpse played by Cheryl Starbuck). This love affair goes far beyond the reaches of bad taste, but is a hoot, climaxing with an indescribable scene of the students using Tracey's mechanics to blackmail Bartel as he makes love to Starbuck. Coda has Bartel and his corpse honeymooning on a cruise ship with grotesque results and a tagline homage to "Some Like It Hot".

Aided by a very funny romantic score by David Spear, director Michael Schroede and writer William Kelman deliver fresh, uncensored material. Pacing is just right and Bartel's unctuous delivery (a la Vincent Price) hits just the right note of campiness without exaggeration.

Woronov's arch delivery again is the perfect foil for Bartel, supported by a solid ensemble. Of special note is the familiar saturnine-faced Anthony James, getting maximum laughs out of some of the script's best lines in his role as a parolee on a rehab program at the academy.

It's one thing to try and rip off "Police Academy", but it's another thing to put a spin on your rip off that concerns a very delicate subject - death, corpses, and the mortuary business. Oh, it's possible to generate laughs with those subjects, but it takes a lot of careful thought and execution, which is entirely missing from "Mortuary Academy". What will strike most viewers is how drained of energy most of the movie is, generating instead a sombre and grim feeling that doesn't exactly induce laughter. It doesn't help that the whole package feels unfinished - there are a number of confusing moments that suggest linking footage was never filmed for one reason or another. The movie has a somewhat interesting cast, but all the participating actors seem as weary and dejected as the movie's atmosphere, so even they can't milk any humor out of the material. It's no surprise then that the movie apparently spent several years on the shelf after being completed before being dumped on video and instantly forgotten.

One thing I never thought I'd see was Paul Bartel having passionate sex with a corpse. Thanks to this film, that which I thought impossible has become reality and I don't think I'll ever be able to close my eyes again without seeing the sight of a topless pot-bellied Bartel atop a beautiful dead teenage girl on the beach with his lips locked onto hers.

Believe me when I tell you that this sounds funnier than it really was. This movie is one long, tasteless, and painfully unfunny necrophilia joke. However, there are some sporadically amusing moments

A great cast is mostly wasted. Perry Lang continues (after The Hearse) his lustful pursuit of older women, only this time with more success, while Christopher Atkins tries hard and fails to fully explain why he's even in this movie. Caesar Romero and Wolfman Jack are here to collect a paycheck. Tracy Walter, Mary Waronov, and the rest do try hard.

The best performance is that of Stoney Jackson as the token black guy, who manages to be the funniest thing in this movie despite his lamentable rapping skills.

I'll give Mortuary Academy some credit though. I didn't hate it and it has perhaps the strangest Bar Mitzvah scene ever attempted in a motion picture.