The Morgue

An enjoyable little indie from directors Halder Gomes and Gerson Sanginitto, which visits a rather strange funeral home in the middle of nowhere. "The Morgue" is extremely well shot and visually looks better then most big budget horror crap coming out of Hollywood these days. However, the story starts out strong but slowly becomes quite predictable and eventually fizzles out in a dull fashion. Individual performances shine by most of the underrated cast, and new-comer Lisa Crilley is fun to watch as she fumbles through her odd existence as the janitor of the fore-mentioned title. She certainly breathes life into her anti-hero role, and doesn't rely on star status to do it. The always wonderful Bill Cobbs seems a bit under-used here, but none the less plays his part to great effect and Heather Donahue of "Blair Witch" fame has a fun turn as a doomed bitchy wife. The cinematography looks incredible as we maneuver through a giant maze of a mausoleum, and into the dark crevasses of the morgue itself, but this alone cannot save the story which becomes increasingly mundane and silly. Worth a viewing for sure, and I hope to see more of Lisa Crilley in the future.

A country mausoleum janitor tries to help a group of stranded people survive the night in the apparently haunted mausoleum, but one by one they start disappearing.

What can I say about this disappointing film? Annoying editing and fade effects. An ending twist (roll eyes) so obvious and overworn that you've already probably guessed it. Awkward pacing. Characters behaving EXTREMELY unnaturally. I mean so unnaturally that you'll find it hard to suspend disbelief. And the filmmakers never give us a good idea where the characters are in the structure. Sometimes they walk through long corridors to get to a location, and then other times it appears to be next door.

There are no real scares, not even startling moments because the hoodie-wearing killer just kind of appears in scene. All kills except two are offscreen.

And the ending drags on and on.

This could have been so much more - even with the lame twist it could have been a better movie. With some better editing (or maybe this was all the editor had to work with?) and with more natural character actions this could have been worth a rental.

While working in the night shift in an isolated morgue alone with the night watchman George (Bill Cobbs), the janitor Margo (Lisa Crilley) is interrupted by Peter (Chris Devlin), his wife Nan (Heather Donahue) and their young daughter Jill (Taylor Lipman) that has run out of gas on the road. Suddenly the strangers Jacob (Brandon Quinn) and his wounded friend Samim (Sammy Sheik) break into the house asking for a telephone. Margo gives attention to the strangers and they are unexpectedly attacked by the ghost of a former worker that committed suicide. The stranded group fights to survive and Margo discovers the truth about the weird night.

I love horror movies and I had great expectations with "The Morgue". Unfortunately I found a terrible movie with a messy screenplay; a boring story; noisy and annoying soundtrack and edition; and some bad acting. The story is confused, with an awful development and a predictable twist and a great disappointment in the end. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Cadáveres 2" ("Cadavers 2")

This was a horrible, poorly made movie. It shifts to so many different places that it is easy to lose interest. I hated Reeker, but it is the same type plot, only easier to watch. Wait until this movie is on TV for free to bother watching it. The randomness of the characters popping up and the demeanor of the main girl were completely disjointed from the story. Although it ties itself together in the end, the strings that lead there are long and very boring. What are the chances of distressed people seeking help at a morgue in the middle of the night and what are the chance of the doors to the morgue being opened to allow them free access to enter. If you get this movie looking to be scared, don't bother. It will just leave you unscared and disappointed.

While working a routine shift as a morgue janitor, a woman finds the quietness interrupted by a series of individuals running from a deranged killer and must find a way to stop his rampage and get out alive.

This was just an overall bland and really problematic effort with a lot wrong with it. The biggest issue with this one here is that it doesn't seem to know what kind of film it wants to be as there's so many different elements scattered throughout here that it really doesn't make cohesive sense all the way through. The initial impetus here is that this is a ghost/slasher type of effort, especially with the sightings around the grounds and the backstory of the killed worker providing this with enough of a feel that there's a pretty dark atmosphere here covered through this, yet it's all dropped in the middle with no rhyme or reason to become a psycho-stalker type effort before it's all finally revealed as a nightmarish supernatural-inclined fate-altering type of horror film that really fails to connect these together. This really could've done something good with the ghost/slasher effort by actually making good use of it's spectacular setting in the darkened, seemingly-endless corridors inside a morgue that's just utterly dripping with manic chills. However, each of these different scenarios that play out here are just wholly glossed over without the film really giving it a chance to play out as it shifts from each one to the other so that when it does do something incredibly spooky as the fateful journey through the woods only to wind up no matter what direction chosen to be back at the front-door of the building the effect comes off as confusing moreso than actually chilling the way the concept should've come off. On top of that, the film goes into a ten-minute epilogue actually spelling out everything along the way to showcase how all the events in the film actually played out and how they impacted their real-life counterparts which is just endless and goes on for far too long than this type of reveal really should, beyond the fact that the film actually should've ended ten minutes before as that set-up made for a more perfect ending than what's delivered. These do manage to harm the few good points about this, as beyond the spectacular setting used here the nightmarish quality of many of the stalking scenes in the final half do work quite well. The chases down the long corridors, the killer continually bursting out from behind corners or creeping up unsuspectingly behind them or just plain running throughout the building, these scenes are quite fun and certainly provide this with workable elements that could've been better utilized in a better film.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.