Mortuary 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.

This is pretty much the standard "boys are forced to attend school, school is in danger due to closing due to malicious incompetence, band saves the school" story. The acting is sub-par to serviceable, the comedy is debatable, and the special effects are just above what you would expect from a college freshmen project. Worse, the story seems to be written as they went and the dialogue rarely gets above forgettable.

It feels like they wanted to make a sex comedy centering on necrophilia, but they forgot most of the sex and all of the comedy. The only reason this movie is rated "R" is because of one scene; the rest is aggressively vanilla.

Just forget this movie; only if you're a fan of certain actors will it hold any interest. It's not even good as a movie you'd get drunk and make fun of it.

Mary Woronov had (and probably not coincidentally) a habit of showing up in a number of strange b-grade (and sometimes lower) cult classics. Some good (Eating Raoul, Rock N' Roll High School), some so bad they're good (like Terror Vision), and some that were just out and out awful. Mortuary Academy is laden with obvious jokes and puns, mostly tasteless humor, and unfortunately was hard for me to wade through patiently until at least the last forty minutes or so. But understandably, this is the kind of material that makes a cult classic, appreciated by a few who find something pleasing enough about it to watch it ad nausea. I'm not quite sold on it as much, but I do like quirky films like these, and at least for this one, a horror comedy to some degree with emphasis on lame jokes and pure corniness (but certainly not in a family-movie kind of way).

Mortuary Academy is the story of two brothers who are written as the next-of-kin to inherit their late uncle's mortuary, but only on the condition that they pass Mortuary Academy in order, at least as their lawyer explained it, develop an appreciation for the craft of a business which they may soon be running themselves. Of course, they are imbibed in an odd selection of classmates (naturally) and rebuffed by the two current heads of the mortuary (Mary and Paul, not coincidentally played by Mary Woronov and Paul Bartel), who initially plot to keep the brothers Grimm (for real) from successfully completing the conditions of the will, sure that if they did, Mary and Paul would be no longer be in charge.

Regular fans of b-movie cult classics are advised to at least give this one a try. Besides b-movie cult regulars Mary Woronov and Paul Bartel look for Tracey Walter (of Repo Man fame) as Mortuary Academy's 80s variation on Dr. Frankenstien (which made for at least an more interesting ending to an otherwise relatively lukewarm movie overall).

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.