Love Me Deadly

Just having a film with the subject of necrophilia would turn most viewers off, yet this film does a fairly "tasteful", if the term can be used in this context, job with the subject matter. The films major liability is a story which swings between chilling horror and sappy 70's romance. But, the film is well-directed and for those who decide to sit all the way through to the surprise ending, probably won't be terribly disappointed.

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 is the precursor to modern art-horror hybrids like KISSED or NEKROMANTIK. A frigid woman who likes funerals and is turned on only by dead bodies enters into a sexless marriage with CAROL BURNETT SHOW stud Lyle Waggoner and secretly joins a cult of necrophiliacs in a local morgue. For a film that had so much perverse and ghoulish potential, this film only partially entertains. There's a particularly shocking scene early in the film of a guy being embalmed alive but the film gets bogged down in the drama of marital problems in the second hour. While the serious approach to such outrageous material is greatly appreciated, a little more ghoulish horror would've been nice.

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

Lindsay, a pretty blonde in black complete with veil sits in one of the back rows for a funeral service. She remains after all others have left, and goes up to caress and kiss the dead man, though without quite making contact. The opening credits appear over sepia-tinted scenes of a young blonde girl playing with her loving father.

Lindsay has a party, and a blonde male friend of hers follows her upstairs, but she fights him off. She continues visiting funeral parlors. At one, she bumps into the deceased's brother, an art gallery owner, and they take a mutual liking to each other. He reminds her a little of her father, and innocent sepia-tinted scenes of her with her father are interspersed throughout the film.

Another man cruises by a gay film theater, and picks up a young hustler. He takes him back to his office, saying it's a veterinarian's office, but after he straps the young man down, it's clearly an embalming room.

Lindsay is approached by the cruiser at one of the funerals, and he tells her about necrophilia. She tries to throw herself more deeply into her relationships with her blonde friend and the gallery owner, but she can't handle much more than an arm around the waist or a quick kiss.

She tries joining a group of necrophiliacs at the funeral parlor, but the group activity scares her off. The group does dress in black robes, and use red candles, but they don't seem to be devil worshipers as some others have said.

Her relationship with the gallery owner deepens, but she still can't handle a physical relationship. She also has a couple other secrets no one except her maid knows.

The movie moves fairly slowly, but I found it pretty involving. It is quite sad. I was surprised to see H.B. Halicki (Gone in 60 Seconds, The Junkman) was one of the associate producers! There's also a good musical score. Over the opening credits, the theme song "Love Me Deadly" is sung, and the musical theme is repeated instrumental in different variations throughout.