Mortuary — Mortuary(Blu Ray)
Mortuary is a corny ‘n’ creepy 80’s mystery, with slasher and gothic horror tropes sewn in. It’s an entertaining if, at points rather tame film, that mixes a TV movie-like feel and soapy campness- with moments of bloody gore, and ghoulishly creepy atmospherics. Here from the MVD rewind series is a recent(ish) region free blu ray special of the film, featuring a new print, a few extras, slip sleeve and mini-poster.
Mortuary( aka Embalmed) appeared in the year 1983, and it was directed/ co-written by Baghdad Howard Avedis, who between the ’60s and late ’80s had sixteen credits to his name. These went from early Iraq based dramas of The Seven O’clock Train(1961) and Autumn Leaves (1964). On to US set films like strange mystery murder thriller The Stepmother(1972), the 70’s action campiness of Scorchy( 1976), and college disco dancer wrongly sent to the madhouse thriller of The Fifth Floor( 1978).
The film kicks off in great camp 80’s fashion, as we see a man sat sunbathing beside a pool- along comes someone with a baseball bat, and slow-motion knocks him into the pool and killing him. As we get into things we find out the dead man was the father of older teen brunette Christine(Mary Beth McDonough)- who is having a few bad dreams/ sleepwalking troubles. Her deep cleavage 'n' big-haired mother Eve( Lynda Day George) is trying the best for her daughter, but things seem to go from bad to worse as it seems Christine and her buddies are been trailed and stalked by a corpse faced person in hooded black monks grown. And the film’s unfold is about trying to figure out who the killer/ stalker is- is it crump and blunt local mortuary owner Hank( Christopher George), his preppy and classical music-obsessed son Paul Andrews( Bill Paxton), Christine’s big blond-haired and shinny teethed boyfriend Greg(David Wysocki), or someone else.
The film largely unfolds as a mystery- with rather Tv movie leanings, and often fairly US soap like acting and flow. Along the way, we get some neat moments of dark creepy house shenanigans, the ghoulish stalking killer, and some quite bloody stab bound & swords straight through the body kills. There are some neat enough moments creepy atmosphere too, though these never stay around too long.
On the acting front Christopher George is fairly subdued, though this may be down to the role, and also this was his final role. His wife Lynda camps it up nicely enough, and Mary Beth is a plucky enough lead. It’s great to see a very young Paxton, and he’s good in his role. On the whole, Mortuary is an entertaining enough 80’s murder mystery, though it would have been nice if the slashing moments were more prolonged and effective- though that said the first stalk ‘n’ kill session was most rewarding, as there's a nice feeling of tension and mystery built up as a group of teens come across a ritual in a warehouse before been taken out by the gowned killer.
Moving onto this region free blu ray, and comes presented in a retro VHS like card slip. The disc features a 1080p HD print, and this looks good clear and well balanced in its colours, with the night time shots looking particularly good. The only extras, aside from trailers, is a fifteen-minute interview with the film's composer John Cacavas- this is an archive interview as he sadly passed in 2014. The interview covers his whole career going from discussing how he got into scoring via Telly Savalas, and he talks about some of his more memorable scores, though sadly he remembers little or nothing of scoring the film to hand. Lastly the blu ray, like all the MVD rewind releases, it comes with a mini-poster.
On the whole, it’s nice to see the MVD rewind series putting out another shot of 80’s VHS fare. I can’t say I was quite as impressed or blown away by Mortuary as I was expecting to be, as from what I’d read it was meant to be a straight-on slasher, which it isn’t. Though I’d say if you're after a more 80’s mystery, with touches of slasher and gothic elements you may get more from this than I did.