Mortuary (Road to Halloween)

I suspected that I was in for a treat when I selected this film initially. A film set in a mortuary and it was directed by a true Master of Horror, "Tobe Hooper". Those of you following my blog and the "Road to Halloween" will have already noticed I had review one of his greatest works; "Poltergeist". Unfortunately, this is far from his best work.

A mother, with her son and daughter have decided to move to a remote part of the country. They have a bought a mortuary to live in, and this will also become the family business. The family are presumably trying to leave behind their previous lives due to the recent death of the father. Soon they begin to hear stories circulating about their newly purchased home.

Legend has it that the mortuary was previously the home of a family who tried their luck at farming, but there was something in the soil that killed all the cattle and crops. The family had a son who was mute and disfigured who they would beat regularly, and one day he just disappeared. The rumor is that his parents killed him, but ten years after his disappearance the parents bodies are found beaten to death. Now, this disfigured psycho is living in the graveyard next to the mortuary.

As you can see, it is not an award winning story line. Sadly, all this film did was bore me. The acting is woefully sub par, with performances that verge on amateur at the best. There were no scares that seemed to have any effect on me at all through out the entire film, which is a rarity as there is normally one good one in every movie. The plot seemed to be confused about what it actually thought was relevant to the story and sometimes things would happen without any explanation; like the corpse of a piano teacher roaming the mortuary screaming like Godzilla! There was little or no character development and the attempts at humor that persisted through the movie only made me laugh because they were so poorly executed.

The film was clearly made with a low budget. The special effects actually look like claymation, only worse and there is absolutely no star power or names worth mentioning. Nothing about the film seems to work, not even the score or the SFX. Everything just seems a little off the mark.

I am so disappointed with this film I can barely put it into words, but since that is the idea behind these reviews I will have to do my best. The idea was nice, just dreadfully executed and poorly directed. I find it unbelievable that a director with such talent would pick up a script this badly written. Just a waste of time really. Your would be far better picking up a copy of just about any other of "Tobe Hooper's" films. For the most part his career is mostly hits. This however, is an emphatic miss.

Rating 1 out of 5

See it if you liked:
Pet Cemetery
Stir of Echoes
Sometimes They Come Back

What does IMDB say?

Review by Stephen King