Mortuary Review

[Mr.HoRrOr]

Plot:A family moves to a small town in Massachusetts where they plan on starting a new life while running the long-abandoned family funeral home. The locals fear the place, which is suspected to be on haunted ground.








Cast:
Dan Byrd
Alexandra Adi
Denife Crofby
Lee Barlington
Adam Bierafch
Bug Rall
Rocky Marquette
Tarah Paige
Courtney Peldon







My Thoughts:Not bad.










Review:Tobe Hooper's "Mortuary" was one of those B horror movies that was very much anticipated by genre fans mostly because of Tobe Hooper's involvement in it as the director. So did it live up to it's legendary helmer? Did the film feel like the work of the man who brought us "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "The Funhouse"? Well yes and no. "Mortuary" did have a very creepy, sinister, bad things lurking around every corner feel to it. But the film wasn't genuinely scary like Tobe's earlier works. "Mortuary" finds a mother, and her two children moving into a small town, and as mostly everyone knows, the one thing you need when moving to a new part of america is a gig (job). Denise Crosby of "Pet Sematary" fame, plays Leslie Doyle in the movie, who plans to run a long abandoned funeral home as a way of making money to support her and her kids Jonathan and Jamie. The funeral home however isn't as abandoned as it seems. A shadowy figure seems to roam the graveyard of the property, and the locals tell stories about the place, such as a deformed boy residing somewhere on the property, and the land being abnormal and tainted because the last family to live there couldn't get anything to grow in the soil. "Mortuary"s biggest flaw is that it does nothing with all of this exposition for most of it's duration. The set up for spooks, and scares are there. The funeral home and it's surroundings give the film a spooky tone and are fertile grounds for scares and supernatural hijinx. But nothing happens for most of the movie which spends most of it's time early on focusing on the Doyle's trying to adjust to their new surroundings, and the son Jonathan meeting a potential love interest and getting into it with the town's young troublemakers. "Mortuary" doesn't completely forget what it is though, it teases a few creepy occurances here and there with weird black lines which are revealed later on to be evil fungai, growing on some parts of the house, fungai which later on proves to have a mind of it's own. Other times, the film does the usual strange noises and shadows in the graveyard schtick before it finally hit's it's stride, after 4 characters are attacked by an unseen figure, and two of them come back as zombies that vomit the black goop all over people. "Mortuary" becomes what it should've been earlier after that. The film then lets loose with zombies, the walking dead, possessions, intense chase sequences, and various other cool stuff that will have you wondering...what the hell took so long? Even though the movie takes quite awhile establishing the family's move to a new place, and saves the horror for the finale, the finale itself is pretty damn cool and thus pretty much squares away the movies slow start and the climax while cheesy, still works for this type of movie. "Mortuary" is a good way to spend an hour and a half if you're a horror fan. Even though it leaves alot of unanswered questions about it's villain, and never really quite explains what's up with it's supposed second villain, it has enough blood, gore, and zombie action to satisfy, and boasts quite a creepy overall story.







Pros:Solid, eerie story, high gross out factor, decent acting.






Cons:A few story gaps pertaining to the films two villains.





Overall:Not one of Tobe's best movies but certainly not a waste of time.