Mortuary (aka Embalmed) is one of a number of American horror movies made around this time that feature places involved in the funeral business, Phantasm, One Dark Night and Mausoleum being a few other examples. It was made during the Golden Age of the Slasher Movie but sadly the only thing golden on offer here is Bill Paxton's enjoyable performance, he plays the son of a funeral director and he likes listening to Mozart, skipping through graveyards and has an unhealthy obsession with a girl called Christie. She is played by Mary Beth McDonough and I found her performance fairly wooden. The movie also stars Christopher George (in his final film role) and his real life wife, the very attractive Lynda Day George. Although primarily a slasher movie the plot does throw in a cult led by C George which appears to be a mix of black magic and seances, pretty pointless but fun to watch, especially the wobbly, moving table! We get the usual, cliche thunderstorms at night and the identity of the killer is so obvious though he does look very creepy, there was not a great deal of gore on show (could be that the Hokushin VHS release that I watched was possibly cut) but we do get some nudity. I liked the creepy musical score, and having some Mozart for the end credits was cool. As a slasher fan I found it to be reasonably enjoyable but it is only a rather minor entry.
Review of Mortuary
