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DVD Review
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| Director |
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Tobe Hooper
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| Cast |
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Dan Byrd
Denise Crosby
Stephanie Patton
Alexandra Adi
Rocky Marquette
Courtney Peldon
Bug Hall
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| Distributor |
| Anchor Bay UK |
| DVD Origin |
| United Kingdom |
| DVD Release Date |
| 9th October 2006 |
| Running Time |
| 90 Minutes |
| Number of Disks |
| 1 |
| Certification |
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15
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Reviewed By
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Ryan McDonald
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Buy this film
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MORTUARY (2005)
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Single mum Crosby moves her family (Byrd, Patton) to a small town where she will be looking after the local mortuary, hoping to rake in the cash. The house is decrepit, creepy moss starts to grow everywhere, the septic tank is seriously backed up, there’s a ghoulish graveyard just outside, and there’s also the expected troublesome backstory about the previous owners. Needless to say, it’s not long before it all starts to hit the fan.
If ever you needed proof that Tobe Hooper is a hack who just got lucky with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, well…you just need to look at his other films. Actually, that’s not quite fair. Lifeforce was enough of a bizarre idea to be watchable, Poltergeist is a favourite of many even if it seems to have
little of the director’s influence in it, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected. But if you look at Hooper’s recent resumé (Crocodile, The Toolbox Murders and the abysmal Masters of Horror segment Dance of the Dead etc.), things definitely look bad for the guy.
Unfortunately, Mortuary is not going to change anyone’s perception of Hooper’s recent form. This is a truly uninspired, clichéd, agonisingly slow (in the words of the Monty Python gang ‘Get on with it!’), and instantly forgettable genre flick, that honestly could’ve been directed by anyone. The storyline shamelessly aped Pet Sematary (co-starring the acting-deprived Crosby), The Shining, a H.P. Lovecraft tale (especially evident at the climax), and The Amityville Horror all at once, and none too well. It’s also completely without chills- I mean, this film’s idea of a monster is a guy with a cleft pallet and deformed hands. Oooh, how scary! Did I mention that said freak seems inspired by Boo Radley? And don’t get me started on that horribly botched projectile vomit scene. Oh, and if you’re a zombie movie fan…skip this film, you and your mates could make a more worthwhile and energetic zombie flick than this in your own backyard. It’s as if Hooper and the screenwriters have taken this great set and done the absolute least interesting, least original thing with it.
It’s not all bad, though. The production design is typically excellent for this kind of horror film. The house looks fabulously hideous, and you all know by now that I love a good, foggy graveyard. You could be the worst director in the world and that set would still work well enough at least some of the time, and does so here. Meanwhile, even though the characters are either dull or unlikeable, some of the performances aren’t too shabby. Byrd, despite occasionally looking like he thinks his mother is totally hot (just watch it and tell me I’m wrong), gives a fine performance under the circumstances, playing the film’s only truly likeable major character. He plays the role straight down the line and is just about the only believable actor on show here. The scene-stealer, though, is veteran character actress Lee Garlington (you’ll probably recognise the face), as the local waitress who gives Byrd a job. She’s good fun to have around, even if the diner set looks eerily like the one Hooper used in Dance of the Dead. Well, at least Mortuary can claim that its better than “Dance” was. Crosby, unfortunately, is no Jack Nicholson, and her inability to convincingly convey her character’s dramatic transformations is a major flaw. She has one acting style: flat. I didn’t buy her as a well-meaning mother, and I certainly didn’t buy the rest of her characterisation. I know Trekkies (sorry, Trekkers) are probably gonna call for my blood here, but that girl seriously can’t act. So sue me!
I just don’t know what Hooper was doing here. Was he suffering from narcolepsy at the time? The plagiaristic screenplay by Adam Gierasch and Jace Anderson gives Hooper little to work with (why didn’t they throw an Indian burial ground into the mix while they were at it?), but the guy does so little with it, that one has to wonder whether he’s just plain given up. Has he succumbed to a life of mediocrity? The only reason I’m going to give this film a not-so awful score is because it’s too damn forgettable to be too nasty to it. And the mortuary itself is pretty darn cool.
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Score
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4 / 10
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