Mortuary
Review by Peter Syslo

MORTUARY(2006) is an interesting mix of different horror genres; it is part zombie film, part slasher, part ghost story, and part “infection” film. Some of these genre elements mixed together better than others and I think that the film may have lost track of itself, at times, due to this diverse mix of ideas. I thought that the film was OK and if it adhered to one or two genre ideas, it may have been better. I know that Tobe Hooper gets criticized in the horror community, for his recent efforts, but this is not one of those cases of “Hooper-bashing”. I thought that THE TOOLBOX MURDERS was a decent film, along with THE MANGLER; even CROCODILE wasn’t that bad (except for the CGI). Hooper has teamed up with the writing team of Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch on a lot of his recent films and I think that the results are always interest ing, whether or not I like the films in question.

MORTUARY is directed by Tobe Hooper and is written by Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch. The movie stars Dan Byrd, Alexandra Adi, Courtney Peldon, Rocky Marquette, Bug Hall, Stephanie Patton and Denise Crosby (“Star Trek TNG”, PET SEMATARY).

The film is about a mother-turned-mortician, Leslie ( Crosby ), who moves to a small town with her son Jonathan (Byrd) and daughter. The family moves into a run down funeral home/mortuary which was previously owned by a family with a tragic history – the Fowlers. According to local legend, the disfigured son, Bobby, was abused and isolated from the family and he turned and killed both of his parents; the “teenage” urban legend states the Bobby is still alive and haunts the graveyard next to the Fowler house. Now, with all of that going on, Jonathan is noticing strange things around the house such as a black liquid seeping up through the drains – a full septic tank was emphasized in the beginning, which apparently has somet hing to do with the “haunted” aspect of the house. After three teens disappear in the graveyard and then reappear days later, zombie-like and vomiting the black “goo”, Jonathan begins to worry. Leslie experiences the same kind of thing after she tries to embalm two corpses; they rise from the dead and vomit the black liquid into her mouth, turning her into a zombie-like creature. The film climaxes with Jonathan trying to save his family and trying to understand what is really the cause for everything that is happening.

As I said before, the film has a lot going on in it and I think that it may shift gears too many times. There is the whole story of the graveyard and Bobby Fowler, which actually isn’t bad – maybe if that was the main focus, it would have helped. Also, there is the other story of the infectious black “goo” which reanimates the dead and turns living people into “reanimated dead” beings. Whatever way you look at it, the movie seems to compete with itself and I think that it weakens some of the stronger elements (Bobby; the mortician angle). Also, the film is a little tough to follow at times and the sense of impending danger gets dispersed across several “evil entities”. However, I do like the various layers and levels of the story and I like the multi-genre influences; the movie just needed more of a solid backbone to guide it.

Cutting to the chase: MORTICIAN is basically OK. The acting wasn’t bad – Denise Crosby was the best and Dan Byrd did a pretty good job of being the “leading man” of the film. I have mixed feelings about the effects; the vomiting effects were pretty good and the overall atmosphere of the house and graveyard was pretty effective but some of the CGI and other visuals were not that realistic-looking. If you are a fan of Hooper’s work or if you enjoy the, “family-moves-into-haunted house-in-strange-town” type of film, then you may like it. I do like the basic idea behind the movie and I like the attempt to move old concepts into new territory, but that is a tricky task sometimes. At any rate, I do think that this filmmaking team has potential and I will be interested to see what they do with future projects.