If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

How sad is this?

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

As far as little-known and hard to find low budget horrors go, this one was pretty good.As it the case with most low budget/b movie films, the quality of the overall work tends to be a bit up and down and Mortuary is no exception. There was some good acting and some bad as well as some clever elements in the screenplay and some daft. There was also some dodgy editing now and again.However, overall the performances (especially the female lead) were decent enough to be believable and the screenplay was quite engaging and I was not bored at any time. Best of all, there are some genuinely spooky scenes in this film (mainly towards the end) which had me a little freaked out - I'm thinking mainly of the electrics that kept going on and off in the house and the freaky-looking cloaked & hooded guy outside the house that is trying to get the girl.I watched a low-quality VHS rip of this on youtube and I think a good quality DVD of this would further enhance my enjoyment of it. Would definitely give this a go again if I ever came across a better quality version.

"Mortuary" is a basically adequate slasher, with strong echoes of "Happy Birthday to Me" at times, that gets by thanks to some of its acting. Mary Beth McDonough of 'The Waltons' stars as Christie, a college age young woman who lost her father to an "accident" in the family pool. Other characters occasionally bite the dust as Christie gets terrorized by a cloaked and white faced figure who follows her around. Eventually, all is made clear at the mortuary run by a Mr. Andrews (the late, always solid Christopher George in what was sadly his final film role). Now, it's far from hard to figure out whodunit, especially after a red herring has been dealt with, but making this work as a murder mystery may never have been paramount for director Howard Avedis, who wrote and produced the film with his actress wife Marlene Schmidt (who plays the mother of male lead David Wallace, whom you might remember from the Canadian horror favourite "Humongous"). Avedis, a veteran in exploitation, had also been behind such films as "The Teacher" and "The Fifth Floor", and spices up his film with a bit of sex and nudity (although almost certainly not enough to satisfy some tastes); use of graphic violence is very minimal. McDonough is definitely appealing in the central role and her character is the sort for whom you *do* want to root. George's lovely wife Lynda Day George has one of the other major roles as Christie's mother, whom we have our doubts about. And, as often in some of these low budget offerings, there is one breakout star, and that's the always extravagant Bill Paxton, who's a total hoot as the pathetic Paul, a classical music lover who also loves Christie. One extended sequence stands out as poor Christie, who's a sleepwalker, gets stalked and spooked. One element that is also quite effective is the music score by John Cacavas, as it's very sinister throughout. There isn't too much, overall, that's especially noteworthy about the film, other than some of its principal actors, but it's not bad at all, either, and may fit the bill for die hard genre lovers. The U.S. trailer features a sequence with actor Michael Berryman that, needless to say, didn't make the final cut of the film. Six out of 10.

Howard Avedis, better known for directing sleazy erotic thrillers, tries his hand at horror and does a rather decent job. He gets plenty help from a capable cast (with a few notable exceptions) and screenwriter Marlene Schmidt, who appeared in a few of his earlier films. MORTUARY follows the life of tortured college girl Mary McDonough whose father was killed in an unfortunate accident. Mary seems to be the only person who thinks her old man was murdered and when her jockish bore of a boyfriend spots her mother at a seance, he feels Mary's mommy (Lynda Day George) may be a bit of a Satanist.The film's title comes from the place where much of the shady doings and bumps in the night occur--the local mortuary. Lynda Day George attends seances there because the head of her cult is Christopher George, the mortuary manager. He is grooming his son, Bill Paxton, who has more than a schoolboy crush on Mary, to take over the family business. The boy seems too preoccupied with chasing Mary around and embalming hot blonds than taking his job seriously. Thngs begin to stir up when a cloaked figure begins chasing Mary around. Mary thinks her father's killer is coming to finish off the family.STORY: $$$ (Marlene Schmidt pens a slightly better than average script here. There are some plot turns and some nifty devices but nothing too influential. One of the main questions the script puts forth is what Lynda is doing at these bizarre cloaked rituals. Is she trying to communicate with the dead or is she Satan's slave? Marlene's script could have played with Lynda's cult a little more to add to the suspense, but the suspense really wasn't lacking. This was a rather good screenplay--B-Rate horror standards).ACTING: $$$ (The acting is pretty good all the way around, with the notable exception of the blond jock that played Mary McDonough's boyfriend. The guy wasn't convincing and seemed clueless as to what to do on screen when he didn't have any lines. It's no shock that I haven't seen that guy in anything else. Mary McDonough is fine in the lead building a sympathetic character and Chritopher George and his real life wife Lynda Day are fine as always in their supporting roles. Lynda gets to play a more sassy role; quite in contrast to her more delicate female roles in flicks like ANTS. But the movie belongs to Bill Paxton who slam dunks his role of a socially awkward mortuary attendant. It was quite clear that Mr. Paxton was well on his way to bigger and better things).NUDITY: $$$ (Since this was helmed by Howard "Let's See Some Boobs" Avedis, there is a sprinkling on nudity throughout the film. Paxton embalms a pretty blond early in the film and Mary McDonough has a romp with her boyfriend before her extended nude scene in which Paxton plans to embalm her. The buxom Lynda Day George keeps herself under wraps but does offer some titillation with a lowcut nightgown that displays the type of cleavage all men wish their wives had).

Before your funeral...Before you are buried...Before you are covered with the last shovelful of dirt...Be sure you are really dead! Ha ha, wise words there by the marketing men behind MORTUARY. All joking aside, it's a very good bit of advice; I certainly would like to be absolutely certain I'M dead before I'm buried anywhere. MORTUARY is not a bad little '80's number. Pretty watchable; Mr George is as good as ever in what turned out to be, sadly, his final film, or cinematic epitaph. I liked the use of Mozart in this film; it helped soothe my jangling nerves during some of the more nastier moments. The only thing that really disturbed me about my MORTUARY viewing experience was how I woke up naked by the end credits; I have no idea how this happened as I was fully clothed when I fell asleep.