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Mortuary (1983)

MORTUARY

After her father’s mysterious death, Christy (Mary McDonough) suffers from sleepwalking and night terrors. Making things worse, no one beliefs her claims of a ghoul faced killer lurking in the shadows. When she learns her mother is in a coven of witches, Christy begins to distrust everyone in her life. Is her mother trying to drive her crazy or is there a more sinister figure at work? It’s up to Christy’s boyfriend to save her before she ends up on the slab.

Oddly enough the victims in this are not the main heroine’s friends nor they hardly have any screen time and plus the killer’s weapon of choice, a giant embalming needle, is a change of pace from garden tools and kitchen utensils. This movie does manage a few surprises and jolts but they give the killer’s identity away half way through the film. Still, they have one wicked twist at the end. They give their slasher motivations other than simple revenge. The witches subplot is unnecessary and never really develops into anything of importance.

Like some other 80’s slashers this one has another pre famous star and that is Bill Paxton who Paul the nerd, a goofy loser one almost feels sorry for as he skips across a graveyard with a handful of roses. Christopher and Susan Day George don’t much apart from become victims of the killer. David Wallace as Christy’s boyfriend is gorgeous and is a bit wimpy but in all he did an OK job and Mary McDonough shaking of her wholesome girl next door image she had in The Waltons brings a wholesome, vulnerable quality to her character, but her sleepwalking scenes are a little embarrassing and rather pointless.

Mortuary has some clichés, but also has a few twists and surprises. There is little blood or gore, but there is one really intense murder. The cover of the video is totally wrong as it makes you think that this is some kind of Zombie flick and it isn’t which is very misleading but all in all this ain’t a bad film, not brilliant though but worth watching.