Mortuary (1983) — Triskaidekafiles

MORTUARY

WRITERS: Howard Avedis and Marlene Schmidt

DIRECTOR: Howard Avedis

STARRING: Mary McDonough as Christie Parson

David Wallace as Greg Stevens

Bill Paxton as Paul Andrews

Lynda Day George as Eve Parson

Christopher George as Hank Andrews

QUICK CUT: A pair of families try and cope with their mutual losses in recent months

THE MORGUE

Christie - A young woman who’s father recently died. She hasn’t been taking it well, and has been having trouble sleeping. When she’s not sleepwalking, she’s doing her best with classes and her social life.

Greg - Christie’s boyfriend, and occasional partner in crime for other members of the cast. He’s always willing to help out, and will protect his friends.

Paul - The weird kid who’s dad owns the mortuary. Would you be surprised to learn he’s played by Bill Paxton?

Eve - Christie’s mother, who is trying to get through her own grief over the loss of her husband. Like many parents, she doesn’t believe her daughter’s genuine concerns.

Mr. Andrews - Paul’s dad, Eve’s confidant, and the mortician in the area. He likes doing weird rituals in the middle of the night.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! This week, I'm dusting off a movie that I always felt should've been done around the time of what I call my "green eyed trilogy". This one didn't have any particular green eyes, but it did have Lynda George who was in Beyond Evil, and following Mausoleum with Mortuary would have been a no brainer. But, I uh...didn't do that. But I'm finally doing it now! And it’s after another movie with green eyes! Shush!

The movie opens with Christie coming home just in time to find her father dead in the pool. As the audience, we see someone smack him with a baseball bat, but the death will be ruled an accident, and only Christie will believe he was murdered.

We cut from there to some time later with Josh, who just got fired from the local mortuary, seeking to get a little revenge and do a little thieving from a warehouse the mortuary uses. He's enlisted his friend Greg to be his wheelman, since he has a van.

Josh is just there to steal a few tires, to get back what his boss owes him, but they poke around a bit longer. Who can resist exploring a warehouse when no one is looking?

They find a bunch of stuff laying around; from the more or less expected mortuary equipment, to costume pieces, and even a Chekov's gun.

Greg hears some noise, and goes to investigate, finding a room full of chanting women, led by a man in dark robes. A man who turns out to be Josh's old boss, Hank Andrews

It turns out they are doing a seance, communing with the souls of the dead, and everyone is shockingly calm about all of this.

Josh goes to get his tires so they can get out of there, but they appear to have been moved from where he left them. He stumbles across a dead body, and starts to get worried.

Someone jumps out from behind all the junk, and gets Josh in the gut with some morticians tools, spilling his blood everywhere

Greg gets bored of waiting and watching the seance, and goes looking for his friend. He doesn't find Josh, or his body, but he does see the van speeding off. Well, I guess it's the cult's van now.

He somehow gets ahold of his girlfriend, who just so happens to be Christie. They talk about what just happened, assuming it was Josh who took the van. And so they decide to look for him at the skating rink. Ahh, the 80s.

They find the van there, but no Josh. And when they come back out, the van has once again gone missing. Feels like a bit of a random scene to cram in roller skating, but whatever.

We get to school for a brief moment the following morning, and run into Paul, the son of the mortician, who is none to subtly interested in Christie.

After Greg marks his territory, he has Christie take him to the sheriff's office, since they found his van. But still no sign of Josh. There’s a bit of yelling by the sheriff, and Greg flat out accuses Mr. Andrews of holding a seance, but nothing comes of it.

On the way home, a car starts following Christie home, and it freaks her out. Having her mom jumpscare her isn't helping.

That night, Christie has a nightmare, and starts wandering around for a good five minutes, because what this movie really needs is a sleepwalker.

She sees a cloaked figure that calls out her name, and freaks out. She runs inside, waking up her mother, who insists there was no one there, she's mixing up dreams and reality, everything she says is wrong.

Greg has to make a delivery to the mortuary, and it at least serves as a chance to spend time with the Andrews, giving us a bit of time to flesh out their characters' some more.

Later, Christie and Greg are hanging out, and the power has gone out at her house. They light candles, and start a fire, and there's a lot of silliness with the power going on and off. This is never explained, I think?

Seeing a shadow move past the window, they go to defend themselves, but for the moment, it appears to be Christie's mom. She says this is all part of Christie's "overactive imagination" as the gaslighting continues.

The next day, they follow mom who meets up with Mr. Andrews, and Christie recognises the car. They think the adults are heading to the warehouse for more seance, and head there. There is someone lurking around, but their paths never cross.

After not finding anything there, the couple head to the mortuary, and do indeed find the adults holding a seance.

Following the seance, Greg and Christie head back to her place, and start having sex on the living room carpet. While that's going on, Darth Vader the peeping tom watches them from outside.

Christie gets freaked out and calls off the sex, and Greg...doesn't take it great, but better than probably expected for the early 80s. He could still learn a little "no means no". But to drive the point home, Christie breaks it off with him for now, at least until she can get her shit together.

It's another rough night of nightmares for Christie, and she does some more post-nightmare wanderings. Outside, she sees the hooded figure again, calling to her, and while he still is all made up like Brain Guy, and doing a raspy voice, we do get a real good look at him...

Gasp. Shock. It is Bill Paxton. Who could have seen such a twist coming.

Paul beckons to her, begging her to open the window, and uh...she does! Kinda! And by that I mean, she smashes it open with the knife in her hand.

Mom is woken up by all the noise, and bandages up Christie's hand. While doing so, she exposition dumps that Paul didn't take his mother's death well, and went a bit around the bend. He should be in an institution, but his father said no, he could take better care of his son at home. And how is that working out??

With all that commotion out of the way, everyone goes back to bed, but Mrs. Parson has someone waiting in bed for her. Paul is there, and kills her right then and there.

Christie discovers her mom's body, and her killer, and is chased around the house for a bit, before she can escape outside.

She runs back to the house after losing Paul, locks the doors, and good plan, but isn't there still a giant broken window?

Paul unsurprisingly appears, and chokes Christie until she passes out. My bigger question is, she clearly walked by where he had to be hiding, and somehow missed him?

At the roller rink, Greg decides to go check on Christie, try and make up with her, and leaves. On his way to her place though, he sees the mortuary car driving in the opposite direction, and puts enough together, to go after them.

Paul is taking the two women to the mortuary, to prepare mom's body, and to embalm the still living Christie.

Hank Andrews arrives while his son is busy, and interrupts him in the middle of his process. This ends up getting the father killed, and on the upside? He's at least in the second best place to have a fatal incident occur.

Greg finally shows up, and we wander the mortuary for a bit, until finally finding Paul. He locks Greg in one of the rooms, and goes off to finish his work.

...Hey! Remember when this movie was all about weird seances at a warehouse? What happened to all that?

Paul carts off all his bodies to the warehouse, and Greg gets out of the room he's in, and gives pursuit. Not like the guy is gonna go anywhere else, I guess.

At the warehouse, Paul has all his victims, including his mother and Christie's father, all arrayed around a makeshift altar, and they are all made up like corpses. Since they, uh, kinda are. Well, save for Christie. Paul is still working on that one.

Greg shows up, and grabs the gun from earlier, as Paul rants about his master plan to marry the corpse bride, Christie, and they will be together forever.

When Greg tries to use the gun, there's a loud noise, but not much else happens, because we learn the gun was loaded with blanks. And hey, that's not ENTIRELY safe...

Meanwhile, Christie has woken up, finds a convenient axe laying around, and takes care of her wannabe husband, giving this a swift conclusion.

Greg comforts his girlfriend, and everyone lives happily ever after...NOPE! Paul's mom hasn't REALLY been dead this whole time, and leaps up to avenge her son, by attacking the end credits.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It’s solid for an early 80s movie. Not the best, but still above average.

Audio: I found the audio to be really low, for some reason. It seemed to get better, or maybe I just got used to it.

Sound Bite: “The bride will be embalmed, and then we can start the wedding ceremony!"

Body Count: A decent amount, but nothing terribly notable.

1 - Two and a half minutes in, and Christie's dad gets clocked with a bat and drowns in the pool

2 - Josh gets his guts tubed out.

3 - Eve Parson gets stabbied to death

4 - Paul stabbies his daddy in the morgue

5 - And then Paul gets axed by Christy

Best Corpse: The most notable movie for me is Josh’s. It sets the tone, and is a decent bloody moment. The other noteworthy death would be Mrs. Parson, but it gets a bit over the top.

Blood Type - C-: The movie is lacking in the blood department. It has a few moments, but still on the light side. The best makeup is making the actors look like made up corpses, which IS well done.

Sex Appeal: We get to see some boobs while Paul is prepping Christie for embalming. No thank you!

Drink Up! every time someone tells Christie it’s all in her head.

Movie Review: This is an almost aggressively average movie. There’s nothing terribly BAD about it. It’s a very basic slasher, with a few fun trappings to it. The most notable thing to it is, you guessed it, Bill Paxton. It’s overall well acted, it’s well shot, but there are a few things that go nowhere; the seances, the power flickering, the several friends who are there for two scenes and just as many lines, the roller rink…The movie has some nice window dressing, but it doesn’t do much with some of the stuff it has. But when it makes decent use of the main cast, it’s almost forgivable. But the plot is good, and at least there;s some unique weapons, and the final act carries things through. Three out of five trocars.

Entertainment Value: I had fun watching everyone tell Christie she was wrong, and Lynda George and Paxton are great as always. The spooky killer has a nice vibe to it. And again, the ending is a wild romp, if a bit quick. I needed more of those last 10 minutes. Two out of five hearses.