Mortuary

Summary

“I could run things much smoother if people died from nine to five…”
Mortuary was originally released on Blu-ray by Code Red and Scorpion Releasing. That title sold out years ago and now it has been given a new release by the MVD Rewind Collection with a new slipcover bearing the MVD Rewind logo. Fans of lesser known Eighties horror cinema should be pleased to see many of the out of print titles from Code Red and Scorpion finding new life under the MVD Rewind brand. Mortuary was of particular interest to me because I knew that the film featured an early performance by the late actor Bill Paxton. I am an unabashed Bill Paxton fan and that was a big selling point for me. I sat down and watched the film the other night.
A girl named Kristi (Mary Beth McDonough) arrives at a spacious mansion near the coast. She looks out towards the house’s pool where her father is. She watches as her father is beaten with a bat from a mysterious assailant. He drowns in the pool, but no one believes that Kristi saw anything. They believe it must have been an accidental drowning. Two friends, Josh and Greg (David Wysocki), drive in Greg’s van to a large warehouse owned by a local mortician. The owner of the mortuary – Hank Andrews (Christopher George)- owes Josh $150 from before he fired him, so Josh has come to the warehouse to hopefully steal some tires. Josh and Greg stumble upon a strange site – five women are encircled around Mr. Andrews in some sort of ritual – possibly a seance. They recognize one of the women is Mrs. Parsons (Lynda Day George.) Josh walks back into the warehouse and finds a coffin with an actual corpse inside it. He recognizes the body as being Mrs. Andrews. While screaming for Greg, Josh is killed by a masked assailant wearing a hooded cape who uses an embalming instrument to stab Josh to death. Greg searches for his friend as Josh’s van peels out of the parking lot. Greg and his girlfriend Kristi find Josh’s van at a skating rink where their friends are, but there is no sign of Josh anywhere. When they exit the skating rink, Josh’s van is missing. At school, Paul (Bill Paxton,) the nerdy son of the mortician, asks if he can play a Mozart recording for Kristi. It is obvious he has a crush on her, but she basically blows him off. Kristi goes home and is followed by someone while she is driving. At home she tells her mother that a killer is after her, maybe the same killer that killed her father. That night, in a trance, Kristi walks into the pool where her father was murdered. She awakens and begins to walk back when a black-caped killer says her name and pursues her. The next day, at the police station, Mr. Andrews is displeased when Greg tells the police what he saw at the warehouse. Kristi and Greg continue to investigate the disappearance of their friend while the caped killer is out there.
Mortuary is an enjoyable low budget horror film that benefits from an extremely memorable finale. The film does not build suspense properly for much of the movie and definitely suffers from some pacing issues, but it more than makes up for those issues at the end of the film with an outlandish final sequence that I really enjoyed. Like many horror films from the Eighties, the film is more silly than it is scary, but fun is had from some of the more eccentric ideas in the film. The will be best enjoyed by fans of Bill Paxton, although fans of Grizzly will also enjoy seeing both Christopher and Lynda Day George in prominent roles in the film. This is a pretty minor horror film, but the finale rescues it from some of the pacing issues that slow down the film initially.
Video

MVD Rewind have provided a transfer of Mortuary in 1080p using an MPEG-4 AVC codec. The film is presented in the aspect ratio of 1.78:1 aspect ratio. This is the same transfer that Code Red supplied on their 2017 release. Like other Code Red transfers, the film has been cleaned up but doesn’t reach the typical quality control of larger labels. That said, this transfer looks pretty good overall. There is some minor print damage and specking and some color fluctuations, but this is definitely going to please fans of the film that are updating from their old VHS copies.

Audio

MVD Rewind has provided an English LPCM 2.0 track. This track is not that robust, but it is a pretty clear track overall.

Supplements:

Interview with Composer John Cacavas – Nathaniel Thompson interviewed the composer about his career before the composer passed away. Thompson is a talented interviewer and Cacavas seems to enjoy looking back on his career even when he has difficulty remembering much about his work on movies like Mortuary.
Trailers

Overall Scores:

Video – 4/5

Audio – 4/5

Supplements – 2/5

Overall – 3.5/5

Mortuary is a fairly minor horror film for most of its runtime, but the finale of the film is a lot of fun and very memorable. Fans of the late great Bill Paxton will find themselves really tickled by his performance here. While the film may not quite reach “classic” status, I am certainly happy to have it in my collection. I am happy that MVD Rewind has started rereleasing some of the Code Red titles that have gone out of print. Fans of the film shouldn’t sleep on this release which also features a nice slipcover. Newcomers might want to rent prior to a purchase.