Mortuary (2005)
By: Devon Bertsch on June 27, 2006. 
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| IDT (Australia). Region 4, PAL. 1.78:1 (16:9 enhanced). English DD 5.1. 90 minutes |
| The Movie |
| Cover Art |
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| Credits |
Director: Tobe Hooper
Starring: Denise Crosby,
Dan Byrd, Stephanie Patton, Alexandra Adi, Rocky
Marquette
Screenplay: Jace Anderson,
Adam Gierasch
Country: USA |
Mortuary is yet another cinematic
turd helmed by Tobe Hooper. The story concerns a
single mom (Denise Crosby, granddaughter of Bing)
moving her family into a rundown house where she's
going to start her new career as a mortician. They
settle in, despite the sleazy estate agent not even
removing dangerous chemicals prior to their arrival.
When the mom cuts her hand, the floor begins oozing,
cluing us in rather quickly that there is a supernatural
element at work. Kinda. It also seems that the family
has moved into the local boogeyman's former
house, which is always a bad idea.
Not as bad
an idea as actually watching Mortuary,
though, because this movie is boring as all fuck
and about as tense as a trip to a day spa. Like
a fourth rate Six Feet Under,
this banal film plods along destroying the brain
cells of those unfortunate enough to encounter
it. Mortuary is padded, with
scenes that should take 30 seconds playing for
three minutes. It also has terrible attempts at
humour, some downright nonsensical and confusing,
but then the the rest of the dialogue is idiotic,
so at least the scriptwriter kept it 100% awful.
Not only that, the character's tell you
what to think, as in one 'gross out'
sequence where the character involved actually
says that it's 'so wrong' (it
isn't THAT wrong, and having the character
say that makes it more of a 'so annoying'
situation).
Crosby's character is repeatedly so stupid,
I am going to have to assume she's supposed
to be an idiot. When her son has someone follow
him in the graveyard adjacent to the house, she
advises him it's a graveyard in a less than
great area, so he should take a baseball bat when
going out there. When he brings friends over,
she shows them dead bodies, even wondering aloud
if it's legal to do so. Plus, she bought
the run down shithole in the first place. She
also appears to have gotten her mortician's
license via mail order, given the skills with
which she performs the job.
To be fair, the film does have one good gag delivered
by the police officer, and there is one shock
scare that is well set up. But the rest of the
movie is terrible.
Watch for the magic keys that shift around in
a jar between shots. |
| Video |
| Mortuary is presented at 1.78:1
in a 16x9-enhanced print. The film is new, so it's
a pretty clean print aside from the occasional speck.
It it does have grain, and at times heaps of it.
The image is sharp, but the colours are a little
muted, but perhaps this was a stylistic choice. |
| Audio |
| The audio is a 5.1 track. The dialogue is a bit
low, and volume levels fluctuate. |
| Extra Features |
| For extras, we get some irrelevant trailers,
and a 54-minute behind the scenes. This feature
is made up of the usual bullshit, such as discussing
the 'eerie' location and giving various
people involved back pats. It's as worthless
as the film itself, and was put together by people
who have NO concept of keeping things interesting. |
| The Verdict |
| I watched Crocodile. I watched Eaten Alive. I even fuckin'
watched The Mangler, but this does
it! I am not going to be fooled by Tobe Hooper again
into thinking just because he's made a horror
classic, he might produce another worthwhile film. Mortuary suffers too many script
problems, the main one being that it was ever written.
Avoid this DVD, this film, and this director. |
| The Rating |
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