I can say that this has left a bad taste in my mouth. Now, I won't call it the worst movie I ever seen because that for sure doesn't constitute that title, there is a wide selection which do that while generally not trying to bomb themselves with terrible misdirection but Mortuary Massacre definitely puts itself in the position of being just BAD.
The main premise of this horror joy is a grind house anthology film. Detective Giger finds himself at the mortuary on Halloween night to investigate a string of mysterious deaths that took place that same night. The local mortician distincts three particular bodies that shove off the movie in a myriad of terrible story but decent gore scenes.
I will say that when the movie first starts to roll out that it was interesting. It did give the feeling of the fast, clip and snip, mish mash of old movie theater adds and that grind house feel of a very off but unatural feeling that those films carried on. Once getting past that glimpse of hope you know you're in for a ride of disaster within the first few lines.
Body 1 details a apartment manager hellbent on getting his damn tenants to show him some respect while drowning away in booze, pills, and a writing prompt that gives nothing to the story but hey, lets just add it into the movie right? The apartment manager goes about his business attending to the building and has a series of hallucinations. These go anywhere from pulling severed hands out of a pool filter, a naked woman with body parts bathing in blood, zombie nazi's, and pig faced cannibals. As the resolution comes to light towards the end you can't help but think what direction was this really suppose to go in with some of these characters getting involved and how they were really trying to approach this as a twist of "you see one thing but it's really the other". This one I could easy skip, and not give a second thought at and would be glad to never hear "WANNA BE TAGGERS!" again.
Body 2 switches pace as 4 friends for a Halloween party celebrate their last hooray as our main protagonist and her boyfriend want to move back to Ohio from the ever rich and busy LA lifestyles. As the group agrees with the ever expensive living cost our main character tells us that her father used to tell stories of a lost relative who was sheriff of the town they reside in and how the baddest outlaw "Snake Eyed Jack" had a treasure hidden away but could never find. Noting that mentioning this could fix their troubles, the others question her on the where abouts and she just chalks it up to superstition and wives tales. Well, sure enough after that odd mention, why don't her friends just give her a scrying mirror to potentialy mess with and raise the spirit of Snaked Eyed Jack himself and bring death and destruction upon her friends and even herself. The conclusion here was better and probably a little more on the cliche side but at least it had some sort of structure to bear.
Body 3 follows a wanna be actor in Hollywood trying to make it big but to our eyes and ears keeps losing his rolls to the conveted "Grant". Our protagonist is failing at his auditions with his wanna be producer and he couldn't care less of what our poor star wants if it doesn't have Grants name on it. As he struggles to come to terms we learn he's getting evicted and faces becoming broke, and on top of that his girlfriend cheating on him with the Grant man himself. As the world crumbles around his he finally breaks as his stability vanishes and this wanna be star feels that maybe a man of many faces can open up more opportunities. This film has you to a point but unfortunately falls apart at the very end, it definitely had the potential but I wouldn't say a total failure. Out of all the stories, I feel this one stands fine by itself.
As all stories come to an end so does the detective's as he finishes hearing these stories of gore a price is paid and all is revealed. Very confusingly.
To wrap this all up, it was just a mess. I understand where the feeling was going but absolutely everything else outside of a gore splatter, face mutilation, or just pure "what the fuck are you doing?" is fallen to the wayside. The audio cuts out terribly, the constant over lay of a film filter for the entire movie makes you want to scream almost. If you want to give it that old feel, then I would suggest to film that way. Your Imovie edits won't work with a general audience. This movie as a whole is almost like a portfolio review for SFX works and within the grind house/splatter house genre that would be fine but please don't fool yourself with a half ass narrative that cannot.
by Kurtis
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