Mortuary (2005)

Director: Tobe Hooper
Starring: Dan Byrd, Denise Crosby, Rocky Marquette, Stephanie Patton, Adam Gierasch

SYNOPSIS

A divorced mother moves her children to a small town, intending to make a new start running the town's mortuary. The building has been closed for some time

REVIEW

Back in the 1970s, a new master of the horror genre emerged with a blackly comic, masterfully written and subtly directed movie named The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. His name was Tobe Hooper, a man who has gone on to be one of the more unfortunate names in horror history. He has directed one other seminal masterpiece - Poltergeist - but this has been plagued by constant rumours that producer Steven Spielberg and not Hooper himself was actually behind the camera.

Other than that, he has walked a painful line between innovative independent movies and bigger budget studio fare, all of which have had varying degrees of success. Some films - Spontaneous Combusion, Invaders From Mars, Night Terrors - were all-out disasters while others - Death Trap/Eaten Alive, Lifeforce - were noble failures that are decent enough films but just didn't click with audiences.

In the latter category, I'd place Hooper's 2004 slasher remake The Toolbox Murders. It's a decent enough film, though a little uneven and with a rather silly supernatural/witchcraft angle that didn't really belong. But, the direction was solid and it seemed to promise much for the future. Unfortunately, word was that despite this movie being based on a script by Toolbox writers Adam Gierasch and Jace Anderson (with a cameo, if highly disguised, acting performance by Gierasch), it was a dismal failure.

So, having just caught up with it, what's the verdict? Not good, I'm afraid. The direction is fairly flat, with a TV movie feel that makes it seem more like an extended episode of Masters Of Horror than anything that belonged on a movie screen. There's a few characters who are inserted for no other reason than the be annoying and/or "quirky", and the central motivation of the characters to be in the mortuary in the first place is pretty unconvincing to me. The movie also dragged so that by the time the inevitable undead action happens, it doesn't really have any effect.

There are a couple of nice touches, however. I liked the way that the central teenaged characters were drawn - though the annoying bullies that the son comes across are exactly that. The image of lines of fungus growning and feeding from human blood is kind of nice, and there's a couple of nice touches when we finally meet the enemy. But, it really is too little too late.

With Hooper's career having basically stalled yet again (only 2 episodes of Masters Of Horror since this, and a long-gestating adaptation of Stephen King's From A Buick 8 that may or may not be completed), this is a sad testament to a great talent who has been too often completely wasted. Let's hope he returns to form before he retires - but I keep saying that about Carpenter, Argento and Romero as well...

4 / 10