Last night was a pleasant surprise. As any of you who have been reading my ramblings for the last few years know, I have not been one to give much praise to Tobe Hooper of late. I have been quite frank in my opinion of his recent endeavors and was down right nasty when it came to talking about his Masters of Horror fiasco.
Last night Mr. Hooper scored a few points in my book. I, for whatever reason, sat down last night and watched his latest film Mortuary (Review #1) on Sci-Fi channel. You know what? It didnt suck, not even a little bit. Actually it was great.
Spoilers lie ahead, so proceed with caution.
Mortuary tells the tale of a widowed mother of two whom in an attempt to better things for her family moves them all to a rural town where she is going to take over the local mortuary. The business ends of things are in the basement with the graveyard conveniently located right out the front door. They live in the upstairs part of the building which also houses what appear to be the viewing rooms for friends and family of the deceased. When they arrive the place is basically a shack, it is in serious need of repair. She tries to make the best part of it as do her kids. The son, who is the oldest of the two siblings heads into town and lands himself a job at the local diner and also manages to piss off a couple of the local bullies but at the same time attracts the attention of a local girl. Through her he learns the local legend of the folks who occupied the house prior to them. It has to do with a deformed child who is rumored to still live in one of the crypts in the graveyard.
In the meantime the youngest of the two kids, a daughter, proceeds to help her mom set up shop and plays around the house. Some secret passages and stuff are found, blah , blah, blah. Now that all the players are in place, the fun starts. What basically happens is the bullies that had a run in with the son earlier in the show come by the graveyard to wreak some havoc and end up discovering that most of the local legend is true. At this point the film really kicks into high gear becoming a kind of zombie, Night of the Creeps hybrid. Actually, now that I think about it the last part of Mortuary reminds me a whole lot of Slither which opens this weekend. Anyway, we got folks puking up black sludge, we got corpses getting up and walking around, we got amputations, mutilations, just all kinds of gory fun. And this was on Sci-Fi Channel. I cant wait for the DVD of this one to come out and see all the fun that Sci-Fi decided was to nasty for us to see.
This is probably the best of all the horror films I have seen on Sci-Fi.
Tobe Hooper does a great job directing this one. The mood and atmosphere is creepy from frame one. I actually jumped a few times which hasnt happened in quite a while. The acting is pretty strong across the board with only the dude who plays the sheriff coming off as a little off kilter. Maybe that was the way the role was written to be played but it seemed a little strange to have this one character so weak with everyone else playing their roles to the hilt.
All in all I have come away form this film with a renewed sense of enthusiasm for what the future may hold for the career of Tobe Hooper. He has proven, at least to me, that he can still do it if he puts his mind to it.
My hat off to you sir.
OFFICIAL SITE - includes trailer (windows media/quicktime)
Mortuary is due on DVD April 11th, 2006. Pre-order it at Amazon.com
