“Get out of here before I embalm you!”

Drake’s rating: Disco is dead! DEAD I tell you!

Drake’s review: So it turns out that one of those pointy surgical thingies with a tube attached is called a trocar. I had no idea. Really, it wasn’t something I ever wanted to know, but it’s the weapon of choice for the killer in Mortuary, and in an attempt to be an informative Mutant Reviewer, I did a bit of research.

Interestingly enough, hitting Ctrl+F on my Mutant Contract also turns up three instances of the word “trocar” appearing. I have no idea why. I should really get around to reading that someday.

But the trocar is probably the most original thing about Mortuary, an odd little wannabe-slasher from the early ‘80s. Now, by 1982 the slasher flick was well-established. We were two Michael Myers and three Jasons into the genre, and a plethora of imitators dogged their heels and filled theater seats across the country. Mortuary, to its credit, tries to upend the tried-and-true formula a bit but the problem is, it doesn’t have anything to fill in the gaps that are left after it throws out the common slasher tropes.

After a slightly confusing introductory murder, we meet Josh and Greg, just your average, every day teenage boys who are stealing a set of tires from a mortuary warehouse. It seems that Hank, the mortician, fired Josh and the enterprising lad aims to recoup his lost wages with a bit of larceny. The two spy the mortician himself indulging in a bit of séance LARPing with some ladies from the town, and then Josh wanders off and gets himself trocar’d by a white-faced ghoul all duded up in a flowing black robe. Greg goes looking for his friend, only to see Josh’s van driving off without him.

Bummed out to the max, because it’s 1982, Greg hooks up with his girlfriend Christie, who dreams about her murdered father and sleepwalks a lot, to do some Scooby-Dooing and track down the missing Josh. Their search takes them to the disco-themed roller rink and…

Wait, what? Let me check the date on this again. Yeah, it says 1982. Huh. I mean, sure, maybe there was a disco-themed roller rink still in existence in 1982. Somewhere. Maybe East Germany? That was still a thing in ‘82.

OK, I’m gonna let this one slide, but I’m watching you, Mortuary.

So at the (sigh) disco-themed roller rink, Greg and Christie meet up with their friends, who in any other slasher could be referred to as “the soon-to-be-victims.” Not in Mortuary, though. Nope. None of them are menaced, much less dismembered, by the black-clad killer, and the movie moves on from them without a second thought. Instead of slashings we get some soap opera melodrama and quite a bit of Christie running around a dark manor in her nightgown. We also meet Paul, the school weirdo who is the first, last, and only suspect that Mortuary cares to introduce.

And just to make things more uncomfortable, Paul is Hank’s son. Hank is played by Christopher George. Paul is rather smitten with Christie, whose mother Eve is played by Linda Day George. Linda Day George was Christopher George’s real life wife and, yeah. We’re getting into some bizarre territory here.

The movie meanders around a bit more, we get to spend some quality time with Paul as he happily embalms away, dark secrets are revealed and Greg and Christie get some alone time and are assaulted by a rogue stereo that randomly blares out… disco music.

OK, movie. I’m tapping out. This is giving me PTSD from that time my sister came home with the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.

For all its faults (including the unnecessary disco assault), Mortuary is an interesting little oddity. Relying more on mood and ambiance than your average slasher, it nevertheless wants to be far more mysterious than it really is. More of a soapy thriller than a slasher, it benefits greatly from a veteran cast that not only includes the Georges, but The Waltons actress Mary McDonough in the lead role of Christie as well. I have no idea who she played, I just know it wasn’t John Boy. Add in a young Bill Paxton playing Paul with some real oddball energy and this one’s worth a watch, as long as you’re not expecting too much.

Just keep the remote close by and your finger on the mute button. That disco music comes out of nowhere.

Intermission!

• Why are there tires in the mortuary warehouse, anyway? Do they occasionally embalm a Chevy?
• Not gonna lie. Christopher George smugs well.
• Anyone else up for a séance? It’s BYOR (Bring Your Own Robe).
• Every time the screenwriters got stuck, I think they wrote, “Christie runs around in her nightgown.”