Mortuary
The film opens up as Christie Parson (Mary Beth McDonough of TV's The Waltons) arrives home, just as her father is about to get hit over the head with a baseball bat by an unknown person. Christie then sees her father in the swimming pool, dead. A few months have passed and Christie is having dreams of her father's death. She believes that someone killed her father, but her mother, Eve (Lynda Day George), thinks it was all an accident and doesn't believe her, suggesting she see a psychiatrist.
Christie's boyfriend, Greg Stevens (David Wallace), was recently in a mortuary wharehouse with his friend, Josh (Denis Mandel), when Josh suddenly took off in Greg's black van. Searching all over town, Christie and Greg finally find the van in a nearby roller rink parking lot, but it's locked. They decide to go inside and look for Josh, but he's nowhere to be found. When they go back to the parking lot, the van is gone. What they don't know is that Josh was actually killed with an embalming tool by someone donning a white mask and black cape, who drove away with Greg's van.
Finally, Sheriff Duncan (Bill Conklin) finds Greg's van in a bus station. The sheriff and Josh's former mortuary boss, Hank Andrews (Christopher George), accuse Greg of trying to cover up Josh's disappearance. Although, while Greg and Josh were in the wharehouse, they saw Andrews involved in a seance with woman in black capes. Greg tells the sheriff of the seance, but Andrews denies it and labels him as a lyer. What Greg didn't tell the police or Christie, was that one of the woman was Christie's mother.
Christie starts to believe that her mother and Andrews, who have been seeing each other, were involved in her father's death, now wanting her gone. Christie also starts to sleepwalk, one night nearly escaping the killer after she awakes. Her mother doesn't believe her, and Christie believes she is trying to call her crazy. Who could possibly want to kill Christie? Attempting to uncover the baffling, terrifying happenings, Christie and Greg finally discover the killer's real identity.
There's something about Christopher George '80s horror movies that I really enjoy. He did three hunks of cheese in 1981: Graduation Day, Pieces (with his wife), and this one. Lynda Day George, his wife, is cast again alongside her husband in another cheesefest! This being one of his last films before he died of a heart attack, I found the plot very easy to figure out. Right from the start, I blindly guessed the killer's identity, but there are several clues along the way. Bill Paxton, who later went on to bigger-budget films, plays Paul, the slightly eccentric son of George's character, who works at his father's mortuary. In one scene, Paxton's character trolips merrily through a graveyard like it's in fast forward! Many times, I loathed the characters' often stupidity. I must admit, there were a few times that almost made me jump, and I thought the killer's disguise was a bit creepy. The killer's moves are very similar to those of 1996's Scream, especially the way his cape flows with him as he glides towards his victims. I found the ending to be pretty silly, though. This is another great cheesy horror film that I enjoyed very much. Recommended to any gorehound!
