Mausoleum (1983)

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Sadly Over-hyped

An action-packed slog

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

At her mother's funeral, an upset daughter runs through a graveyard before entering a steaming mausoleum. Inside, her eyes turn green and a man's head explodes. A woman, Susan (Bobbie Bresee) awakes suddenly from the terrible dream she's been having, and her husband (Marjoe Gortner) comforts her. The pair go to a nightclub and indulge in some disco dancing, and a rude drunk gets into his car which burns and explodes. An odyssey of death has just begun.Demonic possession was all the rage in the early '80s and this low budget film, which looks very cheap indeed, is surprisingly enjoyable, mainly due to the series of gory deaths which fill it up. The make up is okay too, and it's obvious where the money was spent. There isn't much plot to speak of, and explanations are given in dream sequences with no dialogue, so there isn't anything to muddle your brain while watching. It's a simple tale of a demon-possessed woman who murders literally anybody who steps into her life (and house).The gore is plentiful, including a man's eyeball coming out, and a woman's chest being graphically torn open. Another comedy moment involves a man's head exploding with a pop noise. It's hilarious, it really is! Obviously it looks like I'm a complete sicko now, but the gore is pretty ineptly done so it isn't disturbing or anything - just amusing, and overall, fun. The film is populated by strange characters, and not one person can be described as 'normal'. The gardener is a voyeur, and most of the men have sex on their minds (nothing new there).Marjoe Gortner is the curly-haired husband who remains hilariously oblivious to all the murders going on around him and to the fact that his loving wife is in fact a demon in disguise, even when he's murdered he still doesn't get it. Bobbie Bresee is a supremely untalented actress who shows a surprising willingness to strip off for the camera and prance around topless. Her bad acting is pretty funny. There's even a doctor character obviously based on Doctor Loomis from HALLOWEEN, which is no bad thing, and a black housekeeper who offers comic dialogue. Bresee's demon makeup is also pretty funny and fake. There is one unique moment in this film when Bresee's breasts become little demon faces complete with snapping teeth, and then proceed to rip out her screen husband's chest. It's a memorable scene in what is otherwise a cheaply made abomination with enough gore and bad special effects to stop it being entirely useless - just slightly. Worth a look if you're in the mood.

This incomprehensible offering squanders a decent premise by bogging it down with so many inconsistencies that the end result is an incoherent mess. Taken a bit more seriously, the basic plot line of Mausoleum could have been shaped into a real gem, but as it stands, only the most forgiving genre fan will find much of interest here.The story revolves around a woman named Susan who inherits a family curse and becomes possessed by a demonic spirit with the ability to summon psychedelic lighting and dry ice wherever it appears. When both her husband and her psychiatrist begin to suspect that something is amiss, they embark on a race against time to defeat the evil invader, while Susan keeps herself busy by getting naked and killing off any man who hits on her.Though John Carl Buechler is on board for this ride, the special effects are a decidedly mixed bag, ranging from a handful of nicely executed gore gags to one dreadfully sloppy sequence in which demon-mode Susan forces a victim to float through the air, during which the harness used to suspend the ersatz Mary Poppins from the ceiling is not only clearly visible on screen, but remains in the frame for the entire stunt so that we can see the apparatus moving along its track as the doomed woman levitates. The various stages of Susan's transformations are likewise disjointed. The more subtle touches work best; a scene in which our hexed heroine sits silently in a rocking chair with her disfigured face obscured by shadows is one of the few genuinely creepy images in the film. However, when the demon is on full display, the mounds of latex on Susan's face make her look like she's ready to audition for GWAR.Ex-Playboy bunny Bobbie Bresee offers a decent performance, but it's made abundantly clear throughout the movie that the film-makers' primary emphasis is on her multiple nude scenes. Bresee is certainly easy on the eyes, but her rather ambiguous and prototypically banal brand of attractiveness ensures that she shifts throughout the film looking alternately beautiful and bland, depending on the lighting.The biggest problem with Mausoleum is that so little of the film adheres to its own flimsy logic. The crux of Susan's monstrous manifestations seems to be her anger at being a viewed as a sex object, since she wreaks violent vengeance upon multiple men whose crass advances mark them as near future victims. Yet, she actively seduces two of her casualties, and has sex with one of them before dispatching him. Her motives become even more dicey with the random killing of a female character, whose only sin is stopping by the house to drop off some paperwork.The set-ups for the murders are so transparent that they play out like scenes from a porno script, particularly the arrival of a delivery driver who Susan invites in to "use the phone". I kept waiting for a pizza man to show up and ask Bresee, "who ordered the extra sausage?" A comic relief monologue by a sassy African-American maid ends up being one of the most memorable moments in the movie, but since this is the only time the film actively courts intentional humor, this portion ends up being perplexing and out of place. Still, it's a genuinely funny sequence, so we have to at least give Mausoleum credit for succeeding on that front.The scene in which Susan's breasts morph into snaggle-toothed, blood-thirsty mammary monsters pretty much defies critical analysis, so I'll let that dubious plot point speak for itself.Despite a few strong touches along the way, the film completely falls apart during the last reel, and once we discover that the secret weapon needed to defeat the demon is a crown of thorns (?), any chance of Mausoleum finding a steady footing is erased immediately. The final scene attempts to insert a game-changing twist, but since said twist makes absolutely zero sense, the effectiveness of this fade to black is debatable. The incessant maniacal chuckling which concludes the film seems to suggest that Mausoleum has descended into such heady depths of idiocy that all you can really do is laugh about it. Of course it goes without saying that the song that plays over the closing credits is atrocious beyond belief.There are a few inspired moments here, but only the most ardent early '80s horror completist will glean much satisfaction from this thoroughly baffling exercise. Rest assured, the "so bad it's good" label can be readily applied to Mausoleum, so if your tolerance for that school of film-making is high, I can recommend this to you a bit more enthusiastically.

The Nomad family is cursed. Every first daughter of a new generation is damned to be possessed by a demon that really wants to raise hell. Orphan Susan is sent to live with her overbearing Aunt after the deaths of her parents. The Aunt keeps a close eye on Susan for signs that she will succumb to the nasty familial curse. Her young years go by relatively quietly but after she marries the demon comes put to play and nobody is safe.'Mausoleum' may seem like an average ordinary slasher on top (lord knows this time period was chock full of them) but the supernatural slant gives it a leg up on the competition. Surprisingly the film even manages to generate a halfway decent atmosphere and an occasionally creepy moment or two (young Susan all green demonic eyes aglow). I say check it out if you're a fan of 80's horror or on the lookout for an obscure gem.

A film like this puts everything in perspective. Allow me to elaborate.Plaintiff's Exhibit A: Consider, if you will, films like "The Children" (kids on a school-bus ride through a radioactive cloud, become zombies, and hug their parents to death), or "The Dark" (William Devane and Cathy Lee Crosby circle Los Angeles trying to find a monster who can't decide if he's a mentally retarded caveman or an alien from outer space). Before watching "Mausoleum," I always considered these flicks to be kitschy, low budget, suitable time wasters. However after watching "Mausoleum," I can confidently say films like "The Children" and "The Dark" are top-notch, creative, creepy, mind-blowing classics.That's an indirect way of letting you know that "Mausoleum" is dreck. Junk, plain and simple. I'm a forgiving soul when it comes to horror movies of all kinds (revisit Exhibit A if you have any doubts)—I'll give just about any "filmic art" the time of day. But 25 minutes into this empty "Mausoleum," and my attention was already wandering to the fridge. FLAT is probably the best descriptive adjective. The characters, the cinematography, the plot, the setting, the music—the whole package is as flat as an 80s pancake. Even the "Oogily Googily!" mutterings of LaWanda Page as the black maid who "exits stage left" in a "comedy" moment when things turn ugly—even that is FLAT. It's not funny or entertaining; Page's portrayal and delivery is so flat, it's not even a racial stereotype. Even Bobbie Bresee's "demon breasts" that come alive and chew through Marjoe Gortner during a sexy embrace are FLAT.Well, her breasts aren't flat by any means, but the drooling Muppet-like toothy puppets that her breasts become—the whole thing is inexcusably dumb. And worse, even forgiving the limitations of 80s technology, her puppet boobs look dumb.Word to the wise: Skip it. You won't be missing a thing.Defense Exhibit B: Allow me to offer one counterargument. There's a potentially revelatory moment in the film that almost makes it rise to the level of "worth mentioning"—-not "worth watching," but worth mentioning. At the end of the film, as Psychologist Simon and Protag Bobbie stumble out of the titular mausoleum having apparently defeated the evil, Simon turns to a mysteriously hooded grounds-keeper sitting near the gate and says: "You've known about this your whole life and have lived with the secret. For God's sake, don't ever let anyone enter the mausoleum!" As the two speed away, the camera centers on the grounds-keeper who is cutting some flowers. He looks directly at the camera and begins to cackle and cackle and CACKLE and CACKLE and---suddenly, just before the end crawl started, just for one freaking microsecond, I could've sworn this dude was LAUGHING AT ME for having just whittled away an hour and half of my life watching this dreck. I even rewound it and watched again, trying desperately to infer the intentions of the actor, the director, the cameraman. Was that their intention? WAS I BEING LAUGHED AT? If true, this might very well be the coolest horror flick on the planet. Even if it were an accident, that kind of self-referential humor (pointed keenly at the audience) is a mark of genius—a genius I only wish the rest of the film bore out. But ultimately it doesn't.Anyway, just one last gem of dialog before I go (and I won't make any inappropriate "fish" jokes here—I'll leave that up to you):Oliver (husband): "What's for dinner?" Susan (wife): "Poached Salmon...and me."