Love Me Deadly

Traumatized by the death of her beloved father, a young woman compulsively attends the funerals of strangers. After she is caught sucking face with a male corpse by a creepy mortician, the mortician inducts her into a bizarre cult of people who enjoy making love to dead bodies. But then she falls in love with a living man and the real drama develops.

This is one of the few movies about necrophilia where there is really an equal emphasis on the "necro" and "philia". There's a very disturbing scene where the creepy mortician picks up a male prostitute and proceeds to embalm him while he's still alive(!), but generally this movie isn't nearly as gruesome as stuff like "Der Mosquito", "Lucker", "Beyond the Darkness" or "Nekromantic". It does, however, have one of those sappy 70's love plots (complete with a syrupy 70's soundtrack) that is definitely odds with the more gruesome content. But, in my opinion anyway, it also makes the film more interesting than if it had just been a pure gorefest.

This film is also yet another entry in strange series of 70's exploitation films (i.e. "Dream No Evil", "Toys Are Not for Children", "Baby Rosemary") all focusing on female Norman Bates-types whose obsessive love for dead or absent fathers results in severe adult sexual dysfunction, and ultimately tragedy. The most recent movie it resembles is the "indie cult" film "Kissed" with Molly Parker. But while others may disagree, I definitely prefer 70's exploitation to modern-day "indie" quirkiness. This is definitely worth seeing.

This steaming-hot slice of 70s grindhouse bliss denotes a lovely young woman(Mary Charlotte Wilcox - BEAST OF THE YELLOW NIGHT, 1971) coming to terms with her compulsive longing for intimacy...with deceased men(um...does rigor-mortis set in down there?). Through frequent off-hand visits to the local mortuary, she networks into a sub-rosa society of like-minded individuals who are more than eager to bring her "into the fold". Unfortunately, her husband(CAROL BURNETT SHOW alum Lyle Waggoner) is unaware of her warped desires, and can't understand why he's not "getting any".

The key issue making LOVE ME DEADLY such a memorably divergent trinket is the prudent sensitivity with which it approaches its grotesque premise. It plays like a schmaltzy, melodramatic LIFETIME CHANNEL movie with necrophilia in place of the customary, commiserative "disease-of-the-week" topic...never has a film been so characteristically at-odds with itself. Amazingly, this ill-advised wonder-work actually delivers in an all-wrong and rather dishonorable sort of way...it's not a great movie, critically speaking, or even an especially GOOD movie...but considering the unsavory subject-matter at hand, it's a surprisingly groomed and buttoned-down production which takes itself quite seriously(and for sheer novelty, what more could you possibly hope for?).

5.5/10

This is the precursor to modern art-horror hybrids like KISSED or NEKROMANTIK. A frigid woman who likes funerals and is turned on only by dead bodies enters into a sexless marriage with CAROL BURNETT SHOW stud Lyle Waggoner and secretly joins a cult of necrophiliacs in a local morgue. For a film that had so much perverse and ghoulish potential, this film only partially entertains. There's a particularly shocking scene early in the film of a guy being embalmed alive but the film gets bogged down in the drama of marital problems in the second hour. While the serious approach to such outrageous material is greatly appreciated, a little more ghoulish horror would've been nice.

I have a theory that this film got Lyle Waggoner dismissed from The Carol Burnett Show (he left the series the following season, by mutual agreement).

Regardless, by today's standards, it's not that shocking. The copy of the film I have seems to have been carefully edited, and not as violent or graphic as I recall it being in the theater production.

By 1973 standards, it was quite a shocker...very graphic and gory, complete with a gay subtext. As I recall, it was loosely based around a real-life Los Angeles "cult" of funeral home "lovers of dead" psychos. The story is fiction, but, who knows what goes on behind the closed doors at funeral homes? The acting isn't too bad, and it's fun watching Lyle play against type. The star is quite pretty, too, and she plays her role well. Her hunky boyfriend does a good job of...well, being prepared for cold sex (and so does poor Lyle).

In the right frame of mind, this comes across well. In fact, I'd love to see the original, uncut version one day, on widescreen DVD, but I ain't holdin' my breath. This is lurid stuff, and it ain't likely to see the DVD "light of day".

If you do see this "sicky", just don't take it too seriously, and it might be fun to watch.

To be honest, when one reads the synopsis of this film one expects the worst. Surprisingly, this is an engaging and frank study both of necrophilia and of a daughter's inability to let go of the past.

Helped along by a very professional sounding theme tune (sung by Kit Fuller), and a lively score echoing films of much more mainstream cinema, this is a shocking film that will make you think for a long time afterwards. Unfortunately, the good acting and imaginative story is let down by some chronically bad editing - particularly when we are suddenly introduced to the character of Alex - but this aside, you should find much more to enjoy about this movie than you will find to dislike about it.

"Love Me Deadly" is to necrophilia what "Max Mon Amour" is to bestiality: one of the last taboos to be tackled in an grown-up fashion, but which can be appreciated by an audience without needing to visit a seedy sex-shop; where story comes first, and titillation is far down the line.