Love Me Deadly

This great, sadly neglected piece of 70's sleaze is much better than the later, more well-known NEKROMANTIK.For me, the most disturbing scene was not the corpse sex, but the blood draining sequence. This must have turned heads back in '72. Recommended.

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.

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.

"Love Me Deadly" follows a young woman in Los Angeles who attends the funerals of men she does not know in order to sneak kisses with the dead. She is soon spotted by a kindred spirit--a man who shares her same necrophiliac tendencies--and it turns out he has his own Satanic group he wants her to join.

This early '70s effort is marketed as a horror film, and in some ways it is, but "Love Me Deadly" plays more like an oppressive chamber drama, drenched in gaudy colors, cheap-looking sets, and peppered with necrophilia sequences. Given the audacious subject matter here, one would think the film would edge into total exploitation, but it manages to keep its wits about it.

Necrophilia aside, the film's main horror angle is the funerary worker/leader of a Satanic necrophiliac cult which he wants the female protagonist to join. This plot element seems hackneyed and the actual nature of this "cult" is not entirely made clear (especially its alleged Satanic motivations, which are never really elucidated), and the film suffers slightly because of this. Mary Charlotte Wilcox portrays the leading character nicely, and the script attempts to unravel her sexual proclivities, tracing them back to a childhood trauma; at times the film reminded me of its contemporary, "The Witch Who Came out of the Sea," in that it deals with similar themes regarding childhood trauma, though it goes about them completely differently. Like many films of this ilk, "Love Me Deadly" also suffers from poor editing and dubbing, which is fairly common for grindhouse pictures of this type.

All in all, "Love Me Deadly" is a mildly entertaining horror film that is not nearly as disturbing as one might expect. The subject matter, though perverse, is handled well, and the lead character evokes sympathy on some levels despite her unusual attractions. It is an obvious precursor to the more extreme necrophilia-themed films that would follow, such as "Nekromantik," as well as the more introspective, quiet ones, like "Kissed." Not a terrible film overall, though it is certainly not for everyone. 6/10.

This movie had great promise. The theme was very off-beat & interesting - homosexuality (remember, it was made in 1973) and necrophilia. Unlike what the IMDb movie description says, I didn't find any trace of satanism in the story (there is a cult, but it is necrophiliac, not satanic ). There is decent amount of blood & gore (I saw the uncut version). Unfortunately, the plot is not tight and fails to keep viewers attracted throughout. Acting is passable - the main character (Mary Charlotte Wilcox) is very wooden & it's hard to feel any emotional attachment with her. Overall not a bad movie, if you enjoy off-beat horror movies, this might work for you.