Mausoleum (1983)
There’s some strange shit goin’ on in this house!
Director: Michael Dugan
Starring: Marjoe Gortner, Bobbie Bresee and Norman Burton
I had seen this, I didn’t realise. Anyway, it’s a creaky old 80s film with terrible audio; there’s a constant interference almost like wind on the microphone. Visually it was great although it is a bad print; I don’t think the original print still exists so they won’t be able to fix that, not sure.
Vipco banged this one out, probably cut, which is probably why I wanged it. The one on YouTube is the full film at 96+ minutes, good stuff YouTube.
So, this woman played by Playboy Bunny Bobbie Bresee is possessed. OK, glowing green eyes aside, which I thought looked good anyway, the film plays like a sort of lesser Fulci flick, which was fine by me, I love lesser Fulci flicks. But forget The Exorcist, this isn’t even a spectator at a match in that league let alone on the pitch.
That said, and despite all its flaws, it’s a charmer. Even the scratchy-ass print started to grow on me after a while. Cast’s alright for this level of film (atrocious acting in places), story’s alright. I am a big fan of woeful Exorcist rip-off Beyond the Door mind so you might want to read some other reviews which you’ll probably find are mostly bad; I read one but I thought, meh, whatever, poster’s cool.
The version on YouTube is definitely better than the Vipco release, bit of gore I’d never seen was welcome. To me, there’s no such thing as scraping the bottom of the barrel in horror; often at the bottom of the barrel you’ll find something you really like. I really like Mausoleum. Horror’s like that. You can have the best cast, the best script, the best cinematography and so on and so forth and still end up with a bore or you can have the opposite and a film can be a classic. That’s what I love about horror. The makers of Mausoleum certainly gave it a go and they won me over. Bit like Shakespeare said:
“..there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
