Mausoleum Review!
Mausoleum beings with Young Susan has lost her mother. After the funeral she runs across the cemetery in tears and chances upon her family mausoleum which is surrounded by SFX flickering spooky flames. As she nears, the lock explodes off, green lights illuminate her face as she ventures inside. There’s a coffin with the name NOMED above it. Some random bloke comes in, possibly the cemetery keeper, or whatever, and he wanders outside with over-the-top acting until his cranium gorily explodes. Susan’s eyes glow green, shadows make ritualistic shapes on the wall and as she watches the coffin slide open, a gnarled hand emerges.
Years later, Susan is all grown up and is being treated by a psychiatrist. The Nomed family is cursed according to an old family manuscript. Cori, Susan’s aunt who raised her, is sure Susan is behaving just like her late mother did. We find Susan (Bobby Bresee) placing flowers on her mum’s grave, and once again finds herself drawn to the mausoleum. Meanwhile, Simon the psychiatrist reads about the curse getting himself ready for the predictable battle later on in the film. Apparently no Nomed woman should enter the crypt.
The first sign of Susan’s adult power happens one night while out with her husband. The glowing eyes return, as a drunken party goer burns to death in his car for trying to molest her earlier that evening. The next day we find demon Susan teasing Ben the handyman who seems to be having a lot of trouble chopping a tree stump — he takes a long time, then returns to it after sleeping on a jetty. Susan exposes her breasts and later chats with him whilst wearing skimpy clothes. Afterwards, she laughs manically as she hacks him to pieces in the garage with a garden fork.
One morning, her husband Oliver hears two voices talking but finds only Susan denying all knowledge. When he goes to work, Aunty Cori visits. Hearing noises she nervously heads upstairs and there’s Susan, in full blue-faced demon mode. “Oh my god,” Cori gasps. “God can’t help you now.” demon Susan rasps (I mean, how cliché is that?) Corey is then levitated over the stairs and if you look above her head you can see a winch and pulley holding her. The guy behind this particular effect is Roger George, who had a hand in such movies as The Terminator, Night of the Creeps, and Repo Man.
Oliver wakes one night and discovers Susan sat in a chair by the window. He senses something wrong so he rings Simon. Simon suggests Oliver gets her to drop by the next day.
Welcome to a special paragraph I’ve devoted to Elsie, their stereotypical black maid. “There’s some strange shit goin’ on in this house,” she jive asses with wide eyes like black characters in the b/w era of Hollywood. Elsie is only in the film to be very Southern Negro, oh and try to be funny (huh). Elsie even runs away to comedy music, “No more breathin’, I’m leavin’!” Off she goes, bags packed with watermelons (perhaps) and the less said about that scene the better. Elsie had made a name for herself shouting at Tom the cat whilst standing on chairs, avoiding Jerry. Honest, we researched this. The actress La Wanda Page, made a career playing maids or grandmas in movies like CB4, My Blue Heaven, Friday, and Don’t Be A Menace To South Central etcetera. Other than that she was a face to be seen in a good few TV series. Goodbye Elsie.
Susan heads to see Simon claiming everything is fine. He suggests hypnosis. She agrees and the demon awakes. “You didn’t know about me!” After waking her and probably shitting his pants, Simon rings a friend Roni Logan, who advices him about possession. Whilst this goes on, Susan is at home exposing her breasts to a delivery man and makes the side of his face peel off. Oliver meets with Simon and Roni and they all plot to boot the demon from Susan and put it back in the crypt. The Nomed family curse must end. (Reverse the name, how’s that for quality scripting eh?) Susan takes things further by killing an art gallery attendant, smashing plates (“Period time,” quipped my Horror Soulmate) and making the painting bleed for the hell of it. Then her breasts grow teeth and start snapping at people. That is such a must see to believe moment I swear it.
Mausoleum plays like a TV movie with the feel and the acting, but with a few shovels full of blood and gore chucked in. Some of the effects are quite below acceptable for what is achieved in other moments and that conflict stands out. I mean, the coloured lights and glowing eyes are so cringe-worthy they make Retribution look spectacular by comparison. Then along comes the latex balloons and snapping breasts to save the day. The face peeling scene is okay for what it’s worth, but Bobby Bresee isn’t the demon for this material. She’s bland and is only around to be nude. She was also seen in Ghoulies as a temptress. Hmm. The climaxing battle salvages Mausoleum and puts it on the level of a nice late night filler flick to switch off to….. until….. oh my god… we saw it coming a mile off…. it… has…. a…. look into the camera finale!! Breaking the fourth wall! Oh joy! The person who does it as well makes no sense. Has he somehow returned from the dead? Is it his son? He’s laughing at us, right into the camera! Goodfellas, 2001 Maniacs, Beyond The Limits… the list goes on. We hate it! It’s pointless. To me personally, only Oliver Hardy and the Fresh Prince could do it with style.
Due to that ending, the whole film is a bitter-taste-in-your-mouth experience. Try to enjoy it for the effects, because like I said before, some are decent if you can forgive the package of turd around those brief moments. Let’s not forget Elsie either.
This is taken from the old VideoSpace ex-rental VHS which has a funky trailer for Evilspeak before the main feature. Mausoleum has fared less on DVD, Vipco put out a bad transfer in their Beyond Terror cheap DVD series, and Dead of Night. There was also a double bill with Blood Song on BCI.
AKA: Mausoleu, Mauzoleum, Grabmaldes Grauens.
Directed by: Michael Dugan
Written by: Robert Barich, Robert Madero, Katherine Rosenwink
Produced by: Robert Barich, Robert Madero
Cinematography by: Robert Barich
Editing by: Richard Bock
Music by: Jaime Mendoza-Nava
Special Effects by: Roger George, R Christopher Biggs, Danny Stein, Matthew Mungle, John Carl Buechler
Cast: Bobby Bresse, Majoe Gortner, Norman Burton, Maurice Sherbanee, Laura Hippe
Year: 1983
Country: USA
Language: English
Color: Color
Runtime: 1h 36min
Distributor: VideoSpace
