Though nowhere as original as "Eating Raoul", for those who admire that film, "Mortuary Academy" is the closest Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov ever came to duplicating that magical black comedy. If you throw out "Mortuary Academy's" absurd "Radio Werewolf" dead rock band resurrection, you are left with some outrageous dialog, especially relating to Bartel's virginal dead lover. The film does rely on some "Airplane"- type hit or miss humor, however when the campy humor gives way to black comedy, these two (Bartel and Woronov) really deliver. I rate this a solid 6.0. Comparable ratings would include "Eating Raoul" 8.0, "Chopping Mall" 5.0, and "Lust in the Dust" 5.0. - MERK
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merklekranz14 December 2006
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vertigo_1417 October 2005Mary Woronov had (and probably not coincidentally) a habit of showing up in a number of strange b-grade (and sometimes lower) cult classics. Some good (Eating Raoul, Rock N' Roll High School), some so bad they're good (like Terror Vision), and some that were just out and out awful. Mortuary Academy is laden with obvious jokes and puns, mostly tasteless humor, and unfortunately was hard for me to wade through patiently until at least the last forty minutes or so. But understandably, this is the kind of material that makes a cult classic, appreciated by a few who find something pleasing enough about it to watch it ad nausea. I'm not quite sold on it as much, but I do like quirky films like these, and at least for this one, a horror comedy to some degree with emphasis on lame jokes and pure corniness (but certainly not in a family-movie kind of way).
Mortuary Academy is the story of two brothers who are written as the next-of-kin to inherit their late uncle's mortuary, but only on the condition that they pass Mortuary Academy in order, at least as their lawyer explained it, develop an appreciation for the craft of a business which they may soon be running themselves. Of course, they are imbibed in an odd selection of classmates (naturally) and rebuffed by the two current heads of the mortuary (Mary and Paul, not coincidentally played by Mary Woronov and Paul Bartel), who initially plot to keep the brothers Grimm (for real) from successfully completing the conditions of the will, sure that if they did, Mary and Paul would be no longer be in charge.
Regular fans of b-movie cult classics are advised to at least give this one a try. Besides b-movie cult regulars Mary Woronov and Paul Bartel look for Tracey Walter (of Repo Man fame) as Mortuary Academy's 80s variation on Dr. Frankenstien (which made for at least an more interesting ending to an otherwise relatively lukewarm movie overall). -
One thing I never thought I'd see was Paul Bartel having passionate sex with a corpse. Thanks to this film, that which I thought impossible has become reality and I don't think I'll ever be able to close my eyes again without seeing the sight of a topless pot-bellied Bartel atop a beautiful dead teenage girl on the beach with his lips locked onto hers.
Believe me when I tell you that this sounds funnier than it really was. This movie is one long, tasteless, and painfully unfunny necrophilia joke. However, there are some sporadically amusing moments
A great cast is mostly wasted. Perry Lang continues (after The Hearse) his lustful pursuit of older women, only this time with more success, while Christopher Atkins tries hard and fails to fully explain why he's even in this movie. Caesar Romero and Wolfman Jack are here to collect a paycheck. Tracy Walter, Mary Waronov, and the rest do try hard.
The best performance is that of Stoney Jackson as the token black guy, who manages to be the funniest thing in this movie despite his lamentable rapping skills.
I'll give Mortuary Academy some credit though. I didn't hate it and it has perhaps the strangest Bar Mitzvah scene ever attempted in a motion picture. -
writtenbymkm-583-9020974 June 2017Whenever I think about Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov I remember Eating Raoul. That was a rather strange black comedy, not the greatest comedy in the world by any means, but at least well written and well acted. So when I found Mortuary Academy with Paul and Mary (and Tracy Walter, another of my favorites), I thought, well, it sounds pretty stupid, but it can't be that bad, right? Wrong!!! This is one of the worst pieces of absolute garbage I've ever seen. Most of the actors have no talent. The script is a disaster. Worst of all, it's not even remotely funny. The jokes (so-called) are on the level of very ignorant grade-school boys. If you gathered up a bunch of third-grade morons and told them to make a comedy, this is probably what you'd get. At some point I just gave up and stopped watching.
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lor_29 April 2023My review was written in May 1988 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.
"Mortuary Academy" is a genuinely amusing feature, getting a lot of laughs from black humor involving necrophilia. Specialized nature of this poor taste material naturally will limit audience saturation, but pic works very well on its own terms.
The "Eating Raoul" acting team of Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov adapts quite comfortably to similar roles as the manage and top lecturer at Grimm Mortuary and Academy, which has just been inherited by brothers Sam and Max Grimm (Perry Lang, Christopher Atkins) on the condition they graduate as morticians.
Rambunctious group of oddball students gets up to antics that would do the "Carry On" team proud, climaxing in the mechanical whiz in their midst (deadpan Tracey Walker) reanimating a dead heavy metal band to perform one last gig with the aid of animatronics, and thereby earn enough money to save the academy, which Bartel has bled dry.
Hilarious running gag has Bartel falling in love with a young cheerleader who choked on popcorn at a drive-in movie (corpse played by Cheryl Starbuck). This love affair goes far beyond the reaches of bad taste, but is a hoot, climaxing with an indescribable scene of the students using Tracey's mechanics to blackmail Bartel as he makes love to Starbuck. Coda has Bartel and his corpse honeymooning on a cruise ship with grotesque results and a tagline homage to "Some Like It Hot".
Aided by a very funny romantic score by David Spear, director Michael Schroede and writer William Kelman deliver fresh, uncensored material. Pacing is just right and Bartel's unctuous delivery (a la Vincent Price) hits just the right note of campiness without exaggeration.
Woronov's arch delivery again is the perfect foil for Bartel, supported by a solid ensemble. Of special note is the familiar saturnine-faced Anthony James, getting maximum laughs out of some of the script's best lines in his role as a parolee on a rehab program at the academy. -
movieman_kev13 June 2005Brothers Sam and Max inherit a mortuary from their late uncle with the added stipulation that they must pass the Mortuary Academy which is run by Paul and Mary (Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov from "Eating Raoul"). who don't want the brothers owning the mortuary and do everything in their power to stop them. This movie has numerous actors that fans will remember (Pual Bartel, Mary Woronov, Tracey Walter, Wolfman Jack, and Vance Colvig Jr) All those name faces from B-movie greats can't mask that this film stinks more then a year old corpse. Bad taste CAN be funny. IF done right, pretty much every subject can bring about a laugh or three, but that requires talent, something this movie seems to be lacking. Furthermore, to mention this film in the same sentence as the classic "Porky's" or "Revenge of the Nerds" is damn near blasphemy.
My Grade: D-
Eye Candy: Cheryl Starbuck is topless -
bkoganbing21 August 2018Ripping off the Police Academy movies, Mortuary Academy is about a pair of witless brothers named Grimm who inherit from their uncle both a large funeral home and a training school for morticians. I wasn't crazy about The Loved One which is always cited as THE film about the funeral business but it's Citizen Kane next to this one.
Christopher Atkins and Perry Lang are the brothers who inherit, but they're not licensed morticians and those pesky state laws require a license and a bit of training. So the brothers have to go to their own school where the current ones running the home want to see them fail.
That would be Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov who like things as they are where they are looting the business and pushing it to bankruptcy. Bartel also has a nice taste for necrophilia and his scenes cross over into the gross as he thinks he found the woman of his dreams, a teen virgin who died accidentally. Cross over quite a distance I might add.
I'm not sure Police Academy movie fans will even like this one. -
mark.waltz29 July 2021Yes, it's often tacky and somewhat offensive and filled with eye rolling moments that will either disgust you or make you roar with guilty laughter. What else would you expect from a film written by, directed and starring Paul Bartel? He's joined by another paragon of non-virtue, Mary Woronov, delightfully dead pan and looking like the 70's and 80's version of Christine Baranski, made to look very sophisticated and yet simultaneously tough and vulnerable. The story surrounds a school for morticians where the grandson of the founder is none other than Christopher Atkins and featuring an oddball class of freaky young people, most notably Perry Lang, Stoney Jackson and Richard Kennedy.
Then there's the deliciously feisty secretary Nedra Voltz, a stout old woman obsessed with memories of her period, greeting callers with "You stab em', we slab em', as well as cameos by Wolfman Jack and Cesar Romero, a young actress as a corpse whom Bartel has a thing for and a dead dog brought back to life to look like a Muppet dressed up as a gremlin for Halloween. There's a bizarre innocence to how this film comes off, even with obvious acts of necrophilia that couldn't be done today in any medium. It isn't a good film in any way, but with the right frame of mind, you'll be able to laugh mostly at it and some times with it. The credits with a Beach Boys song rank as a 10/10. -
Groverdox1 November 2016"Mortuary Academy" is, if anything, actually less funny than its subject matter: two nerds inherit the "academy" of the title and, if I remember correctly, have to go to school there to get it.
The whole thing is very confusing and hard to follow, and never provides an adequate sense of place. It has several fantastic character actors with a magnetic screen presence, and no idea what to do with them, so after you get over the shock at seeing actors from "In the Heat of the Night", "The Silence of the Lambs" and "The Usual Suspects" in garbage like this, you eventually stop paying attention to them because they aren't given anything remotely interesting to do. The movie introduces them and then just kind of leaves them to their own devices.
Paul Bartel, the rotund, balding character actor who looks and sounds like he was put on Earth to quote Shakespeare, has the movie's only memorable character... trait. He's really not a memorable "character", per se, but how many movies, especially comedic films, are there about necrophiliacs? This is about the only material that could have been funny, and while it didn't get any laughs from me, I did guffaw in shock once or twice. Again, the movie just has no idea how to handle this potentially outrageous material; you probably won't even notice it because every leading up to it and following it is so boring.
The title, I assume, is an attempt to cash in on the success of "Police Academy". Say what you will about that movie, but at least police academies are actually something that exist. "Mortuary Academies" don't even seem to exist in this movie. -
I saw this film for the second time recently and realised how lucky I was to get that chance. I picked it up in a crummy second-hand shop amongst layers of crap and paid 50p - bargain I'd say!
The film is about the brothers Grim who will inherit a mortuary if they pass there mortuary exams(!), unfortunately for them the current owners (Paul and Mary) don't feel like leaving anytime soon and plot to fail the brothers Grim however good they do in class. Oh yeah, Paul is a closet Necrophilliac, and Mary is an out-of-the-closet whore.
There are some really fun parts in this film; mainly the classroom scenes where we get to meet the other classmates including that guy who always plays a psycho, if you get to see this you'll know who I'm talking about. In this film he plays a psycho.
It's sad to note that many have passed away since the making of this film, especially Wolfman Jack who will be sorely missed.
I recommend this film to any lover of cheese, and eighties type movies. If you are broadminded and don't dismiss films such as 'Porky's' and 'Nerds' as trash (which they surely are not!), then you'll do alright with this. -
Sam (Christopher Atkins, The Blue Lagoon) and Max (Perry Lang, The Hearse) inherit the Grimm Mortuary and Academy, but as these things go, they must graduate from it to actually own it. Trying to keep them from achieving that goal is the current owner, Dr. Paul Truscott (Paul Bartel) and his assistant Mary (Mary Woronov), who want to keep the school and mortuary because they both suffer from necrophilia.
I often discuss the perfect check the boxes of movies. Between Bartel, Woronov and a hijinks comedy, I was sold.
Directed by Michael Schroeder, who also worked with Bartel for the movie Out of the Dark, this movie sets up a slapstick crew of students, like one that yearns to bring dogs back from the dead and an effeminate singer played by Stoney Jackson, Phones from Roller Boogie.
Making this movie nearer to my heart is an appearance by Dona Speir, who made so many of the Andy Sidaris movies so much better.
James Daughton (Greg Marmalard from Animal House), Nedra Volz (Moving Violations), Tracy Walter (Bob the Goon!), Wolfman Jack and Cesar Romero all appear. This movie isn't for everyone and I wouldn't have it any other way. -
Woodyanders5 September 2011Meek and suicidal nerd Max Grimm (a likable Christopher Atkins) and his more smooth and assured brother Sam (an equally amiable Perry Lang) are forced to take a course at their family's mortuary academy in order to inherit two million dollars. Kinky closet necrophiliac and head administrator Paul Truscott (Paul Bartel in fine droll form) and his sexually frustrated assistant Mary Purcell (a terrifically brash portrayal by the ever-delightful Mary Woronov) are determined to flunk the siblings so they can take over the place. Director Michael Schroeder, working from a pleasantly twisted and silly script by Bartel and Bill Kelman, relates the cheerfully inane story at a steady pace and maintains an engaging tongue-in-cheek tone throughout. The game cast have a ball with the wacky material: Atkins and Lang are charming in the lead roles, it's always a treat to see Bartel and Woronov in anything, plus there are sound contributions from Tracey Walter as eccentric electronics wizard Don Dickson, Anthony James as twitchy and scary ex-con Abbott Smith, Lynn Danielson as the sweet Valerie Levitt, and Stoney Jackson as hip aspiring rap singer James Danridge. Popping up in cool cameos are Wolfman Jack as crafty rock band manager Bernie Berkowitz, Cesar Romero as a cruise ship captain, Richard Kennedy as a lawyer, and "Playboy" Playmates Dona Speir, Rebekka Armstrong, Kymberly Paige, and Laurie Ann Carr as nurses. This film's main praiseworthy achievement is how it manages to treat the questionable subject matter in a surprisingly playful and good-natured manner; even the potentially tasteless subplot involving Trescott's infatuation with the fetching corpse of a deceased teenage cheerleader avoids being too gross or offensive and hence provides some of the picture's biggest laughs. A very funny and enjoyable flick.
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The influence of "Police Academy" (for better or worse) had reached far and wide... making its way, bizarrely so, to mortuary school. Basically retooling the same narrative, but a different occupation. Two brothers inherited a mortuary academy, but before they can take control they need to pass the classes. This leads to some unwanted interference by those already in charge, as the students end up having to save the academy from bankruptcy with an out-there idea. So throw in the standard comic misfit hijinks, a series of mortician schooling snippets leading to punchlines, romance and low-brow gags wrapped up in a bow of morbid curiosity involving necrophilia and corpses. It's all very hit-and-miss, incredibly off-the-wall and tastelessly unapologetic, but in the end I mainly watched it for the always delightful combination of Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov as mortician owner/and assistant of the Grimm Mortuary and Academy. Also you can't go wrong with character actors Tracy Walter and Anthony James playing less than desirable students. And not forgetting cameos at the backend by Wolfman Jack and Cesar Romero.
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jamaisj27 January 2024This is pretty much the standard "boys are forced to attend school, school is in danger due to closing due to malicious incompetence, band saves the school" story. The acting is sub-par to serviceable, the comedy is debatable, and the special effects are just above what you would expect from a college freshmen project. Worse, the story seems to be written as they went and the dialogue rarely gets above forgettable.
It feels like they wanted to make a sex comedy centering on necrophilia, but they forgot most of the sex and all of the comedy. The only reason this movie is rated "R" is because of one scene; the rest is aggressively vanilla.
Just forget this movie; only if you're a fan of certain actors will it hold any interest. It's not even good as a movie you'd get drunk and make fun of it. -
cynet-5233216 August 2022I found this movie hilaarious and that's what I love about the old 80's comedies they can make you laugh your socks off.
The characters are goofy and just so dumb which makes the film a funny comedy.
This is worth a watch if your bored and got some free time as well worth a nolstagic trip back to the wonderful 80's. -
azathothpwiggins30 November 2021MORTUARY ACADEMY is another wacky movie starring the irrepressible duo of Mary Woronov and Paul Bartel. Their running the titular establishment, while Bartel's character attempts a love affair with an overripe cadaver.
Meanwhile, two new enrollees stand to inherit the academy if they graduate. Bartel and Woronov do whatever they can to stop this from happening.
This is a humorous look at the funereal arts with heavy doses of goofy dialogue and zany characters. If you enjoy deceased, robotically resurrected rock bands, and aren't offended by the lighter side of necrophilia, then this movie will set in on you like rigor mortis. In a good way... -
Wizard-87 August 2016It's one thing to try and rip off "Police Academy", but it's another thing to put a spin on your rip off that concerns a very delicate subject - death, corpses, and the mortuary business. Oh, it's possible to generate laughs with those subjects, but it takes a lot of careful thought and execution, which is entirely missing from "Mortuary Academy". What will strike most viewers is how drained of energy most of the movie is, generating instead a sombre and grim feeling that doesn't exactly induce laughter. It doesn't help that the whole package feels unfinished - there are a number of confusing moments that suggest linking footage was never filmed for one reason or another. The movie has a somewhat interesting cast, but all the participating actors seem as weary and dejected as the movie's atmosphere, so even they can't milk any humor out of the material. It's no surprise then that the movie apparently spent several years on the shelf after being completed before being dumped on video and instantly forgotten.