Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Red-Barracuda This 60's horror comedy is very much in the mould of the pioneering gore flicks made by Herschell Gordon Lewis. It shares the specific combination of schlocky, excessive bloodletting with wacky humour. It's this strange and often totally inappropriate combination that gives this flick some enduring cult film appeal. It opens pretty strikingly with three psychopaths in motorcycle clobber conducting a home invasion where they violently kill a young woman and then proceed to take her severed leg away with them. This opening scene gives you a pretty good indication of the tone of the film as a whole though, as while the basic idea is pretty mean spirited it is offset by the picture of the girl's boyfriend changing continually as he registers his shock at events being carried out in front of him in a series of increasingly zany expressions. In other words, like the films of Lewis, the excessive violence can't really be taken very seriously when the tone is so wilfully ridiculous.The three biker maniacs do make for quite interesting villains though. And the decidedly sick subject matter of serial murder and cannibalism is pleasingly tasteless. There are limb decapitations, an impaling, a victim being dipped into a vat of acid, body parts being fed into a meat grinder, a chain whipping, a meat cleaver to the head and a woman having her innards…fondled; the latter scene is the grimmest moment on offer as it splices in actual open heart surgery! Throughout all this mayhem there is a fairly high quotient of pure nonsense. You just know that a slapstick scene or silly jape can never be very far away, often involving skateboards, pies to the face and comedy sound effects. The combined result is a film of considerable camp value. It also has the good manners to only clock in at just over an hour, so it hardly outstays its welcome. For anyone interested in the early genesis of the gore film, I would say that this crazy flick is a must.

Scott LeBrun Clearly owing a debt to the kind of movies that Herschell Gordon Lewis was making during this time, the low, low budget "The Undertaker and His Pals" is an absolute hoot. The story concerns the title characters, an undertaker named Mort (Ray Dannis) and his restaurateur pals Spike and Doc. Together all three go out on their motorcycles, their faces obscured by their helmets, and murder people. This is done both to drum up business for Mort and provide human body parts to Spike and Doc to be served up at their place, The Greasy Spoon.This is a delightfully loopy exploitation flick with its fair share of tacky, bargain basement gore, but alas, no nudity. Still, it's good to see that the crew, led by writer / director T. L. P. Swicegood (you gotta love that name), and the cast are never at any point really taking themselves seriously. There's a dark and wacky sense of humour present from beginning to end. For one thing, hunky and sleazy private eye Harry Glass (James Westmoreland, "Don't Answer the Phone!") just can't seem to hold on to a secretary. Appreciably, this runs a scant 63 minutes (another similarity to HGL product because *his* movies usually didn't run that long); the pacing is good and there are a respectable amount of laughs to be had.The performances are just like the movie. They may not be that "good", but they sure are entertaining. Sexy blonde Warrene Ott is both a pleasing scenery attraction and a personable leading lady. But the show belongs to the amusing Dannis and the guys playing Spike and Doc. They do look to be having fun playing sadistic and insane.The final minute or so delivers an engaging curtain call for certain characters - as well as a number of winks for the audience.Eight out of 10.

JoeKarlosi What a load of crap. Three friends who own a restaurant kill women to serve on their menu. This unofficial Herschell Gordon Lewis inspiration is very tongue-in-cheek and supposedly funny, but very little is humorous. It's also badly acted and executed, and is not even enjoyable for the "offbeat exploitation fun" category. Badly acted and plays very much like a "Sweeney Todd" send-up, and features an aged Robert Lowery in a cameo as one of the restaurant patrons. The most interesting thing for me personally was that I've now confirmed that this garbage flick was indeed one that I saw at the drive-in (at least parts of it) which I remembered from being a child peeking from the backseat of my parents' car in the '60s. For decades I've had images in my mind and wondered where they came from. Now at least that mystery is solved. * out of ****

winner55 This very well may be the first slasher film ever made, and the really weird thing, it is also the first parody of a slasher film ever made.Therein lies a real social-historical problem: how can the film effectively creating the genre at the same time parody the genre, which doesn't come into existence until the film is released? First, a qualification: What makes a slasher film is extremely graphic gratuitous violence against helpless women, using a long knife as preferred weapon.Arguably, the real "first" of the genre may have been "Psycho"; but "Psycho" was an exceptional film, and stands out from most of the rest of the genre. And it's in black & white, while a true slasher film requires blood-glaring color (which "Undertaker" has, and remarkably well-kept for its age). I prefer to think of "Psycho" as a precursor.But "Undertaker" is, first of all, nothing special as a film. (It's just low-budget drive-in fodder, intended to be ignored by the teen-agers necking in the back seat.) Secondly, it takes sadistic-voyeur pleasure in showing us the violence and the blood. Finally, it shows self-consciousness concerning the sadistic-voyeurism, meaning that it is intended to appeal to the very worst instincts in its target audience.And that makes it pure genre film - well, almost.As I said, it is also a parody of this genre - in the most outrageous way. The sales pitch the undertaker offers potential customers is genuinely amusing, and the killers repeatedly debunk themselves as silly mad-scientist types that only happen to run a failing diner. What's going on here? There can be only one answer, logically: the film-makers here are actually parodying another genre film.Perhaps "Psycho" can help us out here, after all. It must be remembered that a major influence on Hitchcock's's film was the motel sequence in Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil". That episode was itself influenced by the '50s "JD" (juvenile delinquent) films that frequently had middle-class suburban families found suddenly in the grip of a punk or a gang of young punks (the most famous being Brando's "The Wild One"). And the JD film was itself a clear off-shoot from the standard B-movie crime-thriller of the early '50s, which is simply a sub-genre of the "police procedural" (e.g., "Dragnet").So, what "Undertaker" is really spoofing here is the police procedural.So the indirect progenitor of the slasher film is - Jack Webb's "Dragnet". That's a little unsettling, but true.At any rate, I'm not a big fan of slasher films, and I only watched this film a second time because it is, so clearly, an historical oddity. And it's real weird that directors like Welles and Webb (who have nothing else in common but this) should, in trying to explore the social significance of socio-pathic crime, point the way for audiences to enjoy such violence voyeuristically in the slasher film. That's cause for reflection.Which makes "Undertaker", if only for history's sake, a very, very weird little film.Not recommended for enjoyment, but a must-see for film-history buffs.