dbborroughs One of the truly awful horror films ever made. I saw this in the movie have been scarred ever since. The plot has a young girl going into the haunted crypt of her family activating a family curse that causes her years later to become possessed and turn into a monster. This film is dull boring and incredibly stupid. Sure the monster looks okay, but everything else is just bad the visual effects especially. I remembered only three things about this film the first time I saw it, star Bobbie Bressee's shower scene, Lawanda Paige's wise cracking (which is the one real shining moment) and how bad this film is. The only reason I tried it again last night was that it was on a double feature DVD and I wanted to see if it was as bad as I remembered. It was. This is one to avoid.(I can not imagine that anyone in their right mind would want to listen to a commentary track, but there is one on the disc.)

Scarecrow-88 I feel that even the supporters of Michael Dugan's "Mausoleum" would agree that this is purely an effects movie using the old possession theme as a method to do so. Bobbie Bresee's a troubled wife, Susan Farrell, whose businessman husband, Oliver(Marjoe Gortner, who doesn't have a prayer, stuck with a dense dope of a husband whose wife is clearly in need of serious help and is always hesitant to do what's appropriate for her welfare and safety)is always working, away trying to close money-making deals while she's left to contend with a demonic possession handed down to her cursed family. It seems that a demonic spirit calls young Susan(..visiting her mother's grave), who had lost her mother and is struggling to accept it, to a creepy mausoleum with a crypt in the center(..with crawling rats on top). The crypt contains the spirit and it is set free by Susan, the result being her possession. The film focuses on Susan, as an adult, slowly taken over by the spirit as it targets unfortunates who come near her during the day. Susan's psychiatrist, Dr. Simon Andrews(Norman Burton), will witness the evil spirit after putting her under hypnosis, and reluctantly vow to put an end to it so that she can be saved.John Carl Buechler's monster designs are given the star treatment in this movie and some fare better than others. I think many of the latex make-up designs on Bresee range from effective to rather unconvincing. But, I cut him some slack since this was one of his first movies and he would improve soon after with his own directorial debut of Troll. There are some icky scenes such as Susan's poor Aunt Cora(Laura Hippe), while levitated in the air, has her chest split apart where we see her rib. And another suffers a horrifying fate when his chest is torn open by little beasties protruding from Susan's chest when she's in demonic form. One victim, for no reason he deserves, is merely delivering a plant for the recently murdered gardener and is invited into Susan's house, her demonic spirit causing the side of his face to bleed and break open. Maurice Sherbanee is the grubby voyeuristic gardener, Ben, who suffers for his desire to get randy with the missus. One man is burned alive in his car(..which soon explodes)just for causing Susan some annoyance at a bar! The clincher is an employee at an art store on the second floor of a mall who informs Susan she could not purchase an already sold painting, getting levitated in the air and dropped to his death. A constant is Susan's eyes glowing green(..actually, I found this rather effective, even if primitive by today's standards)before the evil spirit murders someone. Besting the mediocrity of most of John Carl Buechler's special effects are Bresee's exposed breasts;she often invites males for potential pleasure by showing off her body in lingerie and sexy gowns. I think director Dugan was ambitious and attempts to sell his story of possession, but the budgetary constraints are simply too much to overcome. The levitations are particularly corny and will likely cause giggles. When you're creatures look like rubber designs, it's hard to find them scary.

Woodyanders Lovely and sweet young Susan Farrell (a respectable performance by deliciously voluptuous blonde bombshell Bobbie Bresee) suffers from an especially nasty family curse: she gets possessed by the spirit of an evil and lethal, yet enticing distaff demonic spirit that takes over the first born daughters of every line in her family. Pretty soon Susan just ain't acting like herself anymore; she starts seducing and murdering various guys. It's up to concerned psychiatrist Dr. Simon Andrews (nicely played by Norman Burton) to save Susan's soul before it's too late. Director Michael Dugan does a sound job of creating and maintaining a flesh-crawling ooga-booga atmosphere, pours on a handy helping of juicy gore (the definite splatter highlight occurs when Susan levitates a guy and sends the man falling to his death from a three story balcony onto a glass table), tosses in several moments of hilariously campy humor, and has the luscious Ms. Bresee bare her insanely hot body at pleasingly regular intervals. The game cast do their best with the rather silly material: the ever-cool Marjoe Gortner as Susan's loving, but busy husband Oliver, Laura Hippe as Susan's worried Aunt Cora Nomed, and Sheri Mann as helpful demonic possession expert Dr. Roni Logan. LaWanda Page (Aunt Esther on "Sanford and Son") provides gut-busting lowbrow comic relief as superstitious black maid Elsie. Maurice Sherbanee likewise amuses as creepy, lecherous Mexican gardener Ben. Robert Barich's polished cinematography makes occasional inspired use of a fluid gliding Steadicam. Jaime Mendoza-Nava's spooky'n'moody score does the shuddery trick. John Carl Buechler comes through with a marvelously grotesque make-up design for the hideously ugly female demon; the foul beast's drooling, fanged, snarling breasts are particularly funky and memorable. Granted, this flick certainly isn't a subtle and sophisticated work of cinematic art, but it does overall pass muster as a highly entertaining piece of cheerfully cheesy trash.

wkduffy A film like this puts everything in perspective. Allow me to elaborate.Plaintiff's Exhibit A: Consider, if you will, films like "The Children" (kids on a school-bus ride through a radioactive cloud, become zombies, and hug their parents to death), or "The Dark" (William Devane and Cathy Lee Crosby circle Los Angeles trying to find a monster who can't decide if he's a mentally retarded caveman or an alien from outer space). Before watching "Mausoleum," I always considered these flicks to be kitschy, low budget, suitable time wasters. However after watching "Mausoleum," I can confidently say films like "The Children" and "The Dark" are top-notch, creative, creepy, mind-blowing classics.That's an indirect way of letting you know that "Mausoleum" is dreck. Junk, plain and simple. I'm a forgiving soul when it comes to horror movies of all kinds (revisit Exhibit A if you have any doubts)—I'll give just about any "filmic art" the time of day. But 25 minutes into this empty "Mausoleum," and my attention was already wandering to the fridge. FLAT is probably the best descriptive adjective. The characters, the cinematography, the plot, the setting, the music—the whole package is as flat as an 80s pancake. Even the "Oogily Googily!" mutterings of LaWanda Page as the black maid who "exits stage left" in a "comedy" moment when things turn ugly—even that is FLAT. It's not funny or entertaining; Page's portrayal and delivery is so flat, it's not even a racial stereotype. Even Bobbie Bresee's "demon breasts" that come alive and chew through Marjoe Gortner during a sexy embrace are FLAT.Well, her breasts aren't flat by any means, but the drooling Muppet-like toothy puppets that her breasts become—the whole thing is inexcusably dumb. And worse, even forgiving the limitations of 80s technology, her puppet boobs look dumb.Word to the wise: Skip it. You won't be missing a thing.Defense Exhibit B: Allow me to offer one counterargument. There's a potentially revelatory moment in the film that almost makes it rise to the level of "worth mentioning"—-not "worth watching," but worth mentioning. At the end of the film, as Psychologist Simon and Protag Bobbie stumble out of the titular mausoleum having apparently defeated the evil, Simon turns to a mysteriously hooded grounds-keeper sitting near the gate and says: "You've known about this your whole life and have lived with the secret. For God's sake, don't ever let anyone enter the mausoleum!" As the two speed away, the camera centers on the grounds-keeper who is cutting some flowers. He looks directly at the camera and begins to cackle and cackle and CACKLE and CACKLE and---suddenly, just before the end crawl started, just for one freaking microsecond, I could've sworn this dude was LAUGHING AT ME for having just whittled away an hour and half of my life watching this dreck. I even rewound it and watched again, trying desperately to infer the intentions of the actor, the director, the cameraman. Was that their intention? WAS I BEING LAUGHED AT? If true, this might very well be the coolest horror flick on the planet. Even if it were an accident, that kind of self-referential humor (pointed keenly at the audience) is a mark of genius—a genius I only wish the rest of the film bore out. But ultimately it doesn't.Anyway, just one last gem of dialog before I go (and I won't make any inappropriate "fish" jokes here—I'll leave that up to you):Oliver (husband): "What's for dinner?" Susan (wife): "Poached Salmon...and me."