Mausoleum (1982) — Triskaidekafiles

MAUSOLEUM

WRITERS: Robert Barich and Robert Madero

DIRECTOR: Michael Dugan

STARRING: Marjoe Gortner as Oliver Farrell

Bobbie Bresee as Susan Farrell

Norman Burton as Dr. Simon Andrews

La Wanda Page as Elsie

Maurice Sherbanee as Ben

Laura Hippe as Aunt Cora

Sheri Mann as Dr. Roni Logan

Julie Christy Murray as Young Susan

QUICK CUT: A woman deals with the loss of her mother years later, when she inherits an old artifact from her family.

THE MORGUE

Susan - A thirty something housewife who is, to be honest, a bit hard to grasp. She spends most of the movie in the thrall of her demon pal, and they do most of the driving. But the glimpses we do get to see makes her seem like a smart woman, dedicated, who had a few rough years as a kid that stick with her today.

Oliver - Susan’s husband, who, if I am being kind, is not very observant. He’ll do whatever he can to help his wife, if he ever notices something is wrong.

Doctor Andrews - Susan’s psychiatrist, who doesn’t believe in magic and curses and demons, but finds it increasingly difficult to deny them.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Happy Triskgiving, everyone! Well, the day after. But more importantly we have reached the third and final movie in my "Hey the plots of these movies sound vaguely similar" trilogy, Mausoleum. I had originally just planned on Devil's Hand and Beyond Evil, but then I listened to a recent episode of Kiss the Goat, they mentioned this movie, and it felt VERY of a piece with Beyond Evil, that I decided to expand things to a 'trilogy'.

Anyways, we begin some time in the past, with young Susan attending her mother's funeral. She doesn't want to go live with her Aunt Cora until she's older, so she bolts off into the cemetery.

She hears voices from a crypt, or I guess the titular mausoleum, calling out to her. Or maybe Sousa, but that seems unlikely.

Once she finds the mausoleum, it is engulfed in flames, at least to her eyes, but she runs inside anyways.

The church! The church! The church is on fire!

Inside, she runs into some homeless guy, who runs afoul of whatever is in the crypt, and we watch as the shadows on the wall make threatening motions at him until he leaves.

From this, we get a pretty sweet head explosion, at least.

Back at the mausoleum, Susan inches closer to a tomb, with a sign above that says "Nomed" and I hope everyone reading that is smarter than everyone in this movie.

Counting shadows on the wall, they don’t bother me at all…

Susan cuts herself and bleeds on the grave, which is never a good thing to do. The tomb opens, a gnarled hand reaches out, and shoves us 20 years into the future.

Cora is visiting Susan's psychiatrist, and tries to explain that there's deep lore and beliefs in her side of the family, the Nomeds. Doctor Andrews says he is aware of the superstitions, and brushes all these silly beliefs aside.

While Susan is called back to the crypt, Doctor Exposition reads from the family histories to tell us all about the demon that plagues them. Something something demon and a crown of thorns, no Nomed woman must enter the crypt, and man, y'all shoulda mentioned this a few decades ago.

But she gets woken up by her husband, as their gardener, who gives off a creepy vibe, says he'll be back later to take care of a stump.

The couple goes out to the club to relax, watch as another guy has a rough time with his lady friend, and he causes problems once she leaves.

He horns up on Susan and tries to dance with her, and she shoves him off. As they leave, he continues to cause problems.

As he tries to leave, his car ignites, and Marjoe Gortner rushes to try and save him, even if he had been a massive dick. But Susan's eyes are barely glowing green, and the doors won't open. Eventually, the car explodes, taking the pest with it.

The next day, Susan sends her maid off to run some errands, as Groundskeeper Willy shows back up to show off his...er, take care of that stump.

Groundskeeper Willy flirts awkwardly and forcefully, leering at the woman, and eventually going back to his actual work, and with a mug of the Farrell’s coffee.

As he does so, the spirit of Alma Martin takes over Susan, she opens up her robe, and her eyes glow green. Doors start shaking, drawing Ben's attention, but he eventually goes back to his montage of yardwork.

Is it required to show off the girls before using mind powers?

The day goes on, possessed Susan continues to flirt back, and that night she lures the groundskeeper off to the garage to have her way with him.

Once she has done exactly that, she goes all praying mantis, transforms off camera with only glimpses we see for now, and grabs a rake.

The rake comes down several times, she claws off his face, and it's pretty effective for what it is, and as a good early kill.

Why does my coffee taste like fresh cut grass?

So, so far she has blown up a guy who tried to get up in her business at the club, and murdered someone who has been skeeving on her all movie long. While Groundskeeper Willie may have been a bit of entrapment as she lured him to his fate, it was definitely well within him already.

Am I supposed to be upset she's killed these two awful creeps?

Marjoe heads off to work, and Cora comes by to pay a visit. She hears weird growling noises upstairs and goes to investigate. When she finds Susan, she's once again demoned out, and eventually has had enough of Cora and tosses her down the stairs.

Maggot! ANSWER ME!! You are banished…to the blagghole!

The husband comes home that night, Susammael has changed back of course, and I love how utterly oblivious he is, going about his day, as his wife murders people all over.

Later that night, Oliver sees Susan sitting in a chair, acting weird, and looking weirder. He heads down to the kitchen, wakes up her psychiatrist, and tries to explain what he saw to the doctor. But being 2 in the morning, the doctor says to come by in the morning.

The next day, the maid returns, and she feels spooked, because she senses something is wrong. Oh good, the spiritual black woman trope.

Is that an aurora borealis? At this time of day? In this part of the country? In your bedroom??

We get far too much comedy relief through Elsie, and too much silly music as she is chased off. I could have done without all this.

The next day, they cram a lot into one scene of Oliver noticing gosh, everyone I usually see isn't here! OH well, let's go see your doctor! I’m sure they’ll turn up!

Doctor Exposition hypnotises Susan and she relives the funeral of her mother. But it gets so much worse when the thing inside her takes over and the two have a chat.

This is an aggressive amount of plaid in a space that should be calming.

After coming face to face with Susazel, the doctor wakes her back up, and sends her on her way back home. I’m sure that’s safe.

Once she's gone, doc calls one of his associates for a second opinion. He spills what he saw, and actually says the line, "Yes there is a history of possession" Well there's yer problem!!

We cut immediately to him visiting with with the other doctor, and they chat earnestly about how this might be real demonic possession.

This all feels like a terrible diversion from the plot, and just very unfocused. We shifted PoV characters sharply to follow this side trek with someone who isn’t directly involved.

Back at the Farrell's, another gardener is delivering some plants. Since Ben isn't there, Pasusu invites the deliveryman inside. I think I've seen this porn.

Delivery boy uses the phone to call the office, she zaps him with her microwave eyes, melting his brain until it literally pours out his ears.

Apparently she DOES have to release the girls.

Oliver comes home, finds blood ALL over the phone, and while he's concerned, he isn't THAT concerned.

We cut back to the doctors trying to make a plan, and Andrews asks his colleague what he should do, and she says "Not we, what YOU have to do" WHY ARE YOU EVEN HERE if not to help?? There is zero clause in the Nomed Texts that say "Only the first doctor of the first born can stop the demon".

Oliver shows up, and as Susabbadon wanders around the mall, Doctor Exposition does what he does best and fills her hubby in.

WHY is there a table of random stone artifacts just sitting there in the middle of the mall’s food court??

Susanubis tries to buy some art, but it's not for sale. Not willing to be deterred, she outright steals it when the museum/gallery owner turns his back.

He gives chase, but he would have been much better off if he had just let it go. Susabbalom uses her freaky deaky mind powers to choke him out, and hoist him into the air.

She continues to lift him over the balcony, over the court below, and eventually lets him go to see if he can learn to fly before hitting the ground.

Once we're done with Chekov's art installation, we head home, and Oliver is not a fan of his wife's latest art acquisition. I mean, it's kinda bland, but whatever.

Marjoe calms down though, and that night says she can keep the painting. They have a bit of yelling, a bit of breaking dishes, and it all leads to them having some angry makeout sex in the bathroom.

Meanwhile, Doctor Exposition is off to the mausoleum to try and get the crown of thorns to try and put an end to this.

And for some reason, this crown of thorns, this massively important, probably ancient relic, worth who knows how much if someone wanted to sell it...is just casually hanging off the door handle of the mausoleum.

Just as the doctor claims the crown for himself, the Susantichrist uses her demon boobs to tear out her husband's heart.

I'm just gonna leave you with that sentence for a bit.

Again, this is so all over the place. The husband is dead, it's the doctor doing the heavy lifting. It just feels so all off kilter.

Doctor Andrews shows up to the house 15 minutes late with Starbucks, and sneaks around the place to see if he can find the demon.

After far too much wandering, the doctor hears Susan humming, and eventually sneaks down a hallway filled with cobwebs. See, this is what happens when you scare off your maid in the first act.

He finds her in a child's room, and is horrified to find all the corpses of her victims sitting around. Well, at least we know how she hid the bodies.

The pair talk it out for a bit, and eventually the Susantichrist reveals herself to the doctor. And while he yells at her, he places the crown of thorns on her head, and we are treated to a very long, but still pretty good transformation sequence.

Talk about REALLY releasing the girls, huh? Ahem...

Mortified that the crown does not match her eyes AT ALL, Suecifer passes out, revert to her normal form, and the demon is sent back to the mausoleum.

The pair of them rush after it to finish the job, because heaven forbid we end the movie already.

Nomed crawls back into it's crypt, and because of the rules, only Susan can finish things, and closes the sarcophagus on her imaginary friend.

We wrap this up with a cloaked figure being told that like his father before him, he must watch over the crypt, and no Nomed women must ever enter the mausoleum! Yeah, so far, this family has done an absolute shit job of that. I have zero faith in the future.

Oh, and sudden twist, it's somehow Ben?? Am I interpreting this right? I don't even know anymore. Beelzeboobs took so much outta me.

Obi Want? That’s a name I haven’t heard in a very long time.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Pretty good, once again, Vinegar Syndrome does a stellar restoration job.

Audio: Same here.

Body Count: Not bad, but there’s a few more characters we coulda offed, there’s more chaos we coulda had. But definitely okay.

1 - Random dude's head explodes seven and a half minutes in

2 - Skeevy guy from the club goes boom.

3 - Susan claws Ben to death

4 - Aunt Cora gets telekinetically ripped open by Susan

5 - Gardener supplies dude has his face melt off.

6 - Art dealer gets flung off the balcony to his death

7 - Marjoe gets ripped up by Demon Susan

Best Corpse: Has to be the art dealer who gets imapled on his works. It was fabulously and over the top bloody. Easily a highlight.

Blood Type - B+: Most of that goes to the impaling, as it goes everywhere. But each kill has a good deal of blood, and the makeup effects are generally pretty great.

Sex Appeal: Susan just can’t seem to keep her clothes on.

Drink Up!: Every time you hear the word Nomed.

Movie Review: While I had a handful of problems here, and the movie goes off in odd directions that shift the focus a bit too hard for my tastes, it’s still fun. The plot may be overall lacking in some areas, but the makeup effects and splatter make up for that. The acting is solid enough for the main cast, and increasingly wobbly as you go out of that small circle, but for the most part, the cast brings it. Four out of five Beelzeboobs

Entertainment Value: The demon acting is wonderfully over the top. Susan herself doesn’t quite chew the scenery, but she sure can contort her face wonderfully, and whomever did the possessed voice knows how to make a meal out of a few words. Again, the deaths are memorable, and the makeup is a treat. I wish it was a little less silly in a few small moments, but overall, a solid movie and nicely entertaining in the right ways. If it had a bit more focus, and maybe didn’t shift hard to minor characters, this coulda been something. Three out of five crown of thorns.

So how does this line up with the other two movies? Well, obviously, and I’ll admit this, I solely added this movie because of green eyes and a spouse dealing with possession. Ironically enough, since they weren’t originally paired together, this and Beyond Evil definitely pair well together. Devil’s Hand far less so, as I previously stated, but the general themes of dealing with devils and possession and such, hold together just enough that this would not be the worst triple bill you could do. This was fun to do, even if they’re not all perfectly in sync.