Synopsis: A deranged undertaker begins to kill in order to add to his menagerie of friends in his seedy funeral home.
I honestly don’t know where to start with this one. Let me begin by saying The Undertaker is a complete fucking mess. Period, full stop. But the longer I sit here thinking about it, I almost wonder if it was intended as a joke. I mean, Joe Spinell was making some “interesting” choices later in his career. So maybe this was his final “gotcha”? Since he died 3 short months after production wrapped, I guess we’ll never know.
Uncle Roscoe (Joe Spinell) is a mortician with a strange addiction. He likes to murder women that will eventually end up in his mortuary for his “personal” use. However, his nephew Nicky (Patrick Askin) stumbles upon his extracurricular activities one day while peering through his laboratory keyhole. Nick enlists his professor Pam (Rebeca Yaron) with the help of her roommate Mandy (Susan Bachli) to try to uncover Roscoe’s secret. Little do they know that Roscoe is about to reciprocate their interest.
The way Joe Spinell’s character Roscoe is portrayed is definitely strange. His mannerisms are off putting and he makes spiteful comments with an odd accentuation. His screentime is dotted with interstitials of him chatting with dead bodies, hanging in his basement office in a really creepy manner (like there’s any other way to chat with dead bodies hanging in your office). One begins to wonder if that’s the way it was written or if it was all Spinell’s doing. The man did fight for this role so maybe the latter is the case. The kills were on point though.
What did they do to you Joe?? Honestly, Joe Spinell is one of my favorite actors. Throughout the 70’s and 80’s this guy popped up in some of my favorite film titles. Everything from action to drama to horror, the man could do it all. My all-time favorite though? Maniac. He played the role of Fran Zito to perfection and it will always remain in my top 10. Although some of the roles he chose toward the end of his life were questionable to say the least. His body of work prior to that cancels those out. He left us way too soon.
The Undertaker was riddled with production issues from the start. It had 4 different people at the helm, hence the pseudonym. The diegetic sound is off and spotty at times. The dialogue sounds like it was ad-libbed on the spot. Oh and why is everyone in this movie so sweaty? And that ending, what the hell was that? I have so many questions.
Hell, it didn’t even get a proper release until Code Red got its hands on it in 2010 and that was padded with public domain footage to increase runtime. This film had so many things going against it but somehow persists. Is it good? Debatable. But it has a campy type of charm and it stars the legend himself. So there’s that.
As for my take on The Undertaker? Let’s just say, it warrants another viewing or two. Matter of fact, my copy from Vinegar Syndrome is already on the way. In all its 2K restored glory. If you want to see this one for yourself though, without spending the cash for a physical copy, you can find this one streaming on Tubi.
So grab your popcorn, kill the lights and join me again tomorrow as we continue our journey on this strange little trip down the 31 Days of Horror rabbit hole. See you soon…
