Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on January 2, 2009, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
“I didn’t know how to act,” Bobbie Bresee says of her first big-screen performance on the audio commentary for the film in question, Mausoleum (pictured). The assertion is hard to contest, but it’s also inarguable that her recollections of this 1983 schlocker are by far the best part of BCI Eclipse’s double-feature disc.
The starring turn by former Playboy Bunny Bresee is far from the only problem with Mausoleum; this is the kind of movie in which the story centers on a clan named Nomed and acts like the audience can’t figure that one out right away, and in which another character knows of their history from a book helpfully titled The Nomed Family. Susan Farrell (Bresee), who once had a frightening encounter in the Nomed crypt when she was a young girl (as played by Julie Christy Murray, daughter of the film’s lighting designer, who looks nothing like Bresee), has grown up to be married to The Food of the Gods’ Marjoe Gortner and is living in an opulent mansion when her inherited curse takes hold. Like the same year’s Sleepaway Camp, Mausoleum has achieved something of a cult rep based on a bit of anatomical outrageousness: When Susan turns into a hideous, er, nomed, her breasts become little fanged monster heads that can chew the ribs out of unwary victims.
The narrative development of Mausoleum, directed by Michael Dugan from a script by producers Robert Barich and Robert Madero (who, based on Bresee’s recollections, had a lot more creative influence on the movie than Dugan), occasionally suggests a porn influence; among the possessed Susan’s victims are her gardener and a visiting deliveryman. The performances aren’t of a much higher standard, though there are a few politically incorrect chuckles to be had with Sanford and Son’s LaWanda Page as Susan’s maid, nattering about the “weird shit going on” in the house. Add a decent amount of nudity, splatter and rubbery John Buechler monster FX, and you’ve got a cheesy ’80s nostalgia item that’s good for an occasional campy chuckle, but not a whole lot more.
Certainly, little effort has been put into polishing this one up for its DVD debut. The widescreen transfer holds the colors fairly well but has been murkily derived from a badly battered print, rife with scratches and speckles, audio hiss and other under-the-surface noise. It’s also missing a couple of gore moments seen in previous fullscreen video releases, and the letterbox matting crops out a bit of the bloodiness too (as in Gortner’s death, where he assumes the most relaxed pose ever seen in a cinematic murder victim)—yet there’s still a remarkable amount of headroom in a number of the shots.
Bresee’s commentary, moderated by Lee Christian, is a delight, however. She’s bubbly and enthusiastic and has no illusions about Mausoleum’s quality, and is happy to dish dirt. She brightly recalls the indignities she suffered during shooting (from scleral contact lenses that damaged her eyes to the producers actually setting up bleachers for the filming of a sex scene), and drops hints about the shady nature of producer/distributor Motion Picture Marketing (recalling that the budget would show up on set in “little black suitcases”), but has nothing but love for all of her co-stars. In her best anecdote, she reveals that she received some evil-voice coaching for her Mausoleum audition from none other than The Exorcist’s Mercedes McCambridge, with whom she was co-starring in a Charlie’s Angels episode!
Bresee also mentions that she and her husband once adapted Mausoleum as a radio play (!), but sadly, that spinoff isn’t presented on the disc. The only other supplement is a collection of trailers (for the likes of Nightmare, Final Exam, Beyond the Door et al.) and drive-in interstitials seen before Mausoleum and between that movie and its DVD co-feature Blood Song.
This 1982 slasher item (a.k.a. Dreamslayer on a couple of past, low-rent VHS editions) was once a staple on the USA Network, and indeed, as directed by tube veteran Alan J. Levi, it has a TV-movie feel as well. Donna Wilkes, in between her Jaws 2 and Angel gigs, stars as Marion, a teenager with a bad leg, an overprotective-to-a-fault dad (Richard Jaeckel) who was responsible for that injury and a psychic connection to a homicidal maniac with his own childhood trauma, who has escaped from the loony bin. This murderer, Paul, is played in a bit of stunt casting by former Beach Partier Frankie Avalon, who actually makes for a fairly creditable madman as he slays his way toward Marion, with whom he is linked via a past blood transfusion.
The body count is fairly small, with just as much attention paid to Marion’s family drama and respites with her boyfriend as to Paul’s activities. She even has an introspective-walk-through-the-park scene backed by a song performed by Lainie Kazan, of all people! (Whether this tune is as grating as the movie’s synthesizer score is a matter of viewer taste.) The final reel delivers the goods, though, as Paul goes after Marion’s pop and then pursues our heroine through a sawmill at night, complete with an impressive forklift-into-the-water stunt. Not as over-the-top as Mausoleum, Blood Song can nonetheless be enjoyed by fans of their era with a little less guilt.
But remember what I said about low-rent VHS releases? The transfer here looks like it used one as its source. It’s fullscreen (albeit with no noticeable loss of picture information), soft and fuzzy, obscuring what appears to have been attractive Oregon location photography by ’80s exploitation stalwart Stephen (Friday the 13th: A New Beginning) Posey. The lackluster presentation of both features in this double bill is a tad disappointing coming from BCI, which was making headway as a supplier and distributor of noteworthy vintage-genre special editions before the label’s operations were kiboshed by owner The Navarre Corporation earlier this month.
