[The Morgue]
Plot:About six strangers who find themselves stranded overnight at a rural morgue.

Cast:Bill Cobbs, Lisa Crilley, Chris Devlin, Heather Donahue, Googy Gress, Taylor Lipman, Brady Matthews, Fred Ochs, Brandon Quinn, Michael Raye, Sammy Sheik, Chris Torres.

My Thoughts:What a waste of a good morgue.

Review:I can't stress enough how tired I am of gimmick horror movies. Films that don't really have much going for them, so they decide after 85 minutes of pure crap, to throw in some wacky ending to gain themselves some brownie points. That's "The Morgue" in a nutshell, 85 minutes of crap, and 5 minutes of "what the hell?" at the end. The film is set inside a creepy morgue in the middle of nowhere, where a girl acts as caretaker over the place. She is joined there by an old man named Henry (Cobbs) who has recently lost his daughter. The morgue itself is a very fascinating and creepy set piece.

Which is why it is so disappointing that this movie didn't live up to expectations. Very few horror films are lucky enough to boast the perfect inner-setting for a horror movie. "The Morgue" was lucky enough, but didn't give enough of a good effort with the story to match the potential and possibilities that it's atmosphere presented. Which is too bad. Things get interesting at the morgue when a young couple with a daughter show up after running out of gas, and two other gentlemen show up after some sort of automobile accident.

The key word being "interesting". From there...things tease, and tease, and tease. But remain "interesting", yet never moving from looking and being "interesting"...to actually translating into anything good or juicy. The movie just sits in a sort of limbo if you will. Always being on the cusp of breaking into an action-packed moment, or string of moments. But never doing so. Then there's the extremely annoying flash-visuals that this movie uses. It works fine for the first few moments of the movie. But this stuff continues deep into act two, and that ain't good.

The films antagonist is the morgue's former caretaker who for some reason killed himself, and now exists 50% in the world of the living and 50% in the world of the dead. Sounds intriguing and eerie enough, but it never goes anywhere. Nor does he. The films villain has all the usual cliches. Reappearing and disappearing at will, the ability to watch a person from two feet away without being seen. Same old stuff, different day. But unlike most indie horror villains who like to tear shit up, this guy is just cool with hanging back and not doing much except choking some girl to death with gasoline and then giving a lazy chase to what's left of the cast in act three.

There's not much action here, nor much horror, nor any real scares. While "The Morgue" is a horror film, it seems to be afraid to own up to that label. And instead, plays it safe for most of the pic, avoiding too much if any blood, gore, and extreme violence. The film doesn't even sport one good profanity-laced-banter scene, and everyone knows an indie horror pic has to have that to ratchet up the excitement level down the gut of the movie. But "The Morgue" just seems to be complacent with playing scary music, using creepy flash-editing, and leaving the viewer with the notion that someone is watching these people, and "eventually".....they'll strike.

But if you're a hardcore horror fan like myself, you don't like the "eventually", you want the "now", or the "at some point". Neither of which we ever get. Instead, we get disappointment after disappointment, and nothing really great, memorable, or even remotely cool happens. "The Morgue" is another one of those movies that takes a big, victorian-looking residence...and wastes it like a canteen of water in a sweltering desert. The filmmakers simply had no idea on how to use it's most important asset, the morgue itself...to it's advantage, and to top things off, they throw in a predictable yet at the same time, screwy ending. And without a vicious, entertaining villain, any extreme gore, interesting characters, or exciting moments at all...."The Morgue" is dead on arrival.

Positives:The morgue is a very creepy, atmospheric set piece. A decent musical score.

Negatives:A bad villain who does nothing for the most part, weak characters, a lack of blood and gore, hardly any entertainment value, annoying flashy editing.

Overall:One star.





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