Believe it or not, the first comedy-gore horror flick wasn't Herschell Gordon Lewis's The Gore-Gore Girls.   We suspect that honor belongs to the "cut-up" creepy comedy we're about to examine, one that was made very cheaply by a bunch of unknowns and which languished in limbo until finally being released as part of a package deal to drive-ins (where old Renfield first saw it).  Despite its humble origins and heritage, though, it's not a bad little funny fright flick at all...in fact, we confess to being...

By DAVE DUGGINS

Question: What do three guys on bikes doing doughnuts in parking lot have to do with an undertaker and his pals? Answer: Very likely nothing … but it looked really cool, so they started the movie with it.

Actually, that’s pretty harsh and unfair, since I haven’t even watched any of the movie yet. It just seemed like an appropriate comment because this is another horror cheapie, kinda like the last horror cheapie. Hey, wasn’t the movie I reviewed in March a horror cheapie too? Hey, wait a minute. Do I ever review good movies?

Well, I did tell Renfield I liked horror cheapies. If I told Renfield I liked jumping off bridges, he’d probably send me one. He’s a nice guy that way.

Okay, let’s get serious - sort of. The Undertaker And His Pals is actually a good film in terms of accomplishing its own goals in its own way. It’s an interesting, if somewhat obscure, example of the odd half-breed that proliferated in Europe and never really caught on strong in America: the horror-comedy.

Horror-comedy is a tough sell, generally handled much better by our overseas cousins, who have a long, proud tradition of laughing at death. Americans are still a little uncomfortable with it, often resorting to broad slapstick to pull it off, as in the Scary Movie films. Occasionally, it works very well (Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn, An American Werewolf In London), usually in the hands of a director employing decidedly European tendencies.

Down to brass tacks. One appeal of these less-than- sterling offerings is the girls. The peroxide blonde stunner who gets chopped up in the opening sequence is no exception, but she does not remain intact for long, so enjoy her while you can.

The aforementioned bikers surprised me by immediately entering the plot after spending three or four minutes of screen time circling, doing Brando imitations on lonely stretches of highway and talking on payphones. Once they get down to business, it’s clear that their business is not good. As they escape out the window with various very fresh body parts, I found myself thinking--hey, these guys must be the undertaker’s pals!

I’m sharp that way. It’s a gift.

The first example of humor in Undertaker is off-the-wall and somewhat abstract, with most of the humor being derived from shots of a still photograph of the hapless girl’s boyfriend. The expressions in the photo change as the picture watches what happens. Weird. A little creepy. Funny? Not exactly, but definitely played for laughs.

Broad humor enters the scope when we get to the funeral home, which is next to a butcher shop. Sweeney Todd, anyone? And then of course there’s the sign draped across the funeral parlor doorway: We Give Trading Stamps.

Swell. If I save enough stamps, maybe I can buy a spleen. Mine’s getting pretty worn out.

After that, things get steadily more irreverent and weird, which is a good thing. The funeral home scene just spits on the whole concept of respect for the dead. The undertaker--named Mort, of course--starts things off by playing some upbeat rock n’ roll instead of the somber organ music we expect. The girl’s overdone makeup gives her a tarted-up Raggedy Ann vibe. To top it all off, he offers the poor bereaved schmucks the bill, which is about a thousand dollars more than he told them they’d pay. Sadly, it’s not too far removed from how the funeral industry actually works.

But they’ll pay, the undertaker assures our enraged patrons. Oh yes. They’ll pay.

Enter Harry Glass, a private detective with class (or not). His secretary/girlfriend threatens to jump out the window if he won’t marry her. Harry picks up the phone, calls the local Kelly Girl service and orders a replacement.

Hey, he’s only kidding. Everything’s for yucks, right?

Harry takes his girlfriend to a café, where today’s special is leg of lamb. The wha-wha-whaa of a muted trumpet--a device cribbed from Scooby-Doo and about a million other Saturday morning cartoons--tells us all we need to know: these people are about to chow down on some human flesh. Yummy!

It occurs to me that quite a few horror-comedies are about cannibalism, probably because it’s one of those taboos, where the line between the funny and the terrible is very blurred. You can pull people in a lot of different directions emotionally with it, inducing laughter and revulsion at the same time.

Harry takes a bite. It doesn’t taste like lamb. He doesn’t clean his plate, but he does take a bite. One bite.

Does mistakenly eating a bite of human flesh make you a cannibal? Kind of a squirmy question, isn’t it? Questions like that are definitely part of the fun.

Harry takes his girl home, where she promptly strips down to her underwear just in time for the bike brigade to snag her. Not nice people, with no normal interest in pretty girls. Grab ‘em and chop ‘em up, that’s their angle. While the worst of the actual chopping happens offscreen, there’s a nice gory shot of Harry’s girlfriend impaled on the garden fence. Girls and impalement. We get the picture.

Now here’s a real novelty: the undertaker shows up at the crime scene! Talk about service. "Hey, heard your girlfriend’s dead. How about a great deal on a coffin and grave liner?"

Not about to be taken for a sucker, Glass hands the guy his lunch, pointing out that there are no actual dollar amounts specified in the contract. Harry writes in the $144.98 price tag the undertaker quotes him, which pisses the guy off no end. He then takes an accidental skateboard ride into the middle of the street, feeding us the main plot. He will get revenge on Harry for making a fool of him. Old as Poe.

I don’t think Poe would have come up with the "Doctor" who serves human body parts and reads medical manuals in the kitchen, scalpel in hand. Doc delivers a touching ode to the scalpel, looking right into the camera to punch the line "scalpels should always be sharp." Anyone remember Sweeney Todd singing to his razors? "At last my arm is complete again!"

Annoying, marginally related aside: If you guys have no idea what I’m talking about with this Sweeney Todd stuff, you must rent a copy of the musical. Get the early Eighties Showtime version if you can. It’s a brilliant, hilarious, tragic work of genius that nobody true to the grue should miss. A masterwork of horror and humor.

The delivery guy arrives, and that dude is way too nosy to be anything other than a victim waiting to happen. "How come you never order any meat?" Wrong question to ask a guy in a room full of sharp implements. Cleaver, meet skull.

Later, Harry goes to the funeral home to pay his respects to Ann. The undertaker gets his revenge, all right--he stuffs Ann in a shipping crate. Nasty. Not exactly funny, either--not to me, anyway.

But see, you might think it is. That’s the real genius of a film like this. That good taste-bad taste line lives in different places for each of us.

Harry practically drools all over himself when Ann’s equally hot sister, Friday, shows up. She sprawls herself on his desk and asks, "So am I hired?"

Too bad the girl ends up in the Diner of Death before she can even clock in. And no, this place does not take Diner’s Club cards. The only question now is: rib cutlets or kidney pie? Take your choice, because you get to see it all, laid out on the table like the auction block at a slaughterhouse. They chloroform her before they cut her open, but she wakes up in the middle of the procedure--which is sort of funny as long as you don’t think about it too much.

Imagine waking up to find your insides on your outsides. It definitely rides the ragged edge of taste, as does the aftermath of the botched operation, when they get rid of the evidence by turning her into hamburger. It’s enough to make you think vegetarian.

The undertaker shows up, whining about bills. Our diner boys promise to help him, which apparently involves a trip to the local sauna. There’s a nice visual joke with a statue of Venus, minus arms.

The next scene is one of the hardest for me to take – the blurriest of lines in the film, at least for me. The guys descend on a woman in the sauna and one of them beats her to death with a length of chain. It has a flat, clinical look that almost makes it feel like documentary footage. I found nothing humorous about it, but your mileage may vary.

Harry talks to his favorite stoolie, who happens to go by the original handle "Charlie the Stoolie." He finds out that the undertaker hangs out with those two losers at the diner. He pays them a visit, not realizing that they’ve already done him a favor by reducing their number to two (the third turned to a skeleton in a vat of acid).

The plot takes a weird turn with the introduction of Thursday, Friday’s twin sister. I guess they had the actress on retainer or something. She and Harry have a wonderful little romantic tussle immediately after Harry finds the skeleton in the acid. Yeah, I’d really feel like making out after that.

Doc and the undertaker track Harry down and catch them on a deserted road, the car out of gas. Harry runs off and leaves Thursday alone--always a bad idea in a horror film. In this case, however, the outcome isn’t what we expect. Instead of capturing Thursday, Doc gets hit by a truck, leaving only Mort, who dutifully bathes in the cliché pool by immediately pursuing Thursday in a Keystone Cops-styled he’s-going- slow-she’s-going-fast sequence that really doesn’t fit the tone of the rest of the film. He traps her on the roof...but again, things are not as they seem.

The ending is twisted and entertaining, and lightens the tone considerably. As the credits roll, the murder victims get out of their coffins, crates and acid baths and tip a wink to the camera, in effect saying "Relax! It was only a movie, and you’ll see us in another one at the drive-in next week." Considering the grimness of some of the proceedings, it works well.

I thought was funny. Depending on your bent, you might think so, too.

Thanks, Dave.  Yup, you do need to be a little "bent," maybe, to enjoy any part of The Undertaker And His Pals (and, in this flick, parts are definitely parts).  But we admit to being in that condition.  There's a chaotic mix of comedy approaches in this funny fright flick and the dollops of gore sometimes clash resoundingly with the overall goofy tone.  But, in some ways, the whole thing works and it's clever enough to provoke a chuckle or two, and that's all this flick really tries to do.  Made in the Sixties, it wasn't even seen until it became part of a horror triple feature arranged by no less than Ted V. "Astro Zombies" Mikels.  But it's good enough--in its own twisted way--to stand on its own.

Article copyright © Dave Duggins

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