HUBBS KOWALSKIThe 1973 corpse-fucking-art-classic resurfaces in DVD form Where were you when you first saw LOVE ME DEADLY? I can tell you exactly where I was. I was living in Atlanta, Georgia and recently acquired an original Video Gems VHS release of this odd bird. It was also around the time that I would get drunk and have my own nightly drive-in style, dusk to dawn marathons. LOVE ME DEADLY was about the third feature that night and it was probably about 3 in the morning. Come to think of it, I was most likely high as well, being that I was smoking a shit-ton of weed at that time in my life and probably why I remember watching LOVE ME DEADLY. The films I’ve watched completely zonked on the pot have always stayed with me much more than the ones where I’ve been just completely shit-faced. Getting high allowed me to zone out enough to actually make myself believe I was at a drive-in watching all this stuff while sitting in the comfort of my living room. Then I started smoking really bad weed, and got paranoid as shit and quit smoking it all together. And movie going just ain’t the same since. I had this wonderful remake of KING FRAT with Dave Chapelle and Jack Black and Sam Rockwell all planned out. Oh well, it was a good idea at the time. Anyway, back to LOVE ME DEADLY… So I was all fucked up in the La-Z-Boy watching this thing and honestly, it’s no great shakes. The acting is so-so, the technical aspect very blah and downright inept at times and the subject matter not very shocking. I had heard good things about LOVE ME DEADLY. I was a little let down. For all those not familiar with the plot of LOVE ME DEADLY, and there can’t be that many of you, rich socialite Lindsay, played by Mary Wilcox (BLACK OAK CONSPIRACY), harbors a very nasty secret.
That secret is that she’s in the closet about being a necrophiliac. Similar to Bud Cort’s Harold in HAROLD AND MAUDE, she likes to consult the obituaries in the newspaper and attend funerals of people she doesn’t know. Unlike Harold, she likes sucking face with the dearly departed once all the loved ones leave. However, on one occasion, her secret is out, as a creepy funeral director/mortician named Fred McSweeney (Timothy Scott, MACON COUNTY LINE, THE MCCULLOCHS) catches her kissing a corpse and then later realizes she’s a return customer at his place of business and invites her into the satanic cult netherworld of dead folk banging. So I was all fucked up in the La-Z-Boy and other than her kissing a corpse almost G-rated style, there was nothing much there in LOVE ME DEADLY. Matter of fact, I almost turned it off in the beginning due to the horrible flashbacks of Lindsay as a kid and her dad playing on the swings and having tea in the park during the long drawn-out credits while one of the worst self-titled theme songs of all time plays over it. You really owe it to yourself to rent the film just to hear how bad the LOVE ME DEADLY theme song is. Then all of a sudden, the movie goes gay. Creepy funeral director McSweeney picks up some guy in front of a gay porn theater (there is a funny scene here where funeral director McSweeney tells this flaming hustler that he’s not his type and the hustler tells him in this dubbed-in overly effeminate voice, “Up Yours, Mary!”). The whole thing seems out of place, given that gay pick-up scenes in horror movies were not de rigueur during the 70’s, especially drawn-out ones.
So after the director picks up the guy, the film cuts back to Lindsay going to a late night viewing (?) and as she goes in for some suck face, she completely fucks up the corpse’s putty nose. I really wasn’t expecting that to happen and it kind of shocked me, as much as it shocks her in the movie, and she turns to leave in fright and runs straight into fuckin’ Lyle Waggoner (THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW) , which shocks me even more because I was so fucked up I forgot he was in the movie. He apologizes for the open casket viewing and the re-construction on the face of the corpse and then Lindsay runs out.
Then it cuts back to the gay scene. Now, I’ll admit, I’m homophobic as far as not wanting to watch gay guys go at it, so when they go back to the mortuary to go at it and start taking off their clothes and funeral director McSweeney starts rubbing the hustler after getting him on the embalming table, I was a little bit disturbed; which isn’t so bad in a horror movie; to be thrown off-kilter like that; especially when the hustler then gets strapped down and embalmed alive in a particularly unnerving gore scene. I’m more than certain that upon LOVE ME DEADLY’s original release, less opened minded folks probably walked out around this scene. Needless to say, I was awake after that; ready to see where LOVE ME DEADLY was going. Director Jacques Lacerte did a number on my psyche in what I thought was going to be almost a TV movie look at necrophilia, which really, it is. Just with boobs and blood. And can say I’m glad I did see where it was going, even if the results were as equally uneven as those first 21 minutes I’ve described above. Whether or not it was a creative decision to make parts of the film technically shitty and boring, only to jolt the viewer even more with its necro-cult scenes/murders, LOVE ME DEADLY is just a strange case of what-the-hell-was-going-through-the-minds-of-every-one-involved kind of filmmaking. Because, seriously, while these ain’t major players by any degree, there are a few recognizable faces in front of the camera as well as H.B. Halicki signing on as executive producer. Halicki, as you know, made what is possibly the greatest drive-in car chase movie of all time, GONE IN 60 SECONDS (1974), and not that remake crap from 1999. I’m talking the 40 minute long car chase that ends the movie. Of course, I won’t be talking about the horrible 30 or so minutes before that. Funny thing is, right in the middle of LOVE ME DEADLY is the same scene Halicki must’ve stole for GONE IN 60 SECONDS where Waggoner and Wilcox walk through a park and their conversation is dubbed in; only in GONE, its Halicki and his girl in the movie, whose name escapes me now. But it is essentially the same damn scene; only director Lacerte’s version is better. Anyway, back to LOVE ME DEADLY… I mean, the fucking movie is about necrophilia. And for the life of me, I can’t figure out why it was made. The only thing I can possibly come up with is that it’s an analogy for homosexuality and the dangers suppressing it can have on the individual and the people around them? Which would be…death and insanity? Otherwise, it’s a coming of age movie for necrophiliacs that shows these sick perverts only have death and insanity to look forward to. And that’s really weird, making the whole movie essential for all to see in some degree. Especially if you’re like me and dig fucked up movies.
Ever interesting DVD releasing company Code Red, along with Shriek Show, has done a great job here restoring LOVE ME DEADLY to a nice, widescreen print. It’s obvious a lot of care went in to the handling of the existing elements and kudos to every one involved for that. Given that the film kind of fucked me up when I was high and drunk and because I could never figure out why it existed, I looked forward to this new edition and to the commentary with the producer, Buck Edwards, who could possibly shed a little light on this thing. So how pissed was I that I cannot get through the goddamn thing? This has to be one of the most unprofessional commentaries I’ve ever heard, both in the muffled presentation, the stumbling moderator reading credits off a piece of paper or IMDB or something and the uncomfortable spots of dead air like these people may not want to be in the same room with each other. Maybe it’s the A.D.D. but after about 9 minutes, I couldn’t take anymore. I’ll definitely have to listen to it in pieces but hopefully someone in there is the answers I seek. Technically, LOVE ME DEADLY has confounded me again. And this time, stone cold sober.
All in all, this is a great presentation of a flawed film, and I don’t mean that as a put-down. It’s obvious that Jacques Lacerte was not up to the task his film demanded. There are bungled dolly shots and creaky crane shots, which shows a lot of effort but also the limitations of the crew involved. I also think that Lacerte under minded his subject matter with the goofy day-in-the-life-of-Lindsay montages that pop up throughout the film. A spotty tone to say the least, but it honestly makes it more interesting. Either way, for all my younger readers, I do not recommend getting drunk and high. Unless you’re over 17 and can handle it. I miss my old La-Z-Boy, and my pot-fueled imagination. Thanks to Code Red for bringing back some decade-old drug memories with the DVD release of LOVE ME DEADLY.
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