Wow, an obscure early 70's horror movie dealing with the topic of necrophilia! How provocative and controversial does that sound? Well, judging by the sound of the opening theme song, it's not provocative or controversial at all! The song, albeit lovely sung and catchy, sounds more like a prototypic Bond movie tune. Luckily enough that impression quickly fades away with the introduction of some very peculiar characters, like a psychopathic mortician who embalms a male prostitute when he's still alive and a peculiar woman who hangs around funerals and mortuaries just because she gets aroused by the sight of corpses. We learn that it all started at the burial of her beloved daddy. She approached the coffin when everybody else and started kissing him on the dead lips. Ever since that magical moment, she also gets sepia-colored flashbacks in which he plays with her when she was still a little girl. Okay, so what happens if these two completely demented individuals meet at a funeral? The mortician invites her to become a member of a secret cult of necrophiliacs and it's the beginning of a wonderfully twisted and perverted friendship! I can't believe there actually existed a movie with such a tremendously disgraceful plot outline and I didn't know about it until now! Of course, this is a zero-budgeted 70's grindhouse flick, so don't expect any vile sequences of gore or sleaze. The tone, atmosphere and suggestive stuff in "Love Me Deadly", on the other hand, are quite shocking and disturbing. Further in the film, the woman tries to build up a normal family life with a living and breathing male species (the brother of one of the corpses she tried to make it with), but she's forever drawn to the dead like bees are to honey. As strange and deeply alarming as it may sound, "Love Me Deadly" is a gentle and respectful portrait of people with
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socially unaccepted sexual cravings. Necrophilia is automatically associated with filthy perverts exhuming bodies or climbing atop of half-rotten cadavers, but it looks as if this film single-handedly tries to general perception. You know, like 'necrophiliacs are normal people with jobs and friends like everybody else' or something like that. Up to you to decide whether that's sick or noble. This movie is nothing like "Lucker" or "Nekromantik", obviously, but still quite unpleasant to watch. There are numerous powerful sequences, like when Lindsay's husband follows her around to mortuaries and daddy's tomb. For you see, she's a very troubled girl with more than just one screw loose, but still you continuously feel sympathy for her. At least I did. She's not a monster, a murderer or a sex-addicted freak. She's a tormented soul with needs she can't openly express. I'm not familiar with 70's exploitation that make you contemplate about stuff, but "Love Me Deadly" does and that's truly unique. The gathering sequences are exaggerated, though, making it look as if the necrophiliacs are some sort of satanic cult. The character of the mortician is also made extra sinister and creepy to appear more to horror fans. The fantastic climax left me in a state of nausea, perplexity, disbelief and mild shock.
Review of Love Me Deadly
