Lousy Lottery 19: Let's Take a Trip to 1983's Mausoleum
Welcome, friends, to the Lousy Lottery! Here’s how it works. First, I post four movies to a poll on Twitter. Fans vote to pick which movie to make me watch that week. I watch it, review it and spread the word about an amazingly awful, terribly terrific b-horror flick.
This is week 19! Your pick for this week has my demonic senses tingling, it’s 1983’s satanic panic wonder Mausoleum! This movie is perhaps best known for it’s fantastic letterbox poster, but it does indeed have a plot, so let’s dig in, shall we?
Young Susan is at her mother’s funeral and doesn’t want to leave. Her Aunt Cora tries to get her to come, but she’s too distraught and runs off. For some reason, Cora just stands there screaming like Susan’s going to run off a cliff, but maybe she knew more than the viewer. For moments later, Susan approaches a small mausoleum, seemingly hypnotized. She enters the structure and startles what appears to be a homeless man living there. Despite the fact that she’s just some 10-year-old who wandered in, he runs for dear life. While I’m not sure how or why, suddenly the back of his head explodes as if shot and he dead.
Susan goes further into the mausoleum and conjures up about a million questions for me, the viewer. From here on, I feel like my head was cocked to the side in confusion like my dog when I dance in the kitchen. So much confusion. For example, suddenly we’re years later, in the future, yet no one seems to have aged other than Susan herself and none of the setting has changed. The clothes, the technology, the cars, all of it looks like the funeral was yesterday. Yet, Susan seems to be in her ‘40s now, so it’s been decades? Also, Susan seemed to stay in that mausoleum for quite a while cavorting with evil forces and whatnot. Did no one notice? What happened when Aunt Cora finally found her?
No answers are provided. Suffice it to say, somehow Susan gained a demonic presence or powers or, well, something satan-ish when she went into that building at the cemetery. Now it’s years later and she’s finally putting that power to use. Is she taking down corruption? Nope. Is she going to fight the church or a priest or something? Nah. Instead the filmmakers have Susan become one of my new favorite characters ever. It’s her choice of how to use her powers that officially makes this movie RIPE for a remake. Please, someone get on this right this second!
You see, other than when she super randomly kills Aunt Cora, she uses her powers to kill men who wrong her. Juicy! I love it. No, not wrong her in a large way, like stealing all her money or trying to kill her or something. Oh no. Susan will kill a bastard just for being a typical male creep. Drunk dude at the bar gets handsy and tries to grind up on her on the dance floor? Congrats drunk dude, you’re getting burned to death in the parking lot! Groundskeeper who keeps checking out her bountiful bosom? Well, you get hacked to death by a garden rake! This one is actually my favorite because she has sex with him first. Like, hey, look you’re a creep and you gotta die, but, mama needs a little vitamin-D first. Can anyone stop this demon woman from killing all these creeps?! I mean, personally, I hope not.
This movie is totally bizarre and simultaneously unique and formulaic. It seems many odd things happened in production too. For example, the contacts they had Susan wear when she was in demon mode full on blinded actress Bobbie Bresee. When Bresee discovered this and said something, the producers didn’t care and had her continue working. This means, for a portion of the film, Bresee was blind while performing. It gets worse, apparently the producers would erect stadium seating so the crew could watch Bresee’s nude scenes. What I’d give for footage of demon Susan just blitzkrieg style killing all those leering dudes.
Well, it turns out the producers of this film were using fake names. Why? They used fake names because they were members of a Columbian crime family and this movie was meant to be nothing but a money laundering scheme. Turns out, when all the producers and the writers are named Bob, it might be a cover. Just sayin. None of them have credits either. It’s just delicious. They accidentally made a marketable movie, though. Here’s how. First, they cast an unknown as one of the leads. He plays Susan’s husband and he was unknown to the Mafioso producers because he was a Pentecostal preacher, not an actor.
He was super famous in the religious world because he was a very well known preacher who had lost his faith and done an exposé documentary on the church called Marjoe. This movie caused a damn sensation in the hyper religious world of the ‘70s and ‘80s and even won an academy award for Best Documentary. So, here comes a movie about a dangerous demon who’s not afraid to show a little boob now and then and it comes out right at the fiery peak of the satanic panic of the ‘early 80s and stars a famous preacher? That, my friends, will pack an ‘80s movie theater for sure!
What that ultimately means is Mausoleum is a silly, odd, unique film full of truly bizarre storytelling choices because, frankly, the filmmakers knew nothing about nor cared about story telling or filmmaking. I absolutely adore movies like that. I love a movie watching experience that is unique because so much has become remakes and reboots. This movie is the result, not of focus groups and test screenings, but money laundering criminals. It makes for one weird wonderful ride.
So, check out Mausoleum on Prime or Tubi. You can expect some gore, some head shaking moments of confusion and a truly bizarre appearance by the lady who played Aunt Esther on Sanford and Sons! Toss in a heaping tablespoon of satanic panic and what more could you ask for?
Also, don’t forget to see what’s coming next in the Lousy Lottery. Make sure you tune into Twitter later today and vote for Lousy Lottery 20! My handle is @MrJosh79, look for it and don’t forget to vote!
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