YouTube Presents: B-Movie Sundays, part 1 of 2*: Mausoleum (1983)

Sometimes I worry about the kind of person I am.

There’s something to be said about being someone who really enjoys horror in general—does it mean that you tend towards being a darker, more cynical person? Behavioral science has long looked at what makes some people gravitate towards horror, and it often has to do with the adrenaline rush of fear. I am certainly not a ‘thrillseeker’ by any means and I won’t set foot into a haunted house (let alone PAY for it, jesus) but I can really get down with the fear that comes from watching fictional people get messed up by some supernatural being. I want them to get messed up.

Maybe it’s aging that makes a person more cynical, though. I remember the first time I saw Scream at age 13, how I felt so desperately that I did not want to see Drew Barrymore’s character die.

Now I watch horror movies all the time and just kinda wait for the characters to die. Most of the time, I even feel like they deserve it. To me, there is no subgenre where this is truer than B-movies, specifically of the 70’s and 80’s.

Holy shit. You guys, holy shit. I want to talk about Mausoleum (1983) but I seriously cannot even figure out where to start. It was recommended to me by my friend Allen, who has made several appearances on this blog by virtue of being 1) a horror aficionado, 2) a wonderful human and 3) one of the only people to give a shit about the blog, and he extolled one of its greatest virtues: it is available in its entirety on YouTube (link). I Googled it to find the YouTube link (why not go to YouTube and search for it there? BECAUSE GOOGLE IS FOR EVERYTHING.) and just saw the first two lines of the Wikipedia result: “Mausoleum is a 1983 supernatural horror film directed by Michael Dugan and starring former Playboy Bunny Bobbie Bresee.” Oh. Oh good. Michael Dugan doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page but, according to IMDB, has something in development for 2015 called “Chubby Chasers.”  (This paragraph was brought to you by: websites of the internet!)

It is certainly apt that Wikipedia plugs our girl Bobbie as “former Playboy bunny” because she is straight up nude for at least 45% of this movie, which truly makes it kind of hard to illustrate. Her character is Susan, a housewife to a very busy important businessman who does a lot of important business involving “contracts” and “signatures”. Her biggest problems are that she’s pretty bored, and she’s like MEGA HOT so all dudes are pretty much always hitting on her. Oh, and she’s possessed by the devil because she went into her family’s mausoleum as a child and the only way she can be released from this possession is by placing a crown of thorns on her head (all in all, not that difficult of a task). So I mean, that does complicate matters. Susan is normally a very sweet, vacant girl but when the devil inside her rears its ugly head, her feathered bangs fall away from her forehead and she bares her Playboy bunny teeth and her eyes glow otherworldly green.

Susan’s husband Oliver is dumber than a sack of wet mice. At one point in the movie, he’s told by her psychiatrist that she’s possessed by the devil and, hey, maybe you might not want to get too close to her. He goes home, finds her in the bathtub (boobs) and in the course of their conversation asks her, “What’s gotten into you, anyway?” DUDE, IT’S THE DEVIL, THAT OTHER GUY JUST TOLD YOU.  Then he hugs her with intent to bone. At that point, you kind of deserve it, right? Also, I should make it clear that apparently this is a sexy devil (not the college girl Halloween costume) because this devil wants to bone down with and then kill every man in sight. How? Sometimes with a brutal face clawing, sometimes by dangling them over the balcony at the mall and sometimes with BOOB-DEMONS. This woman’s boobs turned into demons as she got out of the bathtub. BOOB. DEMONS. They moved and snarled and everything, god bless America.

 

 I should also take this opportunity to point out that Susan's family surname is Nemod and it took me literally half the movie to figure out why.

Mausoleum is really really fun and is absolutely worth your free on YouTube, even though it ends with the weirdest, most perplexing “twist” in the final scene. I cannot figure out what in the world they were trying to do there so if you’ve seen it and would like to offer an opinion, please post it in the comments. I just do not understand.

*The reason this post is titled as part 1 of 2 is because when Mausoleum ended, YouTube suggested that I might also be interested in Clownhouse (1989). AND BOY, WAS I INTERESTED. I was going to put them together into one post but I feel like maybe Mausoleum is enough to chew on for right now.