Joe Spinell is probably one of the most prolific character actors of all time. Even if you don’t know his name, you’ve probably seen him in at least one movie. Spinell has been in some of the biggest movies of the 70s, including The Godfather, Rocky, and Taxi Driver amongst others. For cult movie fans, he’s probably best known for movies like Starcrash, The Last Horror Film, and most notably Maniac. Despite his rough exterior, he was one of the kindest and most well-liked people to work with. In the 80s, he wasn’t getting as much high-profile work as before, but he still found work nonetheless. Unfortunately, Spinell was in failing health, not helped by his alcoholism and drug use. He sadly died of a heart attack in 1989, but is still thought of fondly. Prior to his death, he was featured in the forgotten 1988 horror film, The Undertaker.
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Rating
The film features Spinell as Uncle Roscoe, a local mortician who goes around killing young women and taking their bodies back to his basement. His nephew Nicky (Patrick Askin) suspects something is amiss with his uncle, so he tries to get the help of his teacher Pam (Rebecca Varon). She doesn’t believe him at first, but after Nicky gets killed by Roscoe, Pam decides to investigate further. All the while Roscoe is killing both young women and people who either annoy him or are suspicious of his actions. As Roscoe continues his killing spree, the police aren’t having much luck taking him down. Pam, along with her friend Mandy (Susan Bachli) and her boyfriend Kevin (Joe Magle), tries to figure out what Roscoe is up to.
Unfortunately, that’s all I can really say about the plot without giving it away. However, there’s another reason why it’s somewhat difficult to talk about what happens here. I’ll get into that later as it ties into some of the problems I have with the film. Without a doubt, Joe Spinell is easily the best part of the whole film. Regardless of what follows, he is insanely captivating as the depraved mortician Uncle Roscoe. While not as menacing as his Frank Zito character from Maniac, Roscoe is so creepy and sleazy that it works. You can tell that Spinell is really giving this role his all, which is unfortunate given the rest of the cast. But going back to the positives, the film has a good look to it. It has a very grimy and gritty quality that makes it slightly more sleazy and disturbing.
Sadly, that’s where most of my positives for the film end. Aside from Spinell, the rest of the cast is really not that interesting. A lot of the acting is pretty bad, and I doubt many of them acted again. Also, the movie is very slowly paced to the point of boredom. No joke, the first time I watched this, I nearly fell asleep. Normally, I don’t mind a slow burn that takes time out to establish the characters and what not. But here, there are times where the film really feels like it’s dragging. In addition, there are numerous subplots that are either given no introduction or are just dropped. This honestly feels like a film that’s both finished and unfinished. While it clearly looks like it’s completed, it also feels like they didn’t quite get to finish it. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was more here originally.
In the end, it is pretty easy to see why this film was largely forgotten. It’s pretty slow, the acting isn’t very good, and it feels like a jumbled mess. There is some gore and gratuitous nudity, but it doesn’t help much, especially since there isn’t much. Even still, the movie is worth it just for Joe Spinell alone. His performance is honestly way too good for this film. I don’t mean to bad mouth the filmmakers since it seems like they tried. For that reason, The Undertaker is worth discovering, but be prepared for something with this many flaws.
