Love Me Deadly

What can you say about a 1972 film concerning a pretty, blonde L.A. socialite (who’s secretly a necrophiliac) which also co-stars Lyle Waggoner (of The Carol Burnett Show fame)? Well that’s what you get, and more, in the gloriously deranged Love Me Deadly, out now in a stunning Blu-ray from Code Red. No matter how many times I watch this, I am still dumbstruck by its sick subject matter, inappropriate musical score, and startling violence.

Now I’m not that familiar with necrophilia. When I played doctor as a child, I never wanted my patients that still. But the subject pops up in several of my favorite movies.

Like The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962) by Riccardo Freda set in 19^th century London where a strange doctor (Robert Flemyng) (whose first wife died in mysterious circumstances) takes a new bride (Barbara Steele) and delights in drugging her to almost the point of death before he can make love to her.

Or The Loved One (1965), director Tony Richardson’s bizarre attempt to film Evelyn Waugh’s sardonic take at the funeral business in L.A. But the script by Terry Southern and Christopher Isherwood is so rife with jet-black humor audiences were turned off at the time. You owe it to watch this comic gem, just to see Rod Steiger’s hilariously effete cosmetologist (of the dead) Mr. Joyboy, and his grotesquely overweight, cackling mother (Ayllene Gibbons).

Beyond The Darkness (1979). Joe D’Amato’s sick puppy of a film is about taxidermist Frank Wyler (Kieran Canter), who can’t get over the untimely death of his beautiful wife (Cinzia Monreale). So he does what any grieving husband would do. He digs her body up, takes her home to his remote home, guts and stuffs her, curling up next to the body from time to time. Frank lives with his creepily devoted sister Iris (the unforgettable Franca Stoppi) and when people unexpectedly show up and threaten her brother she has no problem killing them, hacking up their bodies, and dissolving them in a bathtub full of hydrochloric acid.

Kissed (1996) Director Lynne Stopkewich’s strangely poetic tale of Sandra (the sublime Molly Parker), obsessed with dead animals as a child, who gets a job at a funeral home and revels in ravishing the male corpses after hours. She attempts a normal relationship with a guy but makes him get into a suit and tie and lie very still on the bed before she can go near him. An odd, creepy film.

Then there’s Nekromantik (1987) and Nekromantik 2 (1991), director Jorg Buttgereit’s punk classics about sick couples who collect random body parts from highway car accidents and bring the pieces home for sex games.

But Love Me Deadly is weirder and wilder than any of these other films.

Lindsay Finch (Mary Charlotte Wilcox) is a wealthy socialite who enjoys teasing her boyfriends (like hunky Christopher Stone) but refuses to give in to them sexually.

What she delights in doing is read the obituary column and drive around L.A. in her big white Mercedes attending funerals of men she never knew. That’s so she can wait until everyone leaves the room and steal a kiss from the corpse. Endless flashbacks recall her incredibly unhealthy relationship with her father.

At one of the funerals she crashes she meets Alex (Lyle Waggoner), who is the brother of the deceased. He intrigues her (because he slightly resembles dear old dad) and she stalks him at his art gallery.

Meanwhile, the creepy funeral director Fred McSweeney (Timothy Scott) is on to Lindsay’s weird obsession and invites her to join his special group who meet after dark at the funeral home, get naked, and play with the corpses.

Fred even trolls the streets of L.A. for male hustlers (I. William Quinn), brings them back to his place of work and embalms them alive. That scene alone is so disturbing you won’t believe your eyes. Meanwhile Lindsay and Alex tie the knot but even on their wedding night she refuses his advances in the bedroom. She likes her men like she likes her martinis- chilled.

Listening to the Blu-ray audio commentary by the film’s producer Buck Edwards, they hired actual prostitutes to play the naked cult members (because they were cheaper than hiring actors and didn’t have a problem with nudity).

I. William Quinn, who played the unfortunate male hustler, acted in straight porn, particularly A Climax Of Blue Power (1975), a nasty X-rated tale of a security guard who dresses like a policeman in order to rape women.

Mary Charlotte Wilcox is particularly loony and wonderful in the movie, especially a scene where she visits her father’s grave with her hair in pigtails and skips around the tombstone singing “Skinny Marinky Dinky Dink.” She went on to write and act in the glorious SCTV Network, and believe it or not, is now an Anglican priest in Edmonton, Alberta.

The director Jacques Lacerte has no other credits and, according to IMDB, died in 1988. But there are few films this warped and wonderful.