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The Embalmer (1965)


Sometimes, imported horror films are great... other times, not so great.

Andrea is an Italian reporter investigating the disappearances of several girls in the city of Venice.  While trying to convince the police that the incidents are connected, Andrea soon finds himself in a race to save his new girlfriend, Maureen...

"The Embalmer" is a low budget Italian horror film (originally titled "Il Monstro di Venezia"), and it really shows.

The premise is interesting and has the potential to support some real tense and creep moments, but this movie fails to come anywhere near fulfilling that potential.  The story is rather slow, with an all too easy to see solution, answered questions that could have made the story solid, and a rather depressing ending.  There are no real surprises or scares in the story.  The scenes of tourists sightseeing, and the scene with the Italian Elvis impersonator only helped to bog the movie down rather than movie it forward.

The characters aren't all that much better.  They're rather cliched.  You have;
  • The handsome young reporter;
  • The beautiful tourist woman he meets;
  • The gruff newspaper editor;
  • The friendly cop who doesn't believe the reporter;
  • The scholar who dies when he gets too close to find out what's going on;
  • Two slightly drunk bickering friends who wind up helping the reporter solve the case; and
  • The killer who dresses as a monk.
There WERE some things I did like about the characters- mostly the fact that the killer used a scuba suit to travel through the canals of Venice to stalk his prey.  Beyond that, the characters were rather flat and shallow.

I really wasn't much for the acting, either.  I just found it hard to get emotionally engaged by the characters and the events going on around them.  Everything was just too... blah.  Even the embalming scenes- which could have given us some decent moments were bland and lifeless.

In short, I have to say, I had more fun tweeting to this "What Movie Wednesday" feature, than I did actually watching it.  I'm going to have to put "The Embalmer" in "The Ugly".

Special Shoutout:

I want to thank everyone that participated in my "What Movie Wednesday" feature.  I'll be doing it again June 20th.

Big thank you to the following people who voted for "The Embalmer":
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