User reviews

This is the precursor to modern art-horror hybrids like KISSED or NEKROMANTIK. A frigid woman who likes funerals and is turned on only by dead bodies enters into a sexless marriage with CAROL BURNETT SHOW stud Lyle Waggoner and secretly joins a cult of necrophiliacs in a local morgue. For a film that had so much perverse and ghoulish potential, this film only partially entertains. There's a particularly shocking scene early in the film of a guy being embalmed alive but the film gets bogged down in the drama of marital problems in the second hour. While the serious approach to such outrageous material is greatly appreciated, a little more ghoulish horror would've been nice.

Just having a film with the subject of necrophilia would turn most viewers off, yet this film does a fairly "tasteful", if the term can be used in this context, job with the subject matter. The films major liability is a story which swings between chilling horror and sappy 70's romance. But, the film is well-directed and for those who decide to sit all the way through to the surprise ending, probably won't be terribly disappointed.

To be honest, when one reads the synopsis of this film one expects the worst. Surprisingly, this is an engaging and frank study both of necrophilia and of a daughter's inability to let go of the past.

Helped along by a very professional sounding theme tune (sung by Kit Fuller), and a lively score echoing films of much more mainstream cinema, this is a shocking film that will make you think for a long time afterwards. Unfortunately, the good acting and imaginative story is let down by some chronically bad editing - particularly when we are suddenly introduced to the character of Alex - but this aside, you should find much more to enjoy about this movie than you will find to dislike about it.

"Love Me Deadly" is to necrophilia what "Max Mon Amour" is to bestiality: one of the last taboos to be tackled in an grown-up fashion, but which can be appreciated by an audience without needing to visit a seedy sex-shop; where story comes first, and titillation is far down the line.

Traumatized by the death of her beloved father, a young woman compulsively attends the funerals of strangers. After she is caught sucking face with a male corpse by a creepy mortician, the mortician inducts her into a bizarre cult of people who enjoy making love to dead bodies. But then she falls in love with a living man and the real drama develops.

This is one of the few movies about necrophilia where there is really an equal emphasis on the "necro" and "philia". There's a very disturbing scene where the creepy mortician picks up a male prostitute and proceeds to embalm him while he's still alive(!), but generally this movie isn't nearly as gruesome as stuff like "Der Mosquito", "Lucker", "Beyond the Darkness" or "Nekromantic". It does, however, have one of those sappy 70's love plots (complete with a syrupy 70's soundtrack) that is definitely odds with the more gruesome content. But, in my opinion anyway, it also makes the film more interesting than if it had just been a pure gorefest.

This film is also yet another entry in strange series of 70's exploitation films (i.e. "Dream No Evil", "Toys Are Not for Children", "Baby Rosemary") all focusing on female Norman Bates-types whose obsessive love for dead or absent fathers results in severe adult sexual dysfunction, and ultimately tragedy. The most recent movie it resembles is the "indie cult" film "Kissed" with Molly Parker. But while others may disagree, I definitely prefer 70's exploitation to modern-day "indie" quirkiness. This is definitely worth seeing.

I have a theory that this film got Lyle Waggoner dismissed from The Carol Burnett Show (he left the series the following season, by mutual agreement).

Regardless, by today's standards, it's not that shocking. The copy of the film I have seems to have been carefully edited, and not as violent or graphic as I recall it being in the theater production.

By 1973 standards, it was quite a shocker...very graphic and gory, complete with a gay subtext. As I recall, it was loosely based around a real-life Los Angeles "cult" of funeral home "lovers of dead" psychos. The story is fiction, but, who knows what goes on behind the closed doors at funeral homes? The acting isn't too bad, and it's fun watching Lyle play against type. The star is quite pretty, too, and she plays her role well. Her hunky boyfriend does a good job of...well, being prepared for cold sex (and so does poor Lyle).

In the right frame of mind, this comes across well. In fact, I'd love to see the original, uncut version one day, on widescreen DVD, but I ain't holdin' my breath. This is lurid stuff, and it ain't likely to see the DVD "light of day".

If you do see this "sicky", just don't take it too seriously, and it might be fun to watch.

Lindsay, a pretty blonde in black complete with veil sits in one of the back rows for a funeral service. She remains after all others have left, and goes up to caress and kiss the dead man, though without quite making contact. The opening credits appear over sepia-tinted scenes of a young blonde girl playing with her loving father.

Lindsay has a party, and a blonde male friend of hers follows her upstairs, but she fights him off. She continues visiting funeral parlors. At one, she bumps into the deceased's brother, an art gallery owner, and they take a mutual liking to each other. He reminds her a little of her father, and innocent sepia-tinted scenes of her with her father are interspersed throughout the film.

Another man cruises by a gay film theater, and picks up a young hustler. He takes him back to his office, saying it's a veterinarian's office, but after he straps the young man down, it's clearly an embalming room.

Lindsay is approached by the cruiser at one of the funerals, and he tells her about necrophilia. She tries to throw herself more deeply into her relationships with her blonde friend and the gallery owner, but she can't handle much more than an arm around the waist or a quick kiss.

She tries joining a group of necrophiliacs at the funeral parlor, but the group activity scares her off. The group does dress in black robes, and use red candles, but they don't seem to be devil worshipers as some others have said.

Her relationship with the gallery owner deepens, but she still can't handle a physical relationship. She also has a couple other secrets no one except her maid knows.

The movie moves fairly slowly, but I found it pretty involving. It is quite sad. I was surprised to see H.B. Halicki (Gone in 60 Seconds, The Junkman) was one of the associate producers! There's also a good musical score. Over the opening credits, the theme song "Love Me Deadly" is sung, and the musical theme is repeated instrumental in different variations throughout.

Very strange movie directed by a teacher who never worked again, despite making a movie for no money that grossed over eighteen million!

They must have duped Lyle Waggoner to appear in this film which features full frontal male gay nudity. A far cry from Carol Burnett, which I think he was still in when this was made.

I'm not 100% sure what this movie is about. It appears there's a group of people who like having sex with newly dead people and so they embalm them while still alive and hang around them in the nude.

And then there's this blonde who is not in teh group but seems to be attracted to it in some way that has to do with her dead father.

Apparently some of the dialog was so bad that after the movie was shot they just pumped up the music so you can't hear what's being said!

The acting isn't horrible (although the blondes screaming is WAYYYYY over the top) and the directing isn't all that bad either considering this guy had zero experience. Many of the actors had a career into the 90's on TV and film, although nothing major. Some of them died in their 50's.

In the end the movie falls flat because it's so poorly written. There are some shots of early 70's L.A. that are fun to watch and maybe if you watch this with some friends who ike bad movies you'll like it more than me.

"Love Me Deadly" follows a young woman in Los Angeles who attends the funerals of men she does not know in order to sneak kisses with the dead. She is soon spotted by a kindred spirit--a man who shares her same necrophiliac tendencies--and it turns out he has his own Satanic group he wants her to join.

This early '70s effort is marketed as a horror film, and in some ways it is, but "Love Me Deadly" plays more like an oppressive chamber drama, drenched in gaudy colors, cheap-looking sets, and peppered with necrophilia sequences. Given the audacious subject matter here, one would think the film would edge into total exploitation, but it manages to keep its wits about it.

Necrophilia aside, the film's main horror angle is the funerary worker/leader of a Satanic necrophiliac cult which he wants the female protagonist to join. This plot element seems hackneyed and the actual nature of this "cult" is not entirely made clear (especially its alleged Satanic motivations, which are never really elucidated), and the film suffers slightly because of this. Mary Charlotte Wilcox portrays the leading character nicely, and the script attempts to unravel her sexual proclivities, tracing them back to a childhood trauma; at times the film reminded me of its contemporary, "The Witch Who Came out of the Sea," in that it deals with similar themes regarding childhood trauma, though it goes about them completely differently. Like many films of this ilk, "Love Me Deadly" also suffers from poor editing and dubbing, which is fairly common for grindhouse pictures of this type.

All in all, "Love Me Deadly" is a mildly entertaining horror film that is not nearly as disturbing as one might expect. The subject matter, though perverse, is handled well, and the lead character evokes sympathy on some levels despite her unusual attractions. It is an obvious precursor to the more extreme necrophilia-themed films that would follow, such as "Nekromantik," as well as the more introspective, quiet ones, like "Kissed." Not a terrible film overall, though it is certainly not for everyone. 6/10.

"Love Me Deadly" is nothing more than a severely dated time capsule from the 1970s. It all starts with some pretty annoying vocals, followed by some very annoying piano music. By way of flashbacks we gradually are enlightened as to why the heroine prefers dead men in bed, rather than her husband. What is not enlightening is the totally dead space filled with walking around art galleries, driving to funeral homes, strolling in the park, barbecuing, sitting in front of a fireplace, etc. etc. etc. I would say that the only thing "genuinely deeply shocking" about "Love Me Deadly" is how shockingly boring it is. Even uncut and uncensored, this is a real yawn fest. - MERK

This great, sadly neglected piece of 70's sleaze is much better than the later, more well-known NEKROMANTIK.For me, the most disturbing scene was not the corpse sex, but the blood draining sequence. This must have turned heads back in '72. Recommended.

This movie had great promise. The theme was very off-beat & interesting - homosexuality (remember, it was made in 1973) and necrophilia. Unlike what the IMDb movie description says, I didn't find any trace of satanism in the story (there is a cult, but it is necrophiliac, not satanic ). There is decent amount of blood & gore (I saw the uncut version). Unfortunately, the plot is not tight and fails to keep viewers attracted throughout. Acting is passable - the main character (Mary Charlotte Wilcox) is very wooden & it's hard to feel any emotional attachment with her. Overall not a bad movie, if you enjoy off-beat horror movies, this might work for you.

Wow, an obscure early 70's horror movie dealing with the topic of necrophilia! How provocative and controversial does that sound? Well, judging by the sound of the opening theme song, it's not provocative or controversial at all! The song, albeit lovely sung and catchy, sounds more like a prototypic Bond movie tune. Luckily enough that impression quickly fades away with the introduction of some very peculiar characters, like a psychopathic mortician who embalms a male prostitute when he's still alive and a peculiar woman who hangs around funerals and mortuaries just because she gets aroused by the sight of corpses. We learn that it all started at the burial of her beloved daddy. She approached the coffin when everybody else and started kissing him on the dead lips. Ever since that magical moment, she also gets sepia-colored flashbacks in which he plays with her when she was still a little girl. Okay, so what happens if these two completely demented individuals meet at a funeral? The mortician invites her to become a member of a secret cult of necrophiliacs and it's the beginning of a wonderfully twisted and perverted friendship! I can't believe there actually existed a movie with such a tremendously disgraceful plot outline and I didn't know about it until now! Of course, this is a zero-budgeted 70's grindhouse flick, so don't expect any vile sequences of gore or sleaze. The tone, atmosphere and suggestive stuff in "Love Me Deadly", on the other hand, are quite shocking and disturbing. Further in the film, the woman tries to build up a normal family life with a living and breathing male species (the brother of one of the corpses she tried to make it with), but she's forever drawn to the dead like bees are to honey. As strange and deeply alarming as it may sound, "Love Me Deadly" is a gentle and respectful portrait of people with … um … socially unaccepted sexual cravings. Necrophilia is automatically associated with filthy perverts exhuming bodies or climbing atop of half-rotten cadavers, but it looks as if this film single-handedly tries to general perception. You know, like 'necrophiliacs are normal people with jobs and friends like everybody else' or something like that. Up to you to decide whether that's sick or noble. This movie is nothing like "Lucker" or "Nekromantik", obviously, but still quite unpleasant to watch. There are numerous powerful sequences, like when Lindsay's husband follows her around to mortuaries and daddy's tomb. For you see, she's a very troubled girl with more than just one screw loose, but still you continuously feel sympathy for her. At least I did. She's not a monster, a murderer or a sex-addicted freak. She's a tormented soul with needs she can't openly express. I'm not familiar with 70's exploitation that make you contemplate about stuff, but "Love Me Deadly" does and that's truly unique. The gathering sequences are exaggerated, though, making it look as if the necrophiliacs are some sort of satanic cult. The character of the mortician is also made extra sinister and creepy to appear more to horror fans. The fantastic climax left me in a state of nausea, perplexity, disbelief and mild shock.

This lame attempt at a sleaze horror drama lacks all key elements. Our prudish lead blonde never takes it off. There is no pay off here. Gore scenes are few and far between the insipid romance story book drama that will make you sick. The best acting here is done by corpses. Horror sleaze fans will be gravely displeased. Edited like a bad tv show the screen goes dark in between the scenes as if to break for commercial. Oh and be careful there is a huge homosexual element here. Actually the only nudity is male. This is not mentioned on the box cover and those who attempt to pass off these lame film as a cult hit also fail to mention it. A total disaster of a film you can't even laugh at. A soap opera is more compelling. Avoid at all cost.

sickly movie indeed, although it's not as harsh as many other sickly movies out there anyway ...

well, it was the times! and it still is somewhat today, perhaps even worse, with all the extremely gory movies of all types we're seeing in the last couple of decades or so ...

apparently there are people out there who do really enjoy this kind of movie, just as they probably do enjoy being necrophiliacs ...

for those seeking a full version of this movie, well, apparently there is one on YouTube, which i'm watching right now ...

so, if it's truly the original copy and if it's going to be taken down soon, then why not hurry up and take a look as well as download it for yourself?

Actually quite a well-made and off-beat thriller for its time; a Mr. Lobianco who wrote another "review" actually sounds quite a bit on the homophobic side, as the film has a brief bit of gay content but certainly NOT the "gay plot" he has it being. And there is certainly nothing wrong in the least with having gay content in a film to begin with. Actually well worth the time of viewing it; but out-of-print now to my knowledge. Mary Wilcox is not bad at all in the lead role; Lyle Waggoner is as wooden as a board as her devoted hubby; I saw no traces of a satanic cult in evidence, despite what a couple other viewers wrote. Definitely a necrophiliac cult, but satanism is not mentioned. The film's topic would be unusual in a film even today, let alone 1972 when the film originally played theaters. Actually quite surprising none of the multiple DVD companies have ever released this on home video, nor to my knowledge do they have an plans to do so. Considering some of the utter rubbish put out on the medium, it would be nice if one of them would make this available in a widescreen transfer for home libraries.

This steaming-hot slice of 70s grindhouse bliss denotes a lovely young woman(Mary Charlotte Wilcox - BEAST OF THE YELLOW NIGHT, 1971) coming to terms with her compulsive longing for intimacy...with deceased men(um...does rigor-mortis set in down there?). Through frequent off-hand visits to the local mortuary, she networks into a sub-rosa society of like-minded individuals who are more than eager to bring her "into the fold". Unfortunately, her husband(CAROL BURNETT SHOW alum Lyle Waggoner) is unaware of her warped desires, and can't understand why he's not "getting any".

The key issue making LOVE ME DEADLY such a memorably divergent trinket is the prudent sensitivity with which it approaches its grotesque premise. It plays like a schmaltzy, melodramatic LIFETIME CHANNEL movie with necrophilia in place of the customary, commiserative "disease-of-the-week" topic...never has a film been so characteristically at-odds with itself. Amazingly, this ill-advised wonder-work actually delivers in an all-wrong and rather dishonorable sort of way...it's not a great movie, critically speaking, or even an especially GOOD movie...but considering the unsavory subject-matter at hand, it's a surprisingly groomed and buttoned-down production which takes itself quite seriously(and for sheer novelty, what more could you possibly hope for?).

5.5/10