The Undertaker and His Pals (1967)

Cast:

Ray Dannis is The Undertaker
Warrene Ott
Rad Fulton
Marty Friedman
Sally Frei

What the box says:

A cult black-comedy about an undertaker whom befriends a pair of motorcycle-riding knife-wielding, psycho restuarant owners who kill people for body parts to use in their (gulp!) blue-plate specials. Business for the undertaker and cheap meat for the resturant owners, sounds like merger made in hell! Lunch anyone?

Plot:

Some bikers are circling around on the roads. One biker stops at a phone booth and the others follow him down the road. One stops as the other drive off.

A pant-less cheesecake chick, Sally Lamm, is writing a letter to her boyfriend in the service.

When she, checks the front door, the 2 bikers crawl in the apartment through the fire escape. Sally is caught between the bikers and impaled in a non-sexual way. At least, she didn’t enjoy the penetration…Pieces of her in a non-Jewel way are cut off... Her legs are taken away…

At the Shady Rest Funeral Home where trading stamps are given out, Sally’s parents come to for the funeral.

I learned how to apply makeup at the Courtney Love and Anna Nicole Smith Beauty School. The Undertaker chats with them. The mother seems to be inconsolable. The father is outraged when given a bill for $1250. They argue before leaving…

At Harry Glass’s PI office, he is hard at work evading his uber-hot secretary who wants to get married. He convinces to take her to dinner instead.

This movie has just went into the realm of science fiction. They go to the Greasy Spoon Diner… The bad jokes about eating at restaurants near animals pound appear much classier…Spike, the counterman, is taking their order. The diner only has the special Leg of Lamb. Ann Poultry, secretary, mentions the cook got thrown out of medical school for being weird.

Harry thinks the Leg of Lamb is bad and leaves. Ann raises a stink, too.

Ann is dropped off at her place. Girl can fill a dress or fill out not wearing one…

Bikers are on the road again.

Ann heads out into her yard to find her cat. Spotting the biker gang, she cowers along a wall as they close in on her. She gets impaled on a wrought iron fence.

The next morning, Johnny, the police detective, shows Harry a torn skull logo. The deduction is that the killers are bikers. The police want Harry to keep in the case? Mort the undertaker is on the scene. He wants Harry to sign a contract for Ann’s funeral. Harry notices that no prices are mentioned on the contract. He fills in the quoted price with no extras. Mort storms away and slips on skateboard before falling on his butt and being laughed at by some kids.

Back at the Greasy Spoon, Harry has a cup of coffee. The daily special is Breast of Chicken.

In the kitchen, Doc is reading a medical textbook, when the black delivery guy arrives. He only brings vegetables but offers that the store’s prices on meat can’t be beat. Doc is getting antsy as the delivery guy is poking around. The deliverator sees a side of long pig, the other white meat, Caucasian…Doc delivers a meat cleaver upside his head for his trouble.

Some bum comes in to the diner later. Spike spots the dead guy in the kitchen. The bum isn’t too fond of Spike’s waitering skills. Ordering a pie, Spike gets a heavy load of white cream in his face.

At the funeral home, Harry comes to Ann’s funeral. She is stuffed in a leaky packing crate. The Undertaker makes a couple of snide remarks about not adding any extras. Harry introduces Mr. Prissy to a good ole fashioned PI whooping.

Back at the office, Harry spots a hot chick walk in. It is Friday. She is hired on the spot and given some money for dinner and to come back.

The very blonde Friday stops at the Greasy Spoon. Doc flips the closed sign when he hears her mention having hunger pains. She is then chloroformed and taken into the kitchen.

Doc readies for surgery and inspects the patients. After the first incision, he is distracted by a fly. Spike chases it around the kitchen. Doc resumes his exploratory surgery and intestine fondling. Suddenly, Friday wakes and starts screaming. She’s gagged and dies. What should they do with her?

Meat grinding ensues. The new special is written as Hambur-ger. Undertaker storms in the kitchen. He is angry about not getting a share of Friday to bury. Doc and Spike will help Mort get another client.

Biking ensues.

A couple of girls leave the steam room. One stays behind. She doesn’t notice the bikers until too late.

We bring you the news that not to trust Zenu... They use a chain to beat her to death. They start to take some of the body parts. A girl rushes in and opens fire and shoots the license plate off one of the bikes.

Harry learns the plate belongs to Mort the Undertaker.

The bikers get back to Greasy Spoon. They realize Mort lost his license plate. Doc and Spike decide getting rid of Mort the Undertaker is the smart move. Suddenly, for absolutely no reason, Doc decides to help Mort get rid of Spike.

Harry gets in touch with one his snitches to find out who the Undertaker hangs out with. Would it be a big surprise to learn he is friends with Doc and Spike?

Mort and Doc lower Spike into a vat of acid in the kitchen. The nefarious duo decides to keep a low profile for a while.

Harry breaks into the Greasy Spoon later that night. He discovers a skeleton in the kitchen’s vat of acid. Also runs into Friday. No, it is Thursday, Friday’s sister. Friday has vanished.

Thursday can’t help but wooed by the absolute masculine virility of Harry Glass.

Doc and Mort follow Harry’s car. Along the road, Harry calls the police detective about the owners of the Greasy Spoon. The private dick and Thursday head to his place for the night. The car ride seems to take several hours and it is getting awfully light. By the time he pulls up to his house, it is dark again.

Thursday pours her heart to him before realizing he’s asleep.

Harry and Thursday are driving back to the city when the car runs out of gas. He jumps in front of passing truck!? Thursday is left at the car.

The bikers approach and chase Thursday around. A game of cat and mouse, life and death, peanut butter and jelly…Doc accidentally gets run over by a passing semi. Harry was riding in the semi back to the car.

Mort the Undertaker gets away.

The crazier-than-ever Mort is building a bomb.

Harry apologizes about Friday to Thursday. He leaves but is killed by Mort’s bomb.

Well, Thursday has to evade the maniacal Undertaker. She gets to the rooftop and hides. Finally, she is backed against the edge of the roof by Mort. As he lunges at her, Thursday ducks. Mort falls off the roof.

Somehow, he isn’t dead yet.

Thursday comes down off the roof.

The fat police detective talks with Thursday.

Mort is in the next room about to strike again when the cop inadvertently stabs him in the forehead.

As bad 60s rock assaults us, we see a coffin open. Sally, Ann, the Delivery Guy, Friday and Steam Girl are apparently alive. Spike is lowered back into the acid. The entire cast gets to mug at the camera before the movie ends.

What I say:

I'm not going to try and dissect macabre into its historical roots very deep. It is probably more common known in connection as the phrase Danse Macabre (Dance of Death or a Stephen King nonfiction book). One definition of macabre is grim and ghastly humor. That is the definition which is going to be used for this roundtable review as I delve into a Matinee of the Macabre.

I have never seen any of the Herschell Gordon Lewis movies like Blood Feast. While Undertaker and His Pals isn't in any way connected to Herschell, this movie is definitely in his vein of filmmaking.

The Shady Rest Funeral Home isn't affiliated with Shady Rest Hotel. Otherwise, the sisters from Petticoat Junction may be in serious trouble. This has been this week's pointless 60s television reference.

Undertakers have a natural creepiness about them. The undertaker in Tales From the Hood definitely did. No offense meant, however, people working around dead bodies do seem well "Creepy." The funeral home operators have never really been given a good reputation in films. When, Angus "TALL MAN from Phantasm" Scrimm is the best known undertaker, you have an image problem. No offense, Mr. Scrimm, I had a professor in college that I thought was related to him. Sure, Dr (Name Removed for Fear of Him Ending my Existence) would walk into class one day and his mastery of UNIX would allow him to create hovering spheres with his mind...Laugh, he still is the definition of intimidation...

At least, it doesn't take itself too seriously. When the gang goes after Miss Lamm, we see a picture of her boyfriend. Each shot back to the photo is different as the boyfirend is getting more an more disgusted by what is happening. The ending showing the entire cast alive shows it tries to have a sense of humor. Friday eating a hamburger supposedely made out of her is almost a deep philosophical conumdrum.

It has quite a bit of humor that must have died a number of decades before. The guy ordering the pie and throwing it in Spike's face. Most of the comedic bits are pretty tired gags. I'm guessing the Thursday and Friday gag has something to do with Tuesday Weld and Wednesday Addams. That makes as much sense as anything else.

The gore isn't sickening. We have the brilliantly bright red blood. It is so bright as to be red paint. One scene cuts into some stock surgery footage of human guts. That has to be the closest to any really gruesome effects.

The movie never explains why Doc suddenly sides with Mort to get rid of Spike when Mort was the most dangerous one. He lost his license plate and had a bullet wound. The police would get him and uncover his connection to the Greasy Spoon...So why get rid of Spike?

You'd think anyone riding a motorcycle around would have the intelligence to have hidden the plate or stolen another plate for cover. Well, when 3 guys kill women to serve as the Blue plate Special and to bury the other half, you shouldn't expect rocket scientists..

When, the day for night shots are so confused Ed Wood would have considered them to be extreme, they really should be toned down. The day for night shots are ridiculous in this movie. It seems to take Harry at least 3 days to drive to his house. He leaves the Grerasy Spoon in the middle of the night, gets light on the way. When he pulls up to his house, it is dark again.

The way the women are oogled before getting killed is voyeuristic and mean-spirited. Those scenes seem more in bad-bad taste than something like in Peter Jackson's Bad Taste. We get to oogle each of the women before they're killed. I'm sure some consider it misogynistic. I wouldn't go quite that far. This movie was at at the start of the exploitation and grindhouse circuit. It could be far more exploitive thn what it was. A few years later, it would have had slow loving camera closeups of the women as they stripped.

Quotable Dialogue
"How would you like to sew plastic legs on cold corpses? Of course, I could've skipped the legs and given her a junior length coffin."
"Then I’m going to jump out the window if you won’t marry me."
"Why those dirty, rotten…oh, I could just tear them apart with my bare hands."
Morals of the Story
Biker gangs wear helmets and skull emblems on their leather jackets.
People taste like their last name.
Vats of acid are commonly kept in diner kitchens.
Leather clad men can easily sneak into women's steam rooms.
Women must thrust their pelvis when firing a gun.
Most people live several days away from their jobs in the city.