The Undertaker is not very well known to say the least; and I really can't say I'm surprised about that as the film is rather silly and lacklustre. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that this is one of the last films of cult star Joe Spinell, I highly doubt that anyone would remember it at all. As you would expect from a low budget trash film such as this; the plot is not particularly inventive and the writing is even worse. The film starts off with a rather amusing scene that features an attempted rape by a motorcyclist, and it really sums up what you're going to see nicely as the victim must rank as one of the slowest-witted of all time! The plot focuses on an undertaker named Roscoe. He's a sick man and has decided to take his job into his own hands and has begun killing people himself. He slices up his victims and keeps them as his 'friends' inside the funeral home he lives in. Naturally, it's not long before the police find out what's happening and begin to investigate.

Joe Spinell is best known for his role in 1980's Maniac; but anyone hoping for anything like as good as that is liable to be sorely disappointed. This film does feature a handful of murders; but none of them are particularly violent or bloody and mostly we just get to see the killer and his dead victim after the event. I don't know if this was an attempt at 'less is more' or (more likely) the budget constraints meant no gore could be afforded; but either way it's disappointing. As the film is very hard to track down, the copy that I saw was less than great and looks like someone spread Vaseline all over the film stock; but even so it's obvious that the film has a trashy look about it anyway. This does lend itself well to the plot, which is also trashy, but still the film is not very nice to look at. The Undertaker runs for ninety minutes, and even though that's an average running time for films like this; it still feels overlong. The ending is serviceable, but not really worth the wait. Overall, I can't say that this film is worth tracking down, even for hardcore Spinell fans.

THE UNDERTAKER is a Z-grade shot-on-video horror film of the late 1980s, with all of the cheesiness that that scenario brings. The ever-sleazy Joe Spinell once again plays a maladjusted character in the MANIAC mould, this time working his way through a number of badly-acting supporting cast members. The film is light on the bloodshed, although it has a sleazy theme of necrophilia, but it's heavy on the tillation with endless scenes of women working out and showering. The amateur nature of the production is apparent in the bad special effects and the resort to padding with endless scenes from THE TERROR and THE CORPSE VANISHES fleshing out the running time. It's not very good.

Deranged mortician Uncle Roscoe (the singular Joe Spinell in peak creepy, slimy, and sweaty form) murders folks in a sleepy small town as a means of keeping his business afloat and stores their mangled bodies as gruesome souvenirs in the basement of his funeral home.

Director Frank Steffanino, who's actually a pseudonym for no less than four different people (!),and screenwriter William Kennedy really go out of their way to scrupulously cover the sleazy exploitation cinema bases: We've got a pleasing plethora of leering gratuitous female nudity, an unsparingly sordid tone, cheesy gore, and a warped subtext about necrophilia for that extra icky kick. With the notable exception of Spinell, the rest of the lame no-name cast all give laughably atrocious performances, with Martha Somoeman in particular copping the grand thespic booby prize with her supremely irritating portrayal of shrewish old bat Hazel. The plodding pace, meandering narrative, and ludicrous surprise shock ending further enhance this film's considerable cruddy charm. A total trashy hoot.