Scarecrow-88 I feel that even the supporters of Michael Dugan's "Mausoleum" would agree that this is purely an effects movie using the old possession theme as a method to do so. Bobbie Bresee's a troubled wife, Susan Farrell, whose businessman husband, Oliver(Marjoe Gortner, who doesn't have a prayer, stuck with a dense dope of a husband whose wife is clearly in need of serious help and is always hesitant to do what's appropriate for her welfare and safety)is always working, away trying to close money-making deals while she's left to contend with a demonic possession handed down to her cursed family. It seems that a demonic spirit calls young Susan(..visiting her mother's grave), who had lost her mother and is struggling to accept it, to a creepy mausoleum with a crypt in the center(..with crawling rats on top). The crypt contains the spirit and it is set free by Susan, the result being her possession. The film focuses on Susan, as an adult, slowly taken over by the spirit as it targets unfortunates who come near her during the day. Susan's psychiatrist, Dr. Simon Andrews(Norman Burton), will witness the evil spirit after putting her under hypnosis, and reluctantly vow to put an end to it so that she can be saved.John Carl Buechler's monster designs are given the star treatment in this movie and some fare better than others. I think many of the latex make-up designs on Bresee range from effective to rather unconvincing. But, I cut him some slack since this was one of his first movies and he would improve soon after with his own directorial debut of Troll. There are some icky scenes such as Susan's poor Aunt Cora(Laura Hippe), while levitated in the air, has her chest split apart where we see her rib. And another suffers a horrifying fate when his chest is torn open by little beasties protruding from Susan's chest when she's in demonic form. One victim, for no reason he deserves, is merely delivering a plant for the recently murdered gardener and is invited into Susan's house, her demonic spirit causing the side of his face to bleed and break open. Maurice Sherbanee is the grubby voyeuristic gardener, Ben, who suffers for his desire to get randy with the missus. One man is burned alive in his car(..which soon explodes)just for causing Susan some annoyance at a bar! The clincher is an employee at an art store on the second floor of a mall who informs Susan she could not purchase an already sold painting, getting levitated in the air and dropped to his death. A constant is Susan's eyes glowing green(..actually, I found this rather effective, even if primitive by today's standards)before the evil spirit murders someone. Besting the mediocrity of most of John Carl Buechler's special effects are Bresee's exposed breasts;she often invites males for potential pleasure by showing off her body in lingerie and sexy gowns. I think director Dugan was ambitious and attempts to sell his story of possession, but the budgetary constraints are simply too much to overcome. The levitations are particularly corny and will likely cause giggles. When you're creatures look like rubber designs, it's hard to find them scary.

Woodyanders Lovely and sweet young Susan Farrell (a respectable performance by deliciously voluptuous blonde bombshell Bobbie Bresee) suffers from an especially nasty family curse: she gets possessed by the spirit of an evil and lethal, yet enticing distaff demonic spirit that takes over the first born daughters of every line in her family. Pretty soon Susan just ain't acting like herself anymore; she starts seducing and murdering various guys. It's up to concerned psychiatrist Dr. Simon Andrews (nicely played by Norman Burton) to save Susan's soul before it's too late. Director Michael Dugan does a sound job of creating and maintaining a flesh-crawling ooga-booga atmosphere, pours on a handy helping of juicy gore (the definite splatter highlight occurs when Susan levitates a guy and sends the man falling to his death from a three story balcony onto a glass table), tosses in several moments of hilariously campy humor, and has the luscious Ms. Bresee bare her insanely hot body at pleasingly regular intervals. The game cast do their best with the rather silly material: the ever-cool Marjoe Gortner as Susan's loving, but busy husband Oliver, Laura Hippe as Susan's worried Aunt Cora Nomed, and Sheri Mann as helpful demonic possession expert Dr. Roni Logan. LaWanda Page (Aunt Esther on "Sanford and Son") provides gut-busting lowbrow comic relief as superstitious black maid Elsie. Maurice Sherbanee likewise amuses as creepy, lecherous Mexican gardener Ben. Robert Barich's polished cinematography makes occasional inspired use of a fluid gliding Steadicam. Jaime Mendoza-Nava's spooky'n'moody score does the shuddery trick. John Carl Buechler comes through with a marvelously grotesque make-up design for the hideously ugly female demon; the foul beast's drooling, fanged, snarling breasts are particularly funky and memorable. Granted, this flick certainly isn't a subtle and sophisticated work of cinematic art, but it does overall pass muster as a highly entertaining piece of cheerfully cheesy trash.

BA_Harrison Shrouded in fog and subject to constant violent thunderstorms (despite being situated in an otherwise very sunny and pleasant looking cemetery), the Nomed (oooh, how clever is that?) family mausoleum would probably be the last place I would choose to enter if my lineage was cursed by demonic possession. However, after fleeing her mother's funeral, Young Susan Walker Farrell happily seeks solitude in the spooky burial chamber, and becomes a host for the creature that resides within.Years later, and the demon finally makes its presence known, turning the now married Susan (played by busty-but-otherwise-talentless starlet Bobbie Bresee) into a glowing-eyed, murderous nymphomaniac. After sleeping with and killing her gardener, bumping off a delivery boy, ripping her aunt apart, dropping a guy over a balcony in a shopping mall, scaring off the comic-relief home help (a crazy black housemaid who constantly jibber jabbers to herself), and partially devouring her husband with her slavering demonic breasts (I kid you not), Susan is saved by her shrink, who places a crown of thorns on her head, causing the monster within to crawl back to its crypt.Mausoleum, as you can probably tell from my description, is a rather crappy horror that lacks anything even remotely resembling a coherent and logical plot. It is laden with abysmal visual FX and make-up, loaded with genre clichés (fog, thunder and lightning, rats, cobwebs etc.), features tons of terrible acting, and, despite some very cheesy moments, is pretty dull viewing.Bresee gets her tits out quite a lot to try and compensate somewhat for her dreadful performance, but, even if she had done an explicit nude gymnastic routine in a hall of mirrors, it wouldn't have been enough to save the film from being a major waste of time. A dreadful twist/surprise ending (which also makes absolutely no sense) leaves viewers wondering just how such an obviously awful idea ever made it past the planning stage.

strvngactor29 I have just seen Mausoleum on video, mostly on fast-forward to save me the time of laughing too hard. Be warned!!! The box cover looked "spooky" and inviting to this horror aficionado wanting a cheap 80's scare. What I saw in the first 20 minutes was pure crap! Beyond below production values made me think of some cheap foreign language student film. It seemed like all the actors were voiced over with ADR. I had seen this film on video shelves since I was 12 years old and had always wanted to rent it. Mausoleum has climbed to the top charts of some of the worst movies I have ever seen. I have seen cheap, low-budget thrillers before like Piranha II: The Spawning, The Evil Dead, Phantasm, The Hills Have Eyes, etc. and have been able to find some sort of redeeming qualities from those movies, be it capable acting, above average effects, decent production values, etc. but not even La Wanda Paige's comic turn could lift the movie out of the out-house. For all of you horror film-buffs, viewing Mausoleum will be a one and only time experience as all films should be viewed at least once. This film will be immediately forgotten if it weren't one of the tackiest, useless viewing experiences (even in fast-forward) of my adult life.