In the wide, weird world of 1970s exploitation horror, some films titillate, some shock, and some—like Love Me Deadly—wander into the theater, strip naked, hug a corpse, and ask you to take it seriously.
Directed by Jacques Lacerte, in what appears to be both his debut and swan song, Love Me Deadly is what happens when a late-night Cinemax script crashes into an embalming textbook and no one says “cut.” Ostensibly a film about a necrophiliac cult operating out of a Los Angeles funeral home, this unholy casserole of sex, Satanism, and deeply questionable daddy issues is both too dumb to be disturbing and too slow to be trashy fun.
This isn’t so bad it’s good. It’s so bad it’s embalmed.
Plot Summary: When Grief Gets Weird. Really Weird.
Our main character is Lindsay Finch, played by Mary Charlotte Wilcox, whose main expression ranges between vacant stare and intense desire to kiss something dead. She’s an heiress who spends her free time attending strangers’ funerals in full mourning attire, only to lip-lock with corpses after everyone leaves. Charming.
When not making out with dead men, she throws lavish parties where she shows zero interest in the living guests. Her “best friend” Wade (Christopher Stone) tries to romance her, but Lindsay isn’t into people with pulses. Meanwhile, local mortician Fred McSweeney (Timothy Scott) notices her corpse-kissing habit and thinks, “Now there’s a girl who’d love a Satanic necrophilia orgy.”
Because, oh yes, Fred runs a cult—a Satan-worshipping band of body enthusiasts who gather nightly at the mortuary to get handsy with cadavers. Their activities include summoning evil, violating the dead, and apparently murdering gay men with embalming fluid for fun. You know, just your typical Wednesday night.
Eventually, Lindsay finds something resembling true love in Alex, a living, breathing art gallery owner played by Lyle Waggoner, who appears to be auditioning for Days of Our Lives: Corpse Whisperer Edition. They get married, but—shocker—Lindsay can’t seal the deal in the bedroom because, well, he’s not dead enough. Things spiral into gothic insanity involving graveyard frolicking, traumatic flashbacks, and one of the most ridiculous death cult reveals in cinema history.
Mary Charlotte Wilcox: Corpse Bride Without a Clue
Wilcox plays Lindsay like she’s wandered in from another movie—or perhaps another dimension. Her performance lands somewhere between a sedated Shirley Temple and an erotic horror mannequin. This is a woman whose idea of intimacy is lying next to her dead husband while wearing pearls and a haunted expression, and yet the movie treats her like a tragic romantic heroine instead of, you know, deeply unwell.
There’s an entire sequence where she puts her hair in pigtails and skips around her father’s grave. You could psychoanalyze that, or you could run far, far away and never look back.
Fred McSweeney: Satan’s Embalmer and Local Creep
Timothy Scott plays Fred with the energy of a man who just got kicked out of the Addams Family for being too weird. His mortuary sex cult is so comically low-budget it looks like a Satanic potluck held in a strip mall. The cult’s big reveal—complete with candles, robes, and dead bodies lovingly prepped for “interaction”—would be shocking if it weren’t so incredibly awkward.
Fred’s most memorable scene? Embalming a gay hustler alive while giggling. It’s every bit as uncomfortable as it sounds, and somehow also boring—a truly rare feat.
Tone? What Tone?
Is Love Me Deadly a horror movie? A psychological thriller? A cautionary tale about grief? A weird PSA against Satanism and being attracted to your dad? Yes, and also absolutely not.
The movie flips between melodrama, softcore horror, and full-blown necrophilic fever dream with the narrative coherence of a ransom note. It’s as if the director found a list of taboos and tried to check them off like it was a scavenger hunt from hell. Necrophilia? Check. Satanic panic? Check. Incestuous undertones? Oh, you bet.
But what really kills the momentum isn’t the subject matter—it’s the pacing. Despite all its depravity, the film manages to be excruciatingly slow, dragging out scenes like a casket down a gravel driveway. The editing lingers. The dialogue plods. And every few minutes, someone stares dramatically into the middle distance while organ music plays.
Final Scene: Please, Just Let It End
The climax involves Lindsay discovering Fred fondling her freshly murdered husband’s corpse, then killing Fred with a statue and curling up in bed with her deceased husband like it’s a Nicholas Sparks ending from Hell. Somewhere in this finale, there was probably supposed to be tragedy or catharsis—but all that’s left is a lingering sense of nausea and confusion.
And no, she never goes to jail. This film ends with a literal snuggle with the dead and a fade to black, like it expects you to weep softly and say, “Ah, love.”
Final Thoughts: A Cold, Clammy Disaster
Love Me Deadly is what happens when you mix Funeral Home Barbie, a dime store Satanic cult, and unresolved Oedipal trauma into a blender, hit purée, and serve it as cinema. It thinks it’s romantic, mysterious, and edgy. What it actually is… is grim, goofy, and gross.
You won’t be scared. You won’t be moved. You’ll just sit there, wondering if the cast had to sign a waiver saying “Yes, I consent to pretending to make out with a mannequin in a casket.”
★☆☆☆☆ out of 5.
Recommended only for fans of necrophilia-themed curiosities, or those completing a Bingo card titled “What Was Wrong With the ’70s?”
