Love Me Deadly (1973)

So there are necrophilia movies, and there are necrophilia movies.

"Kissed" actually depicts a young woman gettin' down with a stiff, and even "Dead Girl," which I watched the same weekend as "Love Me Deadly" (and has already been highlighted in The Schlock Vault) depicts rather troubled teens bumping uglies with a zombie.

But "Deadly" is best viewed as a cautionary tale: if you have fantasy of screwing dead bodies, you'd best not get involved in any relationships, because that's how people get killed.

"Deadly" is the story of Lindsay Finch (Mary Wilcox) a comely blonde lass who is still troubled by the untimely death of her father years before. She also has the rather odd prediliction of visiting funeral homes and getting a little too cozy with the clientele.

But somehow she never manages to seal the deal, getting caught or grossed out by something (in one instance, she finds out the hard way that sometimes makeup is applied to bodies to make them look presentable for the funeral).

Then she starts receiving mysterious letters from what turns out to be a group of Satan-worshipping dead lovers who want to watch her while she plays doctor, albeit with a playmate too far gone to actually get any use from the game.

It's not like Mary is lonely; she has a bevy of gents lined up for some of her attention. She finally settles on Alex (Lyle Waggoner), who looks quite a bit like her late father.

But as you may have guessed, her intimacy issues keep her from getting too comfortable with her man, even after they're married. Instead she sneaks out, looking for love in all the wrong places.

The film is mostly a tease for an exploitation film. There's little nudity until the very end, a little violence, but "Deadly" is mostly just dull and sometimes confusing. At one point she's being pursued by a young blond hunk who clearly wants to make time with her. Moments later she meets Alex, and her other suitor coincidentally meets someone else at the same party, and they start double dating.

Later, the hunk follows her to one of her mortuary appointments and is killed by one of the other cult members. Then Lindsay wakes in bed. We're meant to believe she simply dreamed this, but we never hear from the hunk again. Later Alex follows her and a similar scene unfolds.

"Love Me Deadly" doesn't offer much to exploitation hounds--little nudity, only sporadic, below-average gore, and only the hint of depravity.