Color, 1988, 82m.
Directed by Franco Steffanino
Starring Joe Spinell, Rebecca Yaron, Patrick Askin, Susan Bachli, Martha Somoeman, William James Kennedy, Charles Kay-Hune
Code Red (US R0 NTSC)

Be warned: this film could very easily cause brain damage. When wild character actor Joe Spinell passed away in 1989, he left behind a bizarre legacy highlighted by his unforgettable starring role in Maniac. While the proposed sequel to that film never got beyond the promotional short stage, he did finish another slasher film just before his death, a largely unknown oddity called The Undertaker. Due to some bad distribution calls and a disappearing producer, the film was never seen in America apart from some rare, horrible-looking bootleg VHS copies traded on the fan circuit; rumors abounded that it had been finished for foreign distribution but only existed as a rough cut. Well, now it's officially out on DVD, and horror fans can finally judge it for themselves.

In a nondescript American town where all the women spend their days in aerobics classes, a greasy undertaker named Rosco (Spinell, of course) is apparently killing several people per week and indulging in offscreen necrophilia. Coincidentally, a college professor (Yaron) is lecturing on that same subject, and when one of her students, Nick (Askin), tells her he wants her to see something relative to the subject, she blows him off as a pervert. Turns out Nicky is actually Roscoe's nephew, and he finally talks her into going to the mortuary one night where... uh, something or other happens that we never see. Meanwhile a nosy movie theater employee figures out that the killer is patterning his work after the conveniently uncopyrighted Bela Lugosi film The Corpse Vanishes (which has apparently been packing 'em in downtown for a while because it's "pretty gory!"), so he starts putting all the clues together. The police aren't far behind as a slow-witted inspector (played by the film's screenwriter, soap actor William James Kennedy) and his chief (Kay-Hune) sit around working through clues like "There are traces of semen on the intestine tissue." In the last 15 minutes, everyone finally converges at Roscoe's where he wipes out virtually the entire cast before the completely nonsensical "shock" ending.

Words really can't describe this one adequately. The packaging refers to it as "unfinished," though it does feature opening and closing credits as well as a sound mix, sort of, consisting of often inappropriate synthesizer music. Most of the actual mayhem occurs offscreen, though you do get some bloody throats and a lot of shots of dead bodies. Huge chunks of the film are just random filler, with people driving around, walking around, staring off into space, doing aerobics, and watching protracted clips from The Corpse Vanishes, The Terror, and Scared to Death. Some scenes definitely aren't finished, including a surprise attack in a car that cuts in a shot from the next scene way too early; apparently a different edit of this film also circulated that moved the biker attack at the 37:00 mark to the beginning of the film, which makes even less sense. In the trivia department, the box also prominently mentions that one of the editors was Grindhouse Releasing's David Szulkin, who is also author of the terrific Wes Craven's Last House on the Left: The Making of a Cult Classic. It's a shame he's nowhere on the DVD, as the story behind this one has to be fascinating. Spinell fans will at least find plenty of material to enjoy as he gets to chuckle maniacally during his big murder scenes and does a wild sobbing routine with the police that must be seen to be believed. While the gore content is really low, the perversion factor is much higher and the gratuitous topless nudity pops up at least every ten minutes or so. At least you can say it's rarely boring.

Code Red's DVD obviously has to look better than the bootlegs floating around; some brief scenes in the second half betray some weird tape noise with rainbow colors rolling across the screen, but overall, it looks exactly like what you'd expect from a cheap, unreleased 1988 horror movie. It's nothing to write home about, but at least you can finally see what's actually going on. The only real extra is an intro and interview with Robert and Kate Forster talking about their memories of working with the "interesting" Spinell, though you also get the usual glut of Code Red trailers like Nightmare (complete with the controversial Tom Savini credit), The Carrier, The Visitor, Slithis, and Horror High.