2. Love Me Deadly (1973)
Lindsay is a highly attractive blond who attends funerals and wakes for men she has utterly no connection to. She kisses the corpses passionately when no one is looking. A party at Lindsay's reveals she could have any (living) man she wants but she would rather wear her hair in pigtails and sit by daddy's grave. Two men in particular, try to get close to Lindsay - Wade and Fred (a mortician), the latter man share's Lindsay's compulsion of attending funerals and wakes. Fred is a hardcore necro nookie addict and invites Lindsay along to his late night gatherings where people dressed in hoods and robes get first dibs on the latest cadavers. Fred actually turns out to be gay. He falls for a young man, kills him and embalms him alive! At one of the wakes, Lindsay is introduced to a man called Alex who is an art gallery owner. She is attracted to him despite the fact he is very much alive. The pair get hitched but Lindsay will not consummate the marriage. Alex is very frustrated and a letter from Fred's funeral parlour sets up a surprising twist ending. An interesting look at necrophilia which provides a reason as to why someone may become necrophiliac in the first place (trauma over her father's death in Lindsay's case). The first half of the film in which Lindsay steals surreptitious kisses from male corpses, is quite perverse and exciting but the second half is just pure tedium with lots of soap opera hand wringing about a dysfunctional marriage. The scene where the mortician embalms a young man alive is shocking and horrible to watch, but it is not indicative of the film as a hole which is rather circumspect in its portrayal of necrophilia. Decomposition and pungent bodily fluids are not a part of Love Me Deadly. The soundtrack is pure 1970s gold and the theme tune will burrow into your brain like a.. hungry maggot.