The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

I tend to like 1980's horror films. They were a part of my youth. Alas, Mausoleum is not a good one, although there are a couple points of interest. The film boasts a cool looking monster, which was later reused with a couple of minor altercations in the Unnameable movies (make up artist Christopher Biggs worked on both films). The lighting effects in the crypt sequences do generate some nice atmosphere (dig the green light). Oh, and Bobbi Bresee (a pretty but wooden actress) is topless three times in the movie. However, these pluses cannot compensate for awkward pacing issues and a really dumb script that appears to be a first draft. This demon, who slumbers in the mausoleum, possess the first born female of one family. That is providing the first born comes into the mausoleum. Here is a suggestion, if the demon cannot possess anyone unless she comes into the mausoleum, then DON'T GO INTO THE MAUSOLEUM. One could move their family to another state or, at the very least, one could find another cemetery to burying her loved ones other than the one housing the cursed mausoleum. In addition to being slow and silly, there are also some questionable stereotypes. The film throws in a "funny" black maid with all the sensitivity of a 1940's B programmer giving the kids in the South some comic relief.There are worse horror films out there, but is that much of a recommendation? Buy the movie poster, skip the movie.

Almost impossible to find, even back in 97, save for one video shop, I sat down to this cheesy horror (no potential 'Exorcist') and found it quite a lot of fun. The make up is surprisingly very good, as is Bresee's performance, as the beautiful tormented Susan, who as a young girl made the mistake of wandering into the rat infested mausoleum. Now a full grown woman, and you should see this broad naked, bedding two victims, a young sex crazed electrician and horny gardener who provides a nice twist at the end, our Susan, the possessed, starts adopting violent tendencies. Her eyes light up with emerald green, and she puts her telekinetic powers to work, when angrily provoked. One instance comes when a jealous drunkard, gets burned up horribly in his car. Her successful (just check out where they live) husband, Oliver, played with great calm by legendary acting great, Marjoe Gortner, senses changes in her, and enlists the help of a old family doctor (Norman Burton) who knew Susan's aunt, and the secret she took with her to the grave. There's some scenes, that are so serious, it's hard to keep a straight face, and this is what this b grader does, takes itself too seriously. But this was one of the things I loved about it, as well as Ms Bresee's, you know. This drive in horror that played alongside Basket case is a lot of fun and a horror fan's delight, with 80's unrealistic violence, and impressive ending score. Speaking of scores, one weird moment, I couldn't get my head around, has an unfitting playful (not scary) music score, that has the black maid (Le Wanda 'Sandford and Son' Page) who takes to drinking when it all becomes too much, or if seeing some out of the ordinary s..t, hotfoot out of a room. Please Explain.

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.

There seemed to be a lot of these movies, all probably in reaction to "The Exorcist" and "Rosemary's Baby" in latter-seventies. You can add this film to the list including The Car, The Wraith (with a young Charlie Sheen, if memory serves, The Herse and Devil's Rain. The Dunwich Horror... well... it fits in this category, but is almost too good to include. Besides, it at least has Sandra Dee! And now a SLIGHT spoiler warning as this has been mentioned in previous comments...The secret family name NOMED was a rather obvious plot hint. If I were marrying someone with that name, one of the first things -I- would probably realize was that it indeed was DEMON spelled backwards.I think I would insist on a hyphenated name. Like Susan Cthulu-Smythe or some-such.This film would probably be a good selection for a collection of films which are "so bad, they're good."