This is an updated version of a review that was originally published in Bleeding Skull! A 1990s Trash-Horror Odyssey.
ALF is a sitcom from the 1980s about an alien named ALF (Alien Life Form) who crashed his ship in the San Fernando Valley and ended up living with a family. On the show’s set, the ALF puppet was treated like a real-life actor. His movements and voice were recorded live. In 2010, behind-the-scenes footage from the show was leaked online. In the clip, ALF is trying to make the crew members laugh, so he says the N-word several times.
We live in a world where sitcom puppets are capable of being racist assholes behind closed doors. We also live in a world where real humans are capable of being racist assholes right out in the open. That’s why it’s important to celebrate the work of people of color every chance we get—especially when it comes to DIY horror movies. Because in addition to sharing the same challenges that white filmmakers face (funding, distribution, finding an audience), people of color have to deal with situations like ALF using the N-word on a daily basis.
Embalmer is a low-budget horror movie made by filmmaker S. Torriano Berry for Black audiences. It has more depth and resourcefulness than 85% of the horror movies produced during the 1990s. It also has a scene where a mad slasher named Undertaker Zach castrates a hobo.
Let’s celebrate!
Chiffon is having a rough go of teenage life. Orphaned and lonely, Chiffon is treated like garbage by her degenerate foster parents. Her only relief is walking home from school with Dwayne, who works at Corner Video. Chiffon is fascinated by a local urban legend involving Undertaker Zach, a mortician who killed his family and turned his funeral home into an H.H. Holmes-style murder castle. Fed up with home, Chiffon runs away and calls Dwayne at the video store. Together they enlist the help of his friends, Archie and Cindi. The foursome takes off in Archie’s Coupe de Ville, but a blown stop sign leads to being chased by the cops. Archie swerves into an abandoned garage and Dwayne closes the door behind them. Archie and Cindi have sex in the backseat while Dwayne and Chiffon explore the house that’s attached to the garage. Chiffon says, “This place seems familiar.” It should. Because it’s Undertaker Zach’s house.
Embalmer opens with a credit roll that says: “We all have our childhood myths and legends that scared the shit out of us. Truth or not . . . This is the tale of . . . THE EMBALMER!”
Anything can be scary when you’re a kid. When I was 5, I was convinced that a three-foot-tall inflatable Easter Bunny decoration was alive. And murderous. So I spent a lot of time trying to flush that thing down the toilet. From Hausu to Candyman, it’s no surprise that some of the most compelling horror movies ever made directly exploit our childhood fears. Embalmer follows this tradition, but pushes it further. As the movie progresses, Chiffon’s fear of intimacy is revealed to be the result of a lifetime of sexual abuse. The old exploitation chestnut of “kids vs. parents,” which was used in everything from Ed Wood Jr.’s The Violent Years to A Nightmare on Elm Street, suddenly becomes heavier and more affecting. Embalmer switches from being just a slasher to being a bold statement on coping with childhood pain. And that thread continues through the double-twist ending.
Embalmer is beautifully shot on 16mm film, with roving photography, colored lights, and a spastic editing style. But it isn’t perfect. The movie is bookended with two 20-minute sections of crowd-slaying fun, featuring Undertaker Zach and his gore-drenched scalpel. But he disappears in the middle third, which is the part that focuses on Chiffon’s issues. We hang out in the house and listen to people talk and argue, and the movie becomes bogged down by a lack of variety. The tone is also interrupted by some unfortunate fart jokes. However, it’s easy to accept all of this as part of a flawed whole because of director Berry’s sincerity.
Today, Berry is a professor of film studies at Howard University, with a focus on restoring Black genre films of the 1930s. Outside of being a cinematographer on Ronald Armstrong’s Bugged, Berry only made one other full-length movie—The Black Beyond. But that’s OK. With Embalmer, the filmmaker secured his place in horror history and gifted us with a special anomaly—a trash-horror movie that makes us think.
When Chiffon calls Dwayne at Corner Video, Dwayne is standing in front of a poster. It’s not a poster for Child’s Play, Dawn of the Dead, or Suspiria—it’s a poster for Tales from the Hood.
Fuck off, ALF.
