In order to “cook” up a little business, a conniving mortician forms a gruesome alliance with a pair of “greasy spoon”-diner owning brothers. Adorned in black leather jackets, tinted goggles, and bright white helmets, they ride out on their motorcycles at night seeking young women to murder and dismember. The undertaker makes his money not only selling caskets to the victim’s grieving families, but also charging an “arm and a leg” (another lame pun, I know) to sew on prosthetic replacements for the limbs he and his restauranteur “pals” cut off. Meanwhile, those missing limbs are being sold as various meals to the clientele at the brother’s diner. Some how, some way, writer and director T.L.P. Swicegood thought this would make a great premise for a gut-busting, side-splitting comedy.

Okay, so it might be a stretch to call The Undertaker and His Pals “gut-busting” or “side-splitting”, but “gut-splitting” would be fairly accurate… at least in one instance.

In many ways, The Undertaker and His Pals feels very similar to H. G. Lewis’s 1963 splatter classic Blood Feast. Both films feature the brutal and often gory murders of young women (usually, in various states of undress) by killers who use their victim’s various body parts for cooking purposes, although Faud Ramses’ motives were ritualistic and not materialistic. Both films were made in the 1960’s, albeit a few years apart and on different coasts, and share similar fashions and attitudes of the era. However, while both films were produced in something of a slapdash manner due to (and, in all honestly, in pursuit of) their minuscule budgets, The Undertaker and His Pals adds in a hearty (also probably a pun), but somewhat odd, dash of “slapstick” that almost feels better suited to a kids’ movie… although I don’t think too many of those feature a woman dry-humping the air as she pretends to fire a handgun. Truthfully, we can chalk that one up to bad acting, but I would probably review more kids’ films if they did feature moments such as this.

The evidence that the film shouldn’t be taken too seriously is on display from the opening sequence, with the facial expression of the man in the first victim’s bedside photo repeatedly changing to reflect the carnage taking place. We laugh because the change is sudden and in direct opposition to what we generally expect during similar sequences in horror films, and the man’s reactions do seem  “over the top” and cartoonish. His overly shocked reactions are probably much closer to how people would react when faced with these acts in reality. That’s in “reality”, though. In “reality”, we find ourselves safe and sound within the confines of a movie theater, parked in our cars at the local drive-in, or (these days) seated on our couch at home.  In “reality”, we’re here to eat this shit up… and Swicegood, much like Lewis, seemed to know that.

However, while Blood Feast was made with the primary intent of shocking audiences (with it’s perceived “comedic value” stemming from aspects clearly not of the most professional level and, thus, generally unintended), The Undertaker and His Pals is much more content making “Dad jokes” about its macabre concept and occurrences. Victims are sold as meals that reflect their names and missing body parts, with dishes passed off as “leg of lamb” and “breast of chicken”. There’s also some human-voiced cat sounds that don’t quite rival the eye-rolling atrociousness of “Tabby” in 1986’s The Worst Witch, but are still worth a quick laugh. Even the film’s hero (Don’t Answer the Phone‘s James Westmoreland, credited here under the bitchin’ pseudonym of “Rad Fulton”) is a womanizing private detective who doesn’t seem all too saddened that someone very close to him was just butchered… not while other women still exist.

With little hesitation, I do think it’s safe to say that Blood Feast is more extreme of the two films.  This said, The Undertaker and His Pals does feature some really grim moments, such as a woman having her face beaten with a chain while her assailant grins maniacally. Another is dissected while still alive, footage from surgery training videos quite effectively used for gore, while a man playfully chases a fly around the room with a can of spray deodorant. It’s rumored that the film contained significantly more surgery footage upon its initial release, but was eventually cut down to only 63 minutes in length, which is what has been presented on home video releases over the years.

The Undertaker and His Pals was acquired sometime around 1971 by independent filmmaker Ted V. Mikels for distribution as part of a triple-billing with Mikels’ own film, The Corpse Grinders, and the 1965 Italian import, The Embalmer. It’s alleged that Mikels was the one who ultimately cut the additional gory footage, quite possibly just to condense the triple-billing’s total runtime. However, the film did garner some minor controversy, with a print said to have been pulled in one city, with complaints from parents’ and women’s groups reportedly resulting in the cancellation of screenings in another.

A highlight of this particular promotion was a “Certificate of Assurance” distributed at some screenings that audience members would sign absolving the theater of any liability in the case of “coronary, insanity, or death” caused by watching the triple feature of films. Another related marketing gimmick was that a nurse would be available at the theater should audience members experience any illness caused by watching these films, although the likelihood that this particular promotion was held at more than a select handful of theaters is probably slim. Even then, it’s a fun piece of schlocky nostalgia and showcases the lengths these producers and distributors would go in order to sell you a ticket.

No, The Undertaker and His Pals is not one of those films that I have fond memories of watching in my youth or teen years, having only discovered the title in the late 2000s’ as part of Mill Creek’s “Pure Terror” 50-film DVD box set. (Possibly a few months earlier on another release.) I was an immediate fan of the film after that viewing, and have recommended the film to quite a few of my fellow horror fans over the years, but somehow never on this site or for the other outlets that I’ve contributed to in the past. At least, I don’t think I have. My memory is pretty shitty. Truth be told, I’m not sure any of those people ever took my recommendation as no one ever mentioned watching it.

Sure… there’s an argument to be made that the film demeans its female characters, treating them as little more than sexual objects ready for a roll in the sack with any moderately attractive man with a pulse and/or portfolio, or they are treated as literal pieces of meat. Generally, both. While I won’t attempt to defend the film from this viewpoint, I do remind readers once more that nothing about The Undertaker and His Pals seems to be taken all too seriously, and viewers should probably take the same mentality. The Undertaker and His Pals almost plays out like a sitcom, albeit a rather morbid and gory one. However, by taking both its sophomoric hi-jinks and slaughterhouse butchery to such extremes (especially for its era), The Undertaker and His Pals blurs the line between the two, with its more violent moments frequently becoming as cartoonish and absurd as its comedic ones. Granted, I don’t recall ever seeing Jack Tripper grind Chrissy Snow into hamburger meat, but her disappearance has never really been explained all these years later.

I won’t pretend to have any knowledge regarding the history of the film’s production other than what’s already available in online forums and articles or on the commentary tracks of the film’s various home video releases. I assure you, there can’t be too many of those tracks available. I also won’t be dropping any cool tidbits or pieces of trivia about director Swicegood, such as what all those initials stand for (although some outlets have his first name listed as “Tom”) or why it sounds like he might have some useful insight regarding waterfalls. That said, Swicegood is also credited with having written an episode of the Robert Stack-starring “The Untouchables” TV series, as well as 1963’s Escape from Hell Island, a screen adaptation of author Robert Sheckley’s novel “The Man in the Water”. While I don’t believe that I have ever watched that film*, I have learned that at least a few scenes were filmed in my birthplace of Key West, FL… inside of my one-time place of employment, Sloppy Joe’s Bar… which makes me want to watch the film less.

*As Escape from Hell Island has been featured on a few different Mill Creek box set releases, it is actually quite possible that I have watched the film before. If so, I can’t remember anything about it. Take that as you will.

The Undertaker and His Pals also stars Ray Dannis as… well, as the titular undertaker, Mort. Yes, that is presumably a pun as well. Dannis, who looks quite similar to Airplane‘s Stephen Stucker, also appeared in The Corpse Grinders, as well as 1973’s The Severed Arm and the MST3K rarity Agent for H.A.R.M. (Which is really a fun little movie in its own right.) Also featured are actress Warrene Ott (who appeared in The Witchmaker, Rat Fink, and The Phantom Planet) as twin sisters Thursday and Friday, Women of the Prehistoric Planet‘s Sally Frei, and Robert Lowery, one of the first actors to ever play the Batman on film.

Clearly, the years of being passed around by unscrupulous distributors and low-rent theater owners, as well as years of poor preservation, clearly have taken a toll on The Undertaker and His Pals. Even the recent 2024 restoration of the film by the folks at the American Genre Film Archive has its share of scratches, cigarette burns, mild discoloration, and missing frames. This said, it’s still a vastly superior presentation of the film than anything else out there, and the various flaws do help the film keep that vintage “grindhouse” aesthetic. The Undertaker and His Pals was released to blu-ray in early 2025 as part of a partnership between AGFA and Something Weird in a “triple feature” package (Blood-A-Rama Triple Frightmare II) alongside the 1963 “chauvinistic male fantasy gone horribly wrong” flick, Love Goddesses of Blood Island, and the somewhat sadistic short film “Follow That Skirt”. While I can personally go either way on “Follow That Skirt”, I found “Love Goddesses…” to be rather intriguing and fairly entertaining, and serves as a rather solid companion piece to The Undertaker and His Pals.

As The Undertaker and His Pals is now in the public domain, you can find it available to stream damned near everywhere. At only 63 minutes long, the film might actually be shorter than the amount of time most streaming viewers AND physical media collectors spend just trying to pick something to watch.