My review was written in January 1990 after watching the movie on Prism video cassette.
A horror film about necrophilia, "Dead Mate" tries too hard in its quest for bad taste. It's for the lowest end of the home video spectrum.
Director Straw Weisman's script lets on early its goal of black humor, but it simply isn't funny. Plot line is likewise weak, as dine waitress Elizabeth Mannino improbably accepts a proposal from weird-looking customer David Gregory and is immediately off to marry the weirdo and live with him in the small town of Newbury.
He's a mortician and she's the latest in a string of young wives he's been killing and having sex with, joined by the sickos of the town. A subplot has him using electricity to reanimate the corpses, but this supernatural element is confusingly presented by Weisman.
Pic turns sleazy in an early scene where a voluptuous beauty (Kathleen Margo, who deserves better roles) dies in a car accident and is tghen gang-raped by the amublance attendants. As if this weren't enough, when the townsfolk fondle Margo's corpse atg Gregory's mortuary, one announces "it's safe sex now 'cause we can't get AIDS from dead people". Perhaps the filmmakers are looking to stir up trouble to generate free publicity with such unfunny barbs.
Acting is weak, particularly by lead Mannino who hasn't a clue how to react to noxious plot twists (including an utterly irrelevant revelation late in the film that she's an ex-prostitute). Final plot gimmicks involving incest and "It's only a dream" are pitifully bad.
Main point of interest for genre fans is the extreme gore content provided by special effects man Arnold Gargiulo II.