Does the Necrocall spell even work?

In my game all of the Goth family have passed away except for Bella ( but there are many new children in the family).  I also noticed the grave stones for Cassandra and Alexander in the yard so I wanted to resurrect them because I knew they hadn't died of old age.  But first I had to move some of these new children off the lot because the family was full with 8 sims.  I had a spellcaster come over tne visit and try to call their ghosts out of their resting place with the Necrocall spell.  But noting hapened.  So I ddn't know if the failure of the spell was due to the family being full already so it couldn't bring back two additional family members or maybe there is just a bug with that spell.   So I created a new sim and house across the street and then had two of the adult children move over there and live with the strange guy in that house.  I was thinking maybe creating a cult and make all the members where unusual outfits....but I digress.  Regardless,  even with the openings now in the Goth family I still couldn't get the spell to work and bring the ghosts of Alexander and Cassandra back.   Then I would have used the Dedeadify spell to bring them back to the living.  I have no idea what happened to Mortimer.  He must have died on some other lot.