Cries in the Night

Every now and then, you want to watch a movie that's just cozy and won't make you think too hard, scare you too much, or leave you too disturbed. One days like that, Funeral Home would make a nice movie companion. It never goes anywhere too dark, there's not any blood or gore to speak off, and it moves along at a reasonable pace, leaving you mostly unmoved, but not feeling like you wasted your time either.

Heather moves in with her quirky grandmother to turn their old funeral parlor into a boarding house and, as soon as the guests arrive, they start disappearing or dying under mysterious circumstances.

Any horror or mystery fan won't find the central mystery of Funeral Home too tough to crack, but that's part of the charm. Sometimes, it's just nice to see a familiar story well told.

William Fruet's film, Funeral Home, is for the most part Psycho with kids. The movie starts off with a teenager visiting her grandmother in a small town. Both plan to turn the house that the grandmother lives in (which was once the town's funeral home) into a summer house for passers by. Tenants soon show up and then quickly disappear. Soon the teenager and the town's new young deputy investigate the disappearances and discover that this coming and going of out-of-towners has been happening for some time. They finally discover the answer to the mystery in the film's scary ending.

The performances by both the older cast members and younger actors are very good. Watching the deputy character gather clues to build a case added alot of charm to the film as well. Although shot on a low budget, it is still very well produced and the action scenes are very well staged indeed. Horror fans should give this one a try next time they visit their video store. Happy Hunting!

After her husband passes away,a young widow decides to turn the old funeral home into a bed and breakfast.Unfortunately no one is prepared for the nightmare that is locked in the cellar.Canadian director William Fruet who made excellent rape-and-revenge film "Death Weekend" directed also this obscure slasher.Lesleh Donaldson more known from "Happy Birthday to Me" and "Curtains" is surprisingly decent and charming in the main role."Funeral Home",whilst obviously influenced by Alfred Hitchcock's classic "Psycho",offers some creepy surprises.The pace is rather slow and the body count is low,however the character of grandmother surely send shiver down my spine.All in all,"Funeral Home" is a surprisingly watchable slasher flick.Give it a look.7 out of 10.

I'll give "Funeral Home" a little extra credit, since it was directed by William Fruet, who also gave us the decent revenge pic "Death Weekend." The plot has a young girl returning to her grandparents' home, the former funeral parlor now converted into a bed and breakfast by the grandmother; but who is grandma talking to in the basement every night, and who is bumping off the sinful heathens who stop and stay at the B&B? The typical genre stereotypes are present: Goofy Young Deputy, Mentally Challenged Gardener, Puritanical Parental Figure, and the Sweetly Innocent Girl. The plot itself echoes "Psycho" in more ways than one, but with a fraction of the budget and considerably less talent. The actors are fairly good for this type of low-rent affair, and there are a few cheesily-integrated, yet atmospherically effective flashback scenes, but "Funeral Home" is simply a forgettable affair.

An effectively spooky low-budget thriller that takes more inspiration from Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) rather than Carpenter's Halloween (1978), as so many horror films from this era did.

A girl goes to help her grandmother with her new boarding house, a former funeral parlor, and begins to uncover sinister things as the guests start vanishing.

Solid direction uplifts this tight thriller, whose storyline is ultimately not very surprising. A few well-drawn characters do help to keep the story interesting. The rustic filming locations help to add to a chilling summer atmosphere and an air of mystery that works well to the films advantage. The re-occurring images of the black cat are a nice touch. The film is fairly subtle in its horrors, and probably comes off more compelling (and classy) because of it. In short, it's simple but good.

The cast is a strong point. Kay Hawtry is a stand-out as the grandmother, Lesleh Donaldson is fetching as our young female, and Dean Garbett is good as Donaldson's summer love.

All around, Funeral Home is a film that serves well as a thriller. It's not especially brilliant, but it does make for good entertainment.

*** out of ****