Le cri des ténèbres

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 ****

Also known as Cries In The Night, this little seen Canadian horror film directed by William Fruet arrived at the height of the slasher movie boom. It has a plot that may seem very familiar (especially if you've seen a certain Alfred Hitchcock film), but offers little to satisfy any perspective gorehounds sniffing around drawn in by the macabre set up. A teenage girl goes to stay with her grandmother at the small hotel she runs, which just so happened to once be a funeral parlour. When the guests start disappearing young Heather (Lesleh Donaldson) starts to investigate, and gets a nasty surprise when she looks in the basement. It's obscure but unspectacular stuff, and kind of disappeared from view after the initial home video boom of the early 80's before resurfacing on DVD years later much to the delight of completists.

Exceptional in all departments for a cheaply constructed horror film, FUNERAL HOME is the creepy little tale of a young girl relocating to a provincial town in order to assist her grandmother in converting the family funeral home business into a modest bed-and-breakfast retreat. When people begin to mysteriously disappear, a history of bizarre family secrets is gradually revealed in a suspenseful mystery which spires toward a bizarre and thoroughly satisfying conclusion.

A surprisingly adept parsimonious undertaking, FUNERAL HOME is an atmospheric chiller with primary characters which are believably written and energetically dramatized...a largely uncharted item demonstrative of what talented hands can craft with limited resources.

Worthwhile and recommended. 6.5/10

This is no doubt one of the best low-budget horror flicks that I have seen since SLEEPLESS. My copy of the tape was very old and I got it in some really huge box that was falling apart. My tape was slightly damaged and it made fuzzy noises throughout the movie. But this didn't bother me. I think I kinda enjoyed the fuzziness. It added to the campiness of the film. Making it look and sound older than it actually was. It all starts out when a young girl goes to visit her grandmother at her home which was recently a funeral home. Grandma wants to make her house into a motel for passers-by. And then some of the guests begin disappearing. If you want some good, campy fun of a horror film, then see FUNERAL HOME. You will be surprised........5/5.

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!