Le cri des ténèbres

I just watched Funeral Home and keep wondering why I've never seen it before now. It's a 1980 horror flick that's a little above average for its budget. What I mean to say is that it fits right in there with the horror films during the time, the ones that had fairly decent acting and good enough scripts. Why didn't I ever see this on cable TV back in the day? I recognized actress Lesleh Donaldson playing Heather, remembered her from the films Happy Birthday to Me and Curtains. Now those two movies played on cable all the time back then. Also, recognized the one cop played by Alf Humphreys from My Bloody Valentine. Funeral Home is a decent horror movie, especially having been made in 1980. It does mirror Hitchcock's Psycho in certain plot aspects and in its build up, but it's still distinct enough, I think. There's not a lot of action, blood spraying everywhere, but it has a creepy atmosphere in which the setting is believable. Holds the attention. I really thought the ending was clever with the credits rolling and the movie still playing. Liked the dialogue at the end between the cop and the old woman. Funeral Home should be in every horror collector's arsenal.

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!

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.

I'm sure I'm in a distinct minority, but I actually like '80's slasher movies more for their atmosphere than for their special effects (which seem to look more cheesy and primitive with each passing year). Unfortunately, the eerie atmosphere of the early slasher movies eventually got overwhelmed, first by out-of-control special effects, then by talentless "scream queens" and softcore sex, and finally by cornball comedy and self-conscious parody. That's why I kind of like this film, even if it's nobody's idea of a great slasher flick or a good horror film. It has no gore and no nudity, but it has a good early 80's slasher movie atmosphere.

A teenage girl (Lesleh Donaldsen) comes to stay with her grandma who operates a hotel that was once a funeral home. Her violent grandfather has supposedly disappeared, but grandma keeps talking to someone in the cellar. Meanwhile, various obnoxious guests check into the hotel, but don't check out, and the girl and her new boyfriend start to investigate. This movie is original in that instead of ripping off "Halloween" like almost all the other slasher movies, it rips off an even older classic horror/thriller. But, as they say,if you're gonna steal, you should at least steal from the best. The ending probably won't surprise you too much, but it not entirely ineffective. The actress playing the grandma is very good and effectively scary. Donaldsen was one of a group of young Canadians that were regulars in these kind of films (Canadian tax shelter production masquerading as middle American films). She wasn't as pretty as Lisa Langlois or Tracy Bregman and didn't fall out of her clothes at the drop of a pay-cheque like Joy Boushel, but she was very good at playing "the girl next door", and this was one of her better roles.

Don't expect any T and A or gore here, but see this if you ever get a hankering for the old atmospheric early 80's slasher films.

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.