The Hearse

I admit The Hearse is not the last word in brilliance, but there seems to be something about it that kept me hooked. A simple plot centres around 30-something Jane recovering from a bitter divorce and the death of her father by deciding to stay at her aunt's house, which unbeknown to her, is haunted. Strange phenomena starts as soon as she settles in: lights going on and off, windows suddenly opening and closing, and (the main point) a suspicious looking Hearse appearing at her door.....

You obviously wonder what is going to happen next: is the Hearse simply a matter of imagination on Jane's part or is it something a lot more serious? The Hearse as a whole contains very little in the way of gory, blood dripping scenes; it is in fact a movie where the viewer has to go into the mind of the central characters and try and discover their motives as to why certain events happen. Why are the local people against Jane; what is the suspicious nature surrounding a nice young man called Tom that she unexpectedly meets? Many questions arise that are quite (albeit QUITE) addressed come the end of the film.

Lead star Trish Van Devere sets a good example of a strong-minded woman who is understandably spooked and scared by the unusual goings on. You actually feel for Jane! Her co-stars, however, can't be so easily forgiven - atrocious acting in some parts.

What makes this film work in some respect is the sense of coldness and eeriness surrounding the Hearse (despite the driver's constant smiling), and the strange goings on in this house; it is very reminiscent (as another reviewer mentioned) of the 2001 movie The Others. Admittedly, the final 15 minutes or so of The Hearse is a let down; I obviously don't want to give it away, but I'm sure for viewers who have witnessed the film, it could have been done with a lot more style and a lot more vigour. Then again, The Hearse was never meant to be this big budget horror movie in the first place - a typical B-movie flick that does recommend a slightly better IMDb rating than the current 3.3 I feel. 5/10

A woman, Jane, moves to a large house in a small town which she has inherited from a dead aunt. The locals shun her on account of believing her aunt was in league with the devil. Soon, Jane is haunted by the appearances of some ghosts, including a mysterious hearse which constantly menaces her.

This film fits comfortably into the haunted house film bracket, which by 1980 was firmly a popular sub-genre of the horror film with movies such as The Amityville Horror (1979), The Changeling (1980) and The Shining (1980) raking it in at the box office. It would only be fair to say that The Hearse is fairly derivative of some of the big hitters of its day but I have to say I found it to be a pretty good effort on the whole. Trish Van Devere puts in an engaging performance in the lead role, while Joseph Cotton, veteran actor of various classics from the past like Citizen Kane (1941), appears in one of the numerous genre flicks he pitched up in in the last decade of his career. Aside from the ominous black hearse, the sinister events incorporate an odd reverend, a satanic church and ghostly appearances of a woman at a window. By the end of things, it's true that the relevance of everything has not been fully established but when it comes to stories about ghostly goings on, this is not exactly a problem in my book. A bit of ambiguity is not really a bad thing.

The Hearse is a deeply confusing 1980 horror which wasn't even remotely what I expected it to be.

It tells the story of a woman who inherits her aunts house but upon moving in comes to realise the locals don't like her and that the house itself might have its secrets.

The "Hearse" in question doesn't play as much of a role as I'd expected, which is odd considering that's supposedly what the movie is about.

The whole thing looks and sounds the part and the lead does a passable job but the moment things happen she becomes deeply annoying and I found myself scratching my head and not entirely knowing what I was watching.

Even now I'm not 100% on what went down and will chalk it up to being another one of those vague titles that doesn't feel like it needs to fully explain itself. I'm all for things being open to interpretation but this is taking that a tad far.

Confusing, underwhelming and not one I would dream of recommending.

The Good:

I like the hearse concept

The Bad:

Hearse is badly underutilized

Story makes very little sense

The lead actress falls apart when she falls apart

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

You'd think a movie about a hearse would be....you know....about a hearse

This very standard early 80's haunted house/possessed souls chiller does feature one ingenious and genuinely creepy gimmick, namely the titular vehicle that mysteriously drives around at night. Barely recovered from personal problems in the big city, Jane Hardy moves to an inherited mansion in a small and very superstitious village. The locals treat her like dirt, especially when they learn Jane is the niece of the previous resident, who worshiped the devil and whose dead body mysteriously vanished when the hearse ran into a bridge and caught fire. It doesn't take long before Jane herself begins to suffer from nightmares and the antique hearse even begins to stalk her! "The Hearse" is very slow but occasionally atmospheric and well-acted. Unfortunately however, the script is full of holes, too predictable and the total lack of spectacle is pretty hard to forgive. I respect the fact there were obviously financial limitations to this production, but to deliver an entirely bloodless film is a tad bit exaggerated. Class actor and horror veteran Joseph Cotton ("Baron Blood", "The Abominable Dr. Phibes", "Island of the Fishmen") is totally wasted in the role of obnoxious attorney. Crap ending, too.

I only had seen this film once before as a child so I hardly remembered anything about this flick. I saw it in a collection of Drive in Cult Classics with 31 other films, and I have to admit it...I bought the collection mainly for this film. I simply wanted to see what this film was about again as my recollection of it was spotty at best. As it turns out, it was a bit more interesting than I remembered, I seem to have gotten this film mixed with others as I remember a more vague ending than the one here. One film, I know for sure I got this one mixed up with is Burnt Offerings, mainly the scene involving the chauffeur in that one. This film is a bit reminiscent of that one, add in some of The Car and a dash of any film from the 70's involving Satan. This has all that and more! It also has a couple of bland and pointless plot points and tries to make you think all of the crap happening may not be happening! The story has a woman who has recently lost her mother and gone through a divorce going to live in her aunt's house out in a more country environment. She has had a nervous breakdown and feels that a bit of time out in the country will do her good. Well, things start off on a bad note as one guy seems to think he should be the rightful owner of the house, the townspeople seem to think poorly of the lady and the house she is staying at and a strange hearse seems to be stalking the lady. Still, a strange man comes into her life that she begins to fall for. However, as she reads her late aunt's diary, things become clearer as to the town's disdain for the house and strange nightmares begins to occur as she is stalked by a strange scarred hearse driver.

The film has some things going for it, but it also has a bunch of things going against it. It is a bit slow paced at times thanks to a very pointless subplot of a young man trying to woo the older lady. Sure it made for an interesting scene later, but one could of still had a scene like that sans the scenes of the boy and his friends talking about what he did or didn't do. I also thought it was a bit too obvious that there was something not quite right with the Thomas character. However, I really liked the Reverend character as I could never get a read on him until near the end.

So, this film had some interesting moments...I was never quite sure how the film would end. I kept trying to remember the thing, but as I said, I had only seen this film one other time when I was a kid so I only remembered a few tidbits here and there and a bit of the imagery. It is not a great horror film by any means, but it was a bit more entertaining than a few other horror movies that were similarly themed and made during this time frame. A lot of those were even rated R, but were even slower paced than this one was! So, interesting flick, just nothing all that great.