Funeral Home

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.

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.

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.

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 ****

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!