Funeral Home
Director: William Fruet
Writer: Ida Nelson
Starring: Leslheh Donaldson and Dean Garbett
Body Count: 5
Review: I've always thought funeral homes and mortuaries were some pretty cool places. Along with carnivals and summer camps, it's really hard for me to fathom that you could make a movie about funeral homes and have it be all bad.
Leave it to me to stick my foot in my mouth, as I discovered through watching Funeral Home that I was horribly, horribly wrong.
A young girl is spending her summer at her aunt's house, which is actually a converted funeral home ("Chalmer's Embalmers", as one character calls it) that the aunt now intends to turn into a bed and breakfast now that her tyrannical husband is dead. As guests come to the inn, one by one they start to disappear. The first to go are the usualy group of no-good fornicators, but the second on the list has done nothing "wrong," bringing in our first nod to Psycho--something of which the film has many. In fact, this is pretty much Psycho updated for the 80s (something that, to be completely honest, didn't need to be done, but even if it did, they did it better with Psycho 2).
The gore is okay, the deaths are kinda blah, and the "twist" is about as subtle as a freight train.
So what about that cool setting, eh? Well, it would be cool if they made use of it! The place has already been turned into an inn when the film begins, so the only cool creepiness we're left with is gone with the end of the opening credits!
Alas, this isn't exactly the worst of the Psycho ripoffs, but it doesn't really add a whole lot to the genre as a whole, either.
Trivia: Was also released under the titles Cries in the Night and 2 Cries in the Night.
