220) Funeral Home (1980)

"Good riddance to bad rubbish."

Director
William Fruet

Cast
Lesleh Donaldson - Heather
Kay Hawtrey - Maude Chalmers
Dean Garbett - Rick Yates
Barry Morse - Mr. Davis
Stephen E. Miller - Billy Hibbs
Alf Humphreys - Joe Yates
Robert Warner - The Sheriff
Jack Van Evera - James Chalmers

Obscure cult/ B-horror movies are the kind of movies that belong on this blog. I made this platform for those kinds of flicks. I think I've strayed a little bit from posting about horror and thriller movies that are off the radar. So, I'm getting back into form...for now. 

The 1980 Canadian slasher flick, "Funeral Home" which is also known as "Cries in the Night." definitely fits on this blog. I mean, who even knew this movie existed? Who would watch it? 

I would, of course. I love sitting out on the patio in the early to mid-evening with a portable DVD player, a Mayflower cigar and a cocktail or even just a soft drink and watching these obscure movies. I have a lot of them in my private film reserve. How's that for prestigiousness? 

I found "Funeral Home" hidden within a collection of 50 horror/thriller movies collectively called "Chilling Classics." It's a box set of low budget B films put out by a company I've mentioned previously on this platform called Mill Creek. 

I have a few of these box sets and have reviewed a handful of movies I pulled from them. I really need to throw a lot more of them on here. 

These movies are otherwise generally difficult to find and putting them in these box sets is probably their only hope of anyone ever watching them again.

The worst thing about the movies included in these sets is the picture quality. The movies aren't digitally enhanced or improved. The picture is often dark, and the sound quality can often be just as poor as the picture. Basically, the movies are distributed just as they are. It's as though they're recorded right from the original print. 

But these Mill Creek sets can have a gem hidden amongst movies that are otherwise best left forgotten. 

"Funeral Home" begins as a young girl named Heather (Lesleh Donaldson) arriving in a small town to stay with her grandma, Maude Chalmers (Kay Hawtrey). 

Lesleh Donaldson as 'Heather.'

Maude uses her home as an inn though it used to be a funeral home. 

Heather's grandfather, James, worked as the local undertaker. However, he's been missing for years. And Maude has certainly been suffering inside at his absence. She hasn't operated the inn as much as she would like. So, she has been trying to earn a steady living by selling floral arrangements as the inn business isn't as lucrative as she would like. 

Maude hopes to open the house to travelers as soon as she can. The only person she has working for her is a mentally disabled maintenance guy named Billy Hibbs (Stephen E. Miller). 

Maude's neighbor, Sam (Les Rubie), comes over to complain about a car that was abandoned on his property. 

Authorities trace the car to a real estate developer who went missing not too long before. He had been sent there to survey the area before he vanished. 

As Heather arrives at her grandma's inn, some other guests arrive at the same time - Harry Browning (Harvey Atkin) and his illicit lover Florie (Peggy Mahon). Maude won't allow them to stay since they're not married. However, they don't want to leave. 

They down some drinks together and then drive off to a nearby quarry to spend some alone time together. Heather was the one who recommended they drive over there. 

While they're at the quarry, Maude's car shows up, smashes into the back of their car, and then pushes them over a cliff into the water below. 

Later, Heather goes on a date with local pretty boy, Rick (Dean Garbett). When she returns home, she hears her grandma speaking to an unknown man down in the basement. Curious, Heather asks Maude about whom she was speaking with, but her grandmother denies speaking to anybody. 

The following day, Rick stops by while Maude is out. He tells Heather about her grandfather being an alcoholic. He also remembers her grandpa being rather mean as he recounts a time when, during his youth, her grandfather locked him and his buddy in the basement of the funeral home as punishment for sneaking into the basement. They had managed to escape but not without bringing on the wrath of Heather's grandpa. 

So, spurred by curiosity, she and Rick start snooping around the property to find anything that can give them more insight into her late grandpa. 

Lesleh Donaldson and Kay Hawtrey.

They do find a few curiosities along with some dark and painful history about James and Maude.  

Maude continues to talk to an unknown man in the basement, and the weird activity Heather was witnessing quickly turns dark and intense. 

I quickly picked up on similarities between this movie and Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" especially at the end. "Funeral Home" surely takes inspiration from the 1960 classic. 

For an obscure horror movie, I found "Funeral Home" a decent horror thriller. It takes its time building up to something worthwhile. But the dark atmosphere pulled me in right at the beginning. Once it hits the second act, it really catches a second wind and takes off from there.  

The performances, especially that of Kay Hawtrey, aren't that bad! Hawtrey has an apparent enthusiastic energy that carries the movie to the end. She has a sweet grandmotherly charm that covers a foreboding unhinged frightening old lady who's only put at bay by her sweet grandmotherly persona. 

Hawtrey manages to depict a truly split character amazingly well. It's an entertaining horror performance!

"Funeral Home" has all the characteristics of being a "psycho biddy" horror flick thanks especially to Kay Hawtrey's performance. I've mentioned the horror subgenre psycho biddy (also known as hagsploitation) in my reviews of "Whoever Slew Auntio Roo?" and "Mountaintop Motel Massacre." 

The term refers psychological thrillers that center on older women who have gone insane to some degree or another. The 1990 movie "Misery," based on Stephen King's novel of the same name about the crazy and unstable Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) as she holds author Paul Sheldon (James Caan) captive is a perfect example of psycho biddy horror. "Funeral Home" is definitely a psycho biddy horror flick. It's a genre I'm curious enough to continue exploring. 

"Funeral Home" has a captivating enough story. And I found it unsettling enough to be an entertaining horror movie experience. 

Despite the inspiration it takes from "Psycho," all the rest has a decent amount of effort and deliverance with a high enough creep factor to be a memorable horror movie. Hawtrey, and the creepy unsettling storyline makes this movie solid and carries the story through to the end. I expect I'll come back to it again for another horror night.