FUNERAL HOME (1980)
aka Cries in the Night
Article 3351 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-2-2010
Posting Date: 10-17-2010
Directed by William Fruet
Featuring Kay Hawtrey, Lesleh Donaldson, Barry Morse
Country: Canada
What it is: Secret in the cellar story

A young woman helps her grandmother run a bed and breakfast which used to be a funeral home before her grandfather disappeared. However, more people start disappearing… and who is that person grandmother is secretly talking to in the cellar?

Well, despite the era it was made, it’s not a slasher movie; it’s more of a “house with a sinister secret” type of movie, and there isn’t an emphasis on gore. The movie’s not bad, but it’s no better than adequate. The movie builds its story around a twist that has been used before by a much better and more famous movie, and I’ll give the movie some credit for only borrowing the twist and not the whole structure of its inspiration. However, it fails to come up with a really strong story, either; it merely sets things up for the final twist, and you should be able to figure out what it’s going to be before we get there. The movie is slightly padded to get it up to running length, so certain scenes seem pointless; the sequence near the beginning where the young woman has an encounter with a black cat seems to imply that superstition will play into the story, but nothing comes of it. It’s watchable, but uninspired.