This one took me by surprise... I wasn't expecting the film to be as good as it is. It is Psycho-ish but not a rip off of Hitchcock's classic but the film does share some similarities with the Psycho films.A young girl goes to stay with her grandmother because her grandfather came up missing. While he was around, he ran a funeral home from the house but now that he's gone grandmother needed some money and she decided to keep the house with running a bed and breakfast from it with the help of her granddaughter. Several people have come up missing from the small tourist town and most of the local police don't give it much thought because they are adults and most of the rumors are thought to be idol gossip anyway - but there is one rookie cop that thinks something deeper is going on but is having problems getting the other cops and some of the townspeople to take him seriously. When more people come up missing the investigations go deeper. The granddaughter is becoming frightened from some of the subtle but odd things going on inside grandma's B&B home.Very good film - I really enjoyed this one!! 8.5/10

I am kind of surprised to see the score of this film on the plus side of five. I found it to be completely boring as I had the ending pegged about ten minutes into this one. So once you have the twist ending figured out all there is left to do is watch the deaths and hope they are bloody, hope for some nudity or hope they pull a fast one and the ending is not exactly what you are expecting. Well, the deaths are few and far between with only one really good one near the end of the film. The main girl of the piece is cute, but looks too young to show any skin and she doesn't and the one guest at the inn who is having an affair is not someone you want to see naked and thankfully she does not. Then the ending comes and it is exactly what I was expecting. The only thing that was surprising was the end where the police officer basically explained what had happened in what almost seemed like a television show wrap up.The story has a young lady going to her grandmother's place to help her set it up as a tourist house of some sort. Basically a bed and breakfast as for reasons unknown this town is some sort of attraction. Seriously, the only thing of note is a quarry where people go swimming. The inn used to be a funeral home and when we first see it I was thinking that the place was in worse shape than the one in Fulci's The Beyond. Guests actually start staying at the place and an obnoxious couple having an affair begin to get under the skin of both grandma and her helper outside. The young lady begins hearing voices from the cellar and people start disappearing while the local law enforcement with the exception of the newest addition seems to not care that people are disappearing.The film was a complete bore to me, I can stand a bad horror, but I hate boring ones and this was very boring to me. I do not know what others saw in this one, but all I saw was a very poorly done and acted ripoff of Psycho. Like I said, that ending was completely telegraphed right from the get go. Without any surprise you may get from the ending you are left with nothing to enjoy about the film other than the one kill near the end. One kill in an hour and a half movie cannot save or elevate this one all that high. Almost seemed a movie Mystery Science Theater could have riffed as the end scene where the killer was attacking you could not tell where the killer was in relation to the where the girl was. Just bad and boring with an ending that is easily figured out the moment you hear voices in the cellar.

The much undervalued genre director, William Fruet (Spasms, Death Weekend, Baker County U.S.A) orchestrates a particularly fine, Gothic horror using that age-old motif of 'there's something in the cellar". A low budget effort that makes good use of its primary location, the suitably dilapidated guest house that once functioned as the local funeral home/mortuary. Needless to say, one deranged occupant labors under the impression that nothing has changed! More 'Psycho' than 'Motel Hell' since it focuses on atmospheric chills rather than lurid grume; that said, the bravura ending is suitably macabre! 'Funeral Home' remains a real gem of early 80's US indie horror and its charms remain undimmed!

Funeral Home is a Canadian produced film which was ripped off from Psycho in many ways. Good thing Alfred Hitchcock probably never saw this, he might have sued, but for defamation of art.Kay Hawtrey's husband of many years who ran the local Funeral Parlor has up and disappeared and after months of fruitless search Kay's decided to turn the home into a bed and breakfast. But her guests have a nasty habit of disappearing. It's got law enforcement stumped. Her granddaughter Lesleh Donaldson has come to help Grandma run the bed and breakfast. But she keeps hearing all these strange voices coming from the basement where Grandpa used to do his embalming. Maybe that might provide a clue to all the mystery.It's more than a clue and if you've seen Psycho you know what's happening here. No doubt Hawtrey took lessons in hotel management from Norman Bates and his mother.Canadian players generally unknown to American audiences are in the cast. The only two I was familiar with were Barry Morse who used to hunt Richard Kimble on The Fugitive and Harvey Atkin who is occasionally an arraignment judge on the various Law And Order shows. I hope their checks cleared the bank.Alfred Hitchcock would not be flattered.