1980 Directed by George Bowers
A schoolteacher moves into her deceased aunt’s house in a small Californian town, and is harassed by unfriendly locals and a mysterious hearse.
Der Leichenwagen, Pasaje para un coche fúnebre, Le Corbillard, Incubo infernale, 영구차, O Carro Sinistro, Катафалк, Cenaze Arabası, 灵车
USAPG
Germany12
Germany
USA
I very much remember this VHS cover art at the video store I worked at, but the PG rating is probably what kept me from ever watching it. Even with Vinegar Syndrome releasing it, it still took me a couple of years to get around to it because I guess I just have an internal prejudice towards PG rated horror. I shouldn’t though, because there are some genuinely great PG horror movies. This isn’t one of them, but there are!
This is a very slow moving slow burn ghost story that has plenty of great atmosphere and an engaging lead performance from Trish Van Devere. It’s also got Joseph Cotten chewing all the scenery around him and he even has…
What’s so funny about my house?
It’s haunted, and you’re a ghost!
This ultra-generic spook show feels like it was put together by a small town community theatre troupe.
You want want ghosts?
I’ll give you ghosts!
Der Leichenwagen
Nach verschiedenen Schicksalsschlägen, fährt die Lehrerin Jane Hardy in die kleine Ortschaft Blackford. Hier hat sie ein Haus geerbt, in dem sie eine Zeitlang bleiben will. Die Anwohner empfangen sie nicht mit offenen Armen und ein Leichenwagen verfolgt sie.
Grusel (Horrorfilm?) aus den USA von 1980, in dem G.Bowers Regie führte. T.van Devere, J.Cotten und D.Hotton.
Hier passiert bis auf ein paar Ausnahmen nicht viel und wenn dann was passierte hat es mich nicht grade "abgeholt" Zeitweise zieht sich das ganze auch ziemlich, da war bei mir öffters Langeweile angesagt.
Handlung und Charaktere haben mich auch nicht angesprochen.
An einigen Stellen war dann doch etwas Atmosphäre vorhanden und der Score war auch annehmbar in diesem Szenen.
Ein wenig Trashig und unfreiwillig kommisch war er irgendwie auch.
DER LEICHENWAGEN!
Amüsantes kleines Gruselfilmchen, welches zwar keinen großen Schrecken verbreitet und sein Potential nicht völlig ausschöpft, dafür aber für schöne Unterhaltung sorgt.
Jane möchte sich vom stressigen Schulalltag als Lehrerin und von der Kräfte zehrenden Scheidung erholen und pilgert in ein kleines verschlafenes Städtchen auf dem Lande und bezieht das Haus ihrer verstorbenen Tante.
Aber halt: Die Bewohner des Örtchens begegnen Jane mit Ablehnung und Ignorranz.
Nicht nur die Bewohner sind unheimlich komisch, auch das Haus birgt manch unangenheme Überraschungen für Jane.
Hinzu wird sie auch noch von einem Leichenwagen terrorisiert.
Was ist das bloss alles? Welches dunkle Geheimnis wird sich Jane offenbahren?
Den Braten riechen kampferprobte Filmgeeks schon nach einer bestimmten Zeit, aber dennoch rennt sich…
Like many horror movies, it begins with a woman, Trish Van Devere (Mrs. George C. Scott), moving into an old house, once owned by her aunt, a possible witch. Soon, she is harassed by all the townspeople and someone driving a hearse at night.
Fairly uneventful and not too scary, sort of like a TV movie your Mom might enjoy. Well, not my Mom, she's the one who got me watching gory horror movies at a young age, but you know what I mean.
Anyway, Trish gets mistreated at the hardware store and by classic movie actor Joseph Cotten and starts dating Satan. Needless to say, it all leads to an abrupt and lame conclusion.
Everybody seems to hate this flick, or find it boring, but it is what it is. A lo-fi ghost story with some satanic stuff in the background. The atmosphere alone makes it worth watching, and lets not forgot about the lovely Trish Van Devere.
Jane, a newly divorced woman played by Trish Van Devere (from The Changeling), leaves the city to spend a summer at her late aunt's house, in the small town of Blackford. From day one she receives a cold shoulder from the townspeople, who for some odd reason, try to avoid the house at all costs. She experiences some rather frightening occurrences at the house (like ghostly images of her aunt that appear out of nowhere, and someone breaking into her house in the middle of the night). Jane also has a series of terrifying encounters with a sinister looking hearse (which is basically an evil character in its own right) stalking her on the roads while she is driving at…
Even though this flick is mostly boring, having been a Bay Area native for the majority of my life it was a neat time capsule into a San Francisco that wasn’t overrun with filth, tech scum, wealthy frat Bros, the bleeding screaming homeless, the suffering and the impoverished regarded as literal human trash to be ignored by the Alpha Bro Tech Overlords who have sucked the city dry of its soul entire.
Watching some old school bumpkins putter around some cockamamie plot about a hearse is secondary compared to the real life tragedy of SF. I dunno. I’m sure there’s gonna be/is a good movie about it I should watch.
Ps. Crown international I fucken hate you
The PG rating is largely to blame for The Hearse's failings as a horror film, with the horror element being severely down-played resulting in what often feels like a plodding drama with soap-opera undertones.
PG horror can (and does) work, however The Hearse is unfortunately also plagued by a dull story, which on paper probably looked and sounded better than the result on screen... I mean, a film where a demonic hearse terrorises a young woman who has inherited an old house that is believed to be cursed by witchcraft; who in their right mind wouldn't want to see such a film...?!
What does pull the inanimate corpse of this film out of its grave a little are some semi-interesting…
I may have gotten a little more baked than I originally intended. I'll be damned if I didn't really enjoy this film. Like an awkward time capsule of made for tv scares and thrills. Super generic but resolutely unique. Characters, costumes, dialogue, everything in this feels out of place. Swerving every which way and then still managing to connect it all in a cheap pulp novel way. Just a hazy meandering dream chock-full of ghostly hijinks and satanic goodness. These were the kind of movies I would watch as a kid and can remember being completely taken in, entranced by all of their exaggerated occult and supernatural motifs and the stigma they sort of held in my overactive imagination. Hokey now, but terrifying then. Surely tinted in nostalgia but charming enough to have its own legs. A low rent haunted carnival of rural gothy weirdness and pineal stimulation. Or I could just be really baked.
May Horror 2022 #3 - horror film on watchlist the longest
LOL what a random movie to be on my watchlist the longest, the KILLER HEARSE movie. But is it really? what even is this? It starts out as that staple of 70s/80s horror, the Classy Dame With Issues in Peril, But She's Independent. And She Likes Sex, Thank You Very Much. But uh oh, the town thinks she's a witch because they've never seen a woman before, or something! Or because her aunt lived in the Spooky House. Yes, everyone in this town is 10 and it's an episode of Goosebumps, apparently.
I like my men like i like my cucumbers, long and green! Anywayy there's a hearse chasing…
I wouldn't shop at that hardware store, that guy is a real jerk! The manners of people in this bumpkin town is the scariest thing that The Hearse has going for it, which is much more creaky floorboards than possessed car ala The Car. It's all pretty silly, tame and innocuous. But it does feature gratuitous short shorts and a nice monologue about Satan's hand or some such shit.
