Five Ways To Save Halloween

With the latest exploits of Michael Myers coming in a disappointing third at the box office this weekend behind the second week of Inglourious Basterds and the debut of competing horror franchise Final Destination's latest installment (in 3-D!), it should be a time for the Weinstein Co. to reassess where one of horror's most enduring series now stands in the cultural zeitgeist.

However, that hoped-for period of reflection isn't going to happen as its already been announced that Halloween 3-D is on deck for an August 2010 release! Still, as August is a year away and - other than the fact that it's going to be in 3-D - we have no inkling as to the direction of this new Halloween, I'm going to toss out a few helpful suggestions. Of course, my frankly awesome plan for Halloween II already fell on deaf ears but as a fan I still feel duty-bound to put my two cents in on the future of Halloween. If these five issues are addressed, the next Halloween might not be so painful to endure.

5) No More 'Name' Writer/Directors

The problem with hiring someone who's a superstar in their own right like Rob Zombie is that it becomes about selling their name and their brand, not the series itself. Whether you liked Zombie's take on Halloween or not, I think it ultimately was a bad move to let Zombie reinvent the franchise. It reminds me of when Marvel Comics was in a desperate situation in the late '90s and they licenced out some of their most iconic titles, like Fantastic Four and Captain America, to the founders of Image Comics in the hopes that guys like Rob Liefeld would revive interest in these characters and bring in a big haul of cash. In the short term that worked on a financial level, but the actual product was poor and putting flashy 'name' creators on these books did more harm than good. With their next choice of a Halloween director, I hope the Weinsteins will go with someone who's just a solid director. I'd love to have, say, Wrong Turn's Rob Schmidt tackle this. Or My Bloody Valentine 3-D's Patrick Lussier. Those are the kind of directors who would do a bang-up job with Halloween, I think.

4) Reboot Everything

Seeing the series pick up from where Zombie left off is a dismal proposition. He painted the series into a corner that's not going to be easy or fun to get out of. You don't have to call the next film a remake and you don't have to do an origin story again but pretending that the two Zombie films didn't happen is going to be the best move, I think. I mean, Zombie didn't even set up an interesting mythology to carry on from. What was up with the hallucinations and visions and the psychic link between Laurie and Michael? As terrible as it was, I'd rather see the Cult of the Thorn brought back.

3) Recast Everything

Whoever takes on this next installment might as well reboot everything because they're sure as hell going to have to recast everything. I'm sure that Zombie's cast isn't going to be eager to carry on without him so no Scout Taylor-Compton as Laurie, no Brad Dourif as Sheriff Brackett, no Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Loomis (if that character can even be brought back). While some might balk at this, I think the majority of fans and movie-goers will be glad for a chance to start over and not question how it's accomplished. The idea of rebooting Halloween from square one wasn't bad in itself, it just needed to be handled with more reverence to the original series.

2) Bring Back The Suspense

If Halloween is known for one thing, it's for its classic suspense. Now, no one besides Carpenter has worked that angle as well but the better entries in the series - the original Halloween II, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, and Halloween: H20 - did well by trying to follow in his footsteps. I know that some people think that brutality is where it's at with horror now but I disagree. That works for some films but I think Halloween should stick to a more classic style. Brutal isn't scary - is there a single person who found Zombie's Halloween II to be the least bit frightening? Anyone? I doubt it. A return to stalk n' slash suspense where we have real build-ups to the kills (the depth of vision that 3-D provides would be perfect for the kind of visuals that Carpenter had in the original where you'd have a character in the foreground and Michael looming in the distance behind them), real jump scares, and real terror is what's going to work for Halloween. Look at how well The Strangers (2008) did and that film was a complete Halloween homage. Come to think of it - get Strangers writer/director Bryan Bertino to do the new Halloween. That'd be perfect!

1) Bring Back The Boogeyman

Turning Michael Myers into a kid from a dysfunctional home was a losing move from the get-go, making him into just a dime-a-dozen psycho. The next Halloween needs to reestablish Michael Myers as The Boogeyman. Bring that implacable sense of mystery back to the character. And his look needs to be repaired, too. Get that decaying shit off Michael's face and get him back in the white mask, for crying out loud, and not looking like a hobo that slept in a dumpster. That smooth, white, emotionless mask is what's classic about Michael. If you're not going to go with that, why bother?

Zombie's reinvention of Michael reminds me of the long development process the Superman movie suffered in the '90s. You'd keep hearing that the producers were questioning why Superman needed a cape, why the costume had to be red and blue, why he needed to fly, why have an 'S' on his chest, and so on - all that kind of bullshit. Then there's the Godzilla remake from '98 where suddenly the iconic look of that character that the fans loved for decades and that everyone around the world recognized was shit-canned because some geniuses thought they had a better idea. Studios should learn that when they have a classic character, they need to embrace the fact that these characters have their following for a reason. When you whittle away what the fans love about these characters, you've got nothing left.

Some might say "oh, come on - we've seen it so many times, what's new about it?" But the whole point of sequels is that audiences want to revisit characters that they love (or formulas that they love - witness the ongoing success of the Final Destination films). When I went to see a new Dirty Harry movie in the '80s like Sudden Impact or The Dead Pool, it was never about - "Man, I wonder how Harry's going to react to crime this time around?" No, you're going for that familiarity - that's why sequels work. And even with the new Batman films, Nolan and co. have succeeded by embracing the core elements of that character - portraying Batman as the Dark Knight - not getting away from them. The same with the new Bond films, which have returned to the tougher Bond of the novels and the Sean Connery films. Getting back to basics works and it can work for Halloween, too.

Will any of these things come to pass in the new Halloween? I hope so. While the series is a little long in the tooth, I don't think that it's played out. It just needs to be handled with more care. Halloween is a classic brand that audiences want to support. The Weinstein Co. just needs to realize that on Halloween, everyone deserves one good scare. And if you give it to them, they'll keep coming back for more.

Halloween II (2009)

After having some time to mull over Rob Zombie's Halloween II, in which the masked Michael Myers sports a look that my wife describes as being like a baked potato, I'm still of the mind that it was terrible. Which, in itself, isn't such a big deal. I mean, sitting through lousy movies is par for the course for any dedicated horror fan. But in regards to Halloween II, I can't help feeling annoyed with Rob Zombie. I mean, I believe the guy could make much better films if he wasn't so apparently in love with his own shit. On the one hand, you can't fault someone for being pleased with their own work but on the other hand, from reading his comments in interviews - in which he frequently describes his movies as "awesome" - I think a healthier regard for his own shortcomings wouldn't hurt.

Directing from someone else's script might be a good step - or at least to work with a co-writer who could shape his ideas, spot for obvious gaffes, and work on consistent characterizations. Take Zombie's handling of Annie (Danielle Harris) in Halloween II, for instance. Here's a character that survived an attack by a homicidal behemoth - a homicidal behemoth who is believed to be dead but technically is still at large. Given this, does her father take preventive action and move out of town? No, he and Annie stay put. Ok, that's fine. Dumb, but fine. But to have Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif) feel as though Annie might be in some kind of danger again - Michael Myers-type danger - and just send one dipshit cop to watch over her? That's ridiculous. Why wouldn't this character err on the side of caution and send half the force to his house? Or why not go himself? Better yet, why not bring Annie to the station and keep her under real protection? Zombie could still have Michael get to Annie eventually, but just not make it so easy in a way that makes these characters seem foolish and unbelievable.

If nothing else, you would think that as a lawman, Brackett would keep a firearm or two in his house and that he'd make sure that Annie and Laurie knew how to use them in case any kind of attack - either by Michael Myers or from anyone else - were to go down again. Annie is short of five feet - you'd think that Brackett would make damn sure this tiny girl would have a chance to defend herself against a bigger, stronger adversary. If Michael came after Annie alone again, why not have her be ready to fight back and not just whimper, scream, and run? It does a disservice to the character and it defies all logic as well. Zombie has a habit, though, of portraying his villains (or more likely what he sees as his film's heroes) as all-powerful and their victims to be incapable of scoring any kind of win against them and his treatment of Annie is indicative of that.

I suspect that Zombie doesn't want to give any credence to any characters in his films other than to his monsters and anti-social deviants for fear of appearing as though he might have some allegiance to the everyday, normal world. Throughout his filmography, Zombie has seemed almost pathologically afraid of showing any kind of empathy or understanding of everyday life. A lot of what good horror is about, however, is showing the invasion of chaos into order. But as Zombie has no patience for order, when chaos enters his character's universe it's hard to notice or care. Halloween II is the most extreme example of this so far, in that every character is damaged goods - or at least Zombie wants them to look that way. The two residences that we see in the film - Brackett's house and the apartment of Laurie's work buddies - are art-directed to look as inviting as a serial killer's lair (Laurie even has a poster of Charles Manson over her bed).

I know that Zombie wants us to see that Laurie, Annie, and Brackett have been changed by the experience of the last Halloween but if you look at the actual survivors of violent crimes, often times you see people who became stronger by their traumatic experience, not weaker. It's a cliche to say that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger but it is often true. There's the famous case of the Central Park Jogger, who was beaten, raped, and left for dead in an 1989 attack. This woman struggled with her recovery - both physically and emotionally - but has gone on to became a motivational speaker for victims of violent crime. In Zombie's case, I think in revisiting his Halloween characters, it was easier for him to take the route of saying "Great, now I have an excuse to make my characters fucked-up! I can do 'fucked-up' in my sleep!" And in doing that, I think Zombie reveals his insecurities and limitations as an artist.

If Zombie were ever to remake The Exorcist, I imagine that he'd make Regan into a tattooed, pierced goth chick before she ever got possessed because otherwise he wouldn't be able to 'relate' to her. Or that he'd begrudgingly make her normal but be happy when he could finally get to the possession because only then would she become 'interesting.' Zombie's films aren't the work of someone exorcising their inner demons, they're the work of someone not wanting to suffer any damage to their street cred - and that to me is the sign of someone who's transparently afraid of showing weakness in front of his crowd. These movies are not the work of an outlaw, but rather the work of someone who doesn't want to get caught shopping at JC Penny. Zombie's brand of bad-ass is a cosmetic affectation more than a deeply felt personal statement and that's why his movies don't have any real bite to them.

It's like a college chick who works at Target with a dyed-black mohawk, eybrow ring and tattoo sleeve. She's making a statement but that statement is "I need everyone to know I'm different. Really different. And edgy, too." And what I'm saying is "That may be true but you'd better off trying to surprise people instead. And by the way, don't put the kitty litter on top of my powered donuts."

Click over to Shock Till You Drop for my Halloween II review.

At Least He's Done With Halloween

After watching Rob Zombie's Halloween II, and reading comments online from people who found it to be 'bad-ass,' I have to wonder if Zombie could rape and kill the entire families of these fans before they'd have to say - begrudgingly! - that maybe everything RZ does isn't above reproach. I mean, I would think that Halloween II would give them ample cause to question the man's genius - and in some cases, hopefully this will come to pass - but in general, I expect that RZ's fanbase will have his back once again.

In the meantime, though, the rest of us have to discuss the fact that Zombie has no idea how to make a movie. Apparently The Devil's Rejects (2005) was a total fluke, because Zombie is one for four so far. I'll even give his first Halloween a half point because it had its moments. But come on, the man's track record is getting more sorry with each movie.

Zombie is clearly shrewd as hell on a business level - how he rallies his fans is genius (he could even give Sarah Palin pointers). But as a filmmaker? He's got a good handle on visuals, yes - even if they're employed to scattershot effect. But the rest of what goes into making a movie - like an understanding of storytelling, for one? Zombie hasn't mastered that skill at all - and really, he doesn't seem motivated to try. He seems to go from scene to scene on pure instinct with no regard for what came before or what's coming after.

And while he describes himself as a horror fan in interviews, he hasn't shown any talent yet for creating tension or suspense. If anything, based on his films to date, he seems to regard horror fans as easily pleased idiots who can't discern quality from shit. And boy, I think he may have called that one!

It's a crime that someone with so much leverage to make genre movies is so incapable making good ones. It's also a crime that someone who is so ingratiating in interviews and so enthusiastic about his work can't translate that personal vibe onto the screen. Zombie is an apparently nice guy who happens to make movies that are - at best - contemptuous of their audience. With all the profanity spoken by his characters, the biggest 'fuck you' of all are the films themselves.

The Year's Best Poster

Ti West's '80s-set shocker House of the Devil (which makes its video on demand debut on October 1st and plays in limited theaters on October 30th) has gotten a lot of advance raves and while I'm taking those early reviews with a grain of salt (West's 2005 killer bat film The Roost also earned accolades while it was on the festival circuit but I found it to be unwatchable), I have to say what a huge fan I am of its poster - a pitch-perfect throwback to the poster art of the early '80s. If House of the Devil shows the same uncanny fidelity to '80s horror as its poster does, it's going to be a party and a half.

More Of The Night HE Came Home

With the original Halloween (1978) now over thirty years old and with seven sequels, a remake and a sequel to that remake in its wake, it's hard to remember a time when Halloween was just a film and not a franchise. It's also hard to remember a time when a Halloween sequel was the cause of real anticipation, rather than skepticism, among fans. But in 1981, there was plenty of excitement to go around over the idea that the story of Halloween would continue. At least I know that excitement was the mood among the kids in my neighborhood (most of whom, like myself, hadn't yet seen the original) - I can't speak for the adult world of 1981. The tagline for Halloween II was perfect, promising fans "More of the night HE came home." Even though three years had passed in the real world since John Carpenter's film had altered the course of modern horror, Halloween II was going to pick up the story just after the Shape's body vanished at the conclusion of Halloween. Now that sounded like a hot plan.

Initial story concepts for Halloween II had involved Final Girl Laurie Strode fending off a new attack by Michael Myers in a high rise apartment years after the events of Halloween but the choice to make Halloween II a seamless continuation of the events of Halloween proved to be a wise decision. First time feature director Rick Rosenthal was assigned the thankless task of following in Carpenter's footsteps (Rosenthal was hand-picked for the job by Carpenter based on the strength of a short Rosenthal had directed called Toyer) while Carpenter and Halloween producer Debra Hill co-wrote Halloween II's screenplay, with a story that featuring heroine Laurie Strode doped-up on meds and going into a second round with Michael Myers (now played by veteran stuntman Dick Warlock rather than Nick Castle) in the largely empty halls of Haddonfield Memorial Hospital.

The members of the original cast who's characters had survived the first film loyally returned to their roles with Jamie Lee Curtis now a full-fledged Scream Queen sharing top billing with Donald Pleasence and Charles Cyphers and Nancy Stephens returning in smaller appearances as Sheriff Brackett and Nurse Marion Chambers respectively (Stephens would go on to marry director Rosenthal) - and even Nancy Loomis (today known as Nancy Kyes) came back to appear in one shot of the late Annie Brackett lying on a gurney. But even with so much returning talent in front of and behind the camera (the indispensible Dean Cundey encored as cinematographer), Halloween II was mostly greeted as a letdown from the original. Because, well, it was. Carpenter famously - or infamously - stepped in after Rosenthal handed in his director's cut and filmed some graphic new footage meant to help the film compete with the kind of explicit horror films that had come into vogue since the release of Friday the 13th (1980). Rosenthal denounced these changes as tampering with his vision but without the kind of virtuoso suspense of the original, Halloween II clearly needed something to boost its chances with increasingly jaded audiences. The result was that Halloween II became something that Halloween hadn't been - a splatter movie. Today that doesn't seem like such a big deal but at the time, it was taken by some as a betrayal of Halloween's much-admired aesthetics.

More controversial than the added gore - and arguably more damaging in the long run for the series - was the unexpected plot development that Laurie and Michael were actually siblings. Even though this has been a part of the Halloween mythology for so long that most fans don't think twice about it, for those old enough to remember when the only Halloween movie in town was Halloween, I think there's almost universal agreement that having Michael and Laurie turn out to be brother and sister was a creative fuck-up on Carpenter and Hill's part. It was a lazy move, cribbed from the playbook of a soap opera, and it immediately took away a good deal of the original's mystique.

A large part of what was scary about Halloween was that Michael was an implacable boogeyman, stalking and slaughtering girls who had done nothing to invite his wrath. To find out that Laurie was really his sister was just lame - lame, I tell you! - and the series has had to deal with that misstep ever since. If Rob Zombie could've accomplished one great thing with his 2007 reboot, it would've been to finally free the series of that baggage. Of course, it reappeared right there in the first film - Zombie couldn't even put that shit off until the sequel! Now here we are with the new Halloween II bearing the tagline "Family Is Forever."

But it all started back in 1981. In a Halloween II flashback Laurie visits Michael in Smith's Grove Sanitarium when they were kids and in one of the new scenes cut into the TV airing of the original Halloween prior to Halloween II's theatrical release, Loomis finds the word 'Sister' scrawled on the door in Michael's abandoned cell. Despite delivering a crippling kidney punch to the series, however, there's still plenty to enjoy in OSHII (old-school Halloween II, natch!).

The film's single best asset, of course, is the returning Donald Pleasence as Michael's ever-batty nemesis. In fact, Pleasence remained the best thing about all the Michael-themed sequels until his death in 1995. In Halloween II, Pleasence puts the Loomis persona back on like a glove and his portrayal of Loomis as a twitchy, belligerent nut is endless fun. Loomis is the indefatigable Van Helsing of slasher cinema and it's the ongoing duel between him and Michael (with all his shouting about the inhuman, evil nature of Michael, Loomis is ironically the best press agent a boogeyman ever had!) that made the Halloween series distinct from its competition.

Sadly, Jamie Lee Curtis doesn't fare so well in her return performance as Laurie Strode. Whether Curtis didn't feel the same enthusiasm for the part as she did in the first film or the fact that Laurie had little else to do in this film other than lie in a hospital bed, Curtis' performance isn't nearly as strong this time around. What's worse is that what we do see of Laurie seems contradictory to - or at least inconsistent with - the character as established in the first film. When Laurie reacts to the attention of Lance Guest as Jimmy, the smitten EMS, it's with a visible confidence that doesn't seem at all like the same painfully shy wallflower we knew Laurie to be in Halloween where she was beside herself at the idea that dreamy Ben Tramer might know she liked him (in a nice touch, Carpenter and Hill have the Tramer character killed off in a traffic accident, briefly mistaken for Michael). The Laurie in Halloween II seems too much like a Laurie who's gotten three years older between films, not the mere three hours older that's she meant to be (on a side note, the real life time gap makes for an amusing moment as Loomis is reacquainted with Nurse Chambers - even though in terms of the story he was just with her hours ago, he has to take a moment to 'recognize' who she is for the benefit of those viewers who might not remember such a minor character from the original).

Whatever faults Halloween II may have, though, they're all but forgiven with the film's fiery finale. Carpenter and Hill meant to end the story here and it shows. The conclusion of this movie - where Loomis and Michael suffer a mutual immolation - remains an awesome sight. There's been plenty of scenes in movies over the years where stuntmen are burning from head to toe but this is the best of the bunch to my eyes. Maybe because usually when you see these kind of fire gags, the stuntman is always - understandably - flailing around. Whether it be the Thing in both the original and the remake, or Freddy Krueger in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, you always see characters on fire acting like people are supposed to act when they're on fire. They're panicking, running - doing everything they can to stop the fucking flames. But in Halloween II, to see Michael still doing the classic Michael Myers walk while enveloped in a full body burn - and having strolled out of a raging inferno in the first place - well, it's a sight that continues to impress. I don't know if Dick Warlock did that specific stunt himself but whoever did it really earned their paycheck that day. I've got to hand it to anyone who can stand there lit up like a roman candle.

While Rosenthal returned to the series to zero acclaim with the maligned Halloween: Resurrection (2002), Halloween II remains one of the most popular of the sequels. It may be a flawed film but in that its story is so linked to the original, it's hard to disregard it - and unlike any of the series' entries that followed, Carpenter and Hill's participation lends it the stamp of the genuine article. Had they known where their boogeyman would go, though, perhaps they would've concluded Halloween II with Loomis riding on a nuke a la Slim Pickens on his way to obliterate Michael along with the rest of Haddonfield.

Inglourious Basterds

When I first saw the trailers for Quentin Tarantino's latest film, Inglourious Basterds, I had to roll my eyes just a little. Not due to any lack of enthusiasm for seeing the film or because any of the clips looked bad. Instead, it was a reaction to the marketing hyperbole used to sell it - "You haven't seen WWII until you've seen it through the eyes of Quentin Tarantino." I just thought that was a move bound to create expectations that the film likely couldn't live up to. After all, what could Tarantino really do that no other WWII film has done?

Having now seen Inglourious Basterds, it turns out I was both right and wrong in being concerned about how this movie was sold. I was right in the sense that I believe most people are going to go into this expecting that WWII "as seen through the eyes of Tarantino" is going to mean that this is going to be more outrageously violent than any other WWII film. And as a large part of the trailers have played up the deeds of the Basterds themselves, that's probably a fair expectation. But that's an expectation this movie does not even come close to fulfilling. Yes, there's shootings, scalpings, and bludgeonings - but nothing overly graphic and what violence there is comprises very little of the film's two and a half hour running time. So I think Dimension unfairly created a situation where most viewers are going to walk out feeling cheated, and that does a disservice to this movie.

Where I was wrong, though, is that Inglourious Basterds really is different than any other WWII movie. I realize now that it isn't hyperbole to say we haven't seen WWII until we've seen it through the eyes of Tarantino - it's a fact. To call this 'revisionist history' doesn't cover it. We've seen movies about plots to kill Hitler before (like the recent Valkyrie) and we've seen movies that reveal unknown aspects of the war - but even when these movies were fictitious, they always fit their stories around the facts. No one has ever felt that they had the license to change history - until now.

While it doesn't become apparent until Inglourious Basterds' climax just how loose with the true story of WWII that Tarantino is really playing, when it does, it feels like a liberating experience. To see a film about history where the writer/director doesn't feel a responsibility to tell it like it was, but instead how he imagines it to be is - I believe - unprecedented. Sure, filmmakers have taken a liberties with history and historical figures before but usually it's in the guise of science fiction or comedy. And even then, it's usually with one eye on leaving the facts intact. You know, the assassination of JFK was averted by time travellers - but because it created a disturbance in the future, they have to make sure history plays out as it was originally meant to. And even though Bill and Ted might meet Abraham Lincoln, we know that the Great Emancipator will still die at his appointed hour in Ford's Theater.

With Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino rewrites WWII according to his imagination. If you want history, you can find it in a book, or on the History Channel. This is a movie, not a documentary. Tarantino doesn't have to apologize for getting history wrong because this isn't history. This movie can cross any line that Tarantino sees fit to cross. And for the most part, Tarantino isn't telling us anything that seems outright implausible. We might know that the Basterds themselves never existed and that there was never a Nazi propaganda film called Nation's Pride and that Hitler never attended its premiere, but Tarantino isn't deliberately upsetting any apple carts. He's telling the story that he wants to tell, with the characters he wants to tell it with - he just doesn't feel the need for history to force an ending on him. There's a great exploitation film in WWII and Tarantino's going to write it the way he sees it.

I don't know if Tarantino's going to win back a big audience with Inglourious Basterds - I suspect he won't. But I do think he'll win back fans who were unhappy with Death Proof and even Kill Bill. If nothing else, there should be total agreement that Inglourious Basterds is home to some of Tarantino's best characters - in particular SS officer Hans Landa, aka 'The Jew Hunter'. As played by Christoph Waltz, Landa is one of the all-time great movie characters - a movie villain that feels instantly classic. After Inglourious Basterds' opening scene, you will fear for anyone that crosses Landa's path. Not because of any violence the character inflicts but because nothing escapes his laser-like attention. In another film, this character would be a hero - a detective whose skills and powers of perception are unparalleled. But because Landa's gifts are at the service of Hitler's Third Reich, he's a figure of evil. Landa is an amazing creation and although Tarantino has always promised his fans sequels or spin-offs involving characters from Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction, Inglourious Basterds is the first time I really wanted Tarantino to continue telling further stories with his characters.

And if that never comes to pass, well, maybe that's for the best. When it comes to sequels, history tells us that what was glorious once is often inglorious the next. And that's a history lesson even Tarantino may not be able to rewrite to his satisfaction.

A House Is Not A Funeral Home

In the late '70s and early '80s, the Great White North exported a number of home-grown horror films that went on to become fan favorites. Besides the early work of David Cronenberg, films such as Prom Night (1980), Terror Train (1980), Happy Birthday to Me (1981), My Bloody Valentine (1981), and Curtains (1983) all hailed from Canada. But despite those impressive titles, not everything from Canada in those days was so golden. Consider the case of 1980's long-forgotten Funeral Home.

Written by Ida Nelson and produced and directed by William Fruet (who also directed 1976's Death Weekend and went on to be prolific in genre TV, with credits including episodes of Ray Bradbury Theater, Friday the 13th: The Series, Goosebumps, and Poltergeist: The Legacy), Funeral Home is what some might call a slow burner. Others might call it uneventful to the point of absurdity. As Funeral Home begins, 16-year-old Heather (Lesleh Donaldson) is arriving at her grandmother's rural home to spend the summer. Heather's grandfather passed away some time ago and to make ends meet, her grandmother Maude (played by veteran character actress Kay Hawtrey) has had to covert her house to a 'tourist home'. 'Tourist Home' isn't a term I'm familiar with but it clearly must be Canadian for 'bed and breakfast' because that's what Heather's grandmother has. This tourist home has a grisly past, however, as it previously was a funeral home. And although it looks as though the town this home occupies is as nothing as a town can get, Maude practically has to turn away business. If Norman Bates had as much luck attracting guests he could've afforded to buy his mother something nice!

Before long, we know that Heather is going to have a mystery to solve while she's on her summer vacation. There's strange noises coming from the cellar and as she investigates, she hears her grandmother talking to someone else - in a room that Maude keeps padlocked. And from her new townie boyfriend Rick (Dean Garbett, in his one and only film appearance), Heather learns that her grandfather was not a kindly figure. In fact, he was something of a hair trigger psycho. And Heather isn't the only one with a mystery to solve. You see, Rick's brother Joe (Alf Humphreys, who played the incorrigible practical joker 'Howard' in My Bloody Valentine) is the newest deputy in the town of Northampton and he thinks there's something to the string of missing person cases that are tied to the town - the latest of which is a real estate developer whose Porsche has been found stashed under a haystack. The sheriff insists that nothing criminal is going on in these cases - people run off to start new lives all the time! - and he instructs Joe to turn a blind eye to them. But Joe cares about being a good cop, even if no one else on the Northampton PD does.

From Funeral Home's poster - which depicts a group of zombie-like figures standing in a cemetery outside the funeral home (looking similar to the poster used ten years later for the remake of Night of the Living Dead), along with the tagline "some thing never rest in peace" - the expectation is that this is going to be a zombie movie. But that is not the case. I guess whoever marketed Funeral Home thought they'd be better off trying to entice people with a zombie movie than a movie about a girl hearing voices in her grandmother's cellar. And I'll admit - they made the right call. Something sinister, though, is going on and Heather needs to find out what it is. And with the latest guests to her grandmother's home being the latest names on Joe Yates' missing persons files, it seems like whoever - or whatever - is in Maude Chalmers' cellar is finding its way out at night. Is Heather's grandfather still alive? Or is Maude's handyman Sam (Les Rubie, in a full retard performance that makes Robert Silverman in Prom Night look like the Will Hunting of Hamilton High) acting on his own disturbed impulses?

Whatever the case, someone driving a pick-up truck pushed an obnoxious travelling salesman and his mistress in their car over a quarry cliff. And someone disposed of an old man asking too many questions about his missing wife. And if Heather keeps venturing into the cellar, she might be the next one to disappear.

When Fruet finally does put all his cards on the table, the resolution to Funeral Home's mystery will likely be a shock to no one. No one except me, that is. I have to admit that I got totally sandbagged by the end of this movie, which is hilarious because even the least genre-savvy viewer will see the conclusion coming from a mile away! But having been eleven when I first saw this on HBO, I'm willing to cut myself some slack. And I think the reveal is actually well done, regardless of whether one anticipates it or not. As the curious Heather, Donaldson isn't much of a scream queen (even though she went on to a mini-run of horror film roles in Happy Birthday to Me, Deadly Eyes, and Curtains) but she's likable enough - and what's especially appealing about her from the vantage point of 2009 is how much like a regular person Donaldson looks like. This is the kind of normal teenage girl that you'd never see in today's Megan Fox world. When she strips down at one point to a one-piece bathing suit, it's amazing what a completely untitillating moment it is. Even though she's a cute girl and she's supposed to be seen as a regular bathing beauty - her boyfriend is so impressed by her bod, in fact, that he snaps a picture of her to put up in his school locker! - from our current standards of what hot is, Donaldson might as well be Mindy Cohn from The Facts of Life. But I think that's something in Funeral Home's favor - I like that everyone that we see in this movie, down to the last extra, looks ordinary in a way that you never see in contemporary movies. Even for 1980, though, it has to be said that Fruet and co. really went the extra mile to get some unglamourous faces. Even the one character that's supposed to be an all-out sex pot - Peggy Mahon as 'Florie', the salesman's mistress - would need to put a bag over her head before seducing a fat guy with a taco.

The standout character in Funeral Home - and the character that makes the movie for me - is Joe Yates. Alf Humphreys does a nice job with this character - and, as written by Nelson, Joe is a surprisingly complex figure. This is what usually would be a role like David Arquette's Deputy Dewey in the Scream films - a step away from Barney Fife, basically. Or else he'd be the cop who keeps poking into something suspicious and pays for it - like Richard Farnsworth in Misery (1990), a character set up to be an obvious victim. But Joe is neither of those things - he's something of an anomaly among horror movie cops. He's ambitious and inquisitive but not in an obnoxious, blatantly career-minded way. He just wants to do his job as well as his big city counterparts. Even though he's set-up early on as someone who can't get any respect in town because the adults of Northampton have known him all his life (like a kid, he even gets told to keep his hat off the counter of the local diner), Joe slowly emerges as an assertive, capable cop - and nobody's fool.

Even though he falls ass-backwards into the solution to his missing persons cases, Joe's in the right place to claim that win because he doesn't give up on his investigation. Some viewers might not make it to the end themselves as Funeral Home's old-fashioned approach can be a challenge to endure. But for patient fans, Funeral Home isn't such a dead place to visit. Even though it's easy to see why this movie didn't set the world on fire, with his nicely atmospheric handling of the material, it's also easy to see why this wasn't the last nail in William Fruet's directorial coffin.