Directed by George Bowers
Jane (Trish Van Devere) decides to chuck her job in the city to move to her late aunt’s isolated mansion in the country. Perhaps it wasn’t the best decision, as the townspeople are unexpectedly unfriendly and on top of everything else are as RUDE as FUCK. When they aren’t openly sneering at her at the country store, they pop up unexpectedly – without knocking the door or calling ahead or anything – right dab in her house! Jump scare. The reason for all the antipathy becomes obvious later on. It seems like her aunt was a devil worshiper who romantically took up with a black-clad no-goodnik and made the local area highly uncomfortable. According to local old soak Walter Pritchard (Joseph Cotton, who probably did a little too much research for this role) claims that Jane’s aunt, following her funeral was carried away in a hearse that spontaneously combusted – her aunt’s remains never found. Jane begins an affair with the vaporous, mysterious Tom Sullivan (David Gautreaux) who lacks a vampire cape to make his intentions even more obvious. Oh, yes, it’s called
The Hearse – Jane has a bunch of nightmares involving a ghostly chauffeur (Dominic Barto) chasing her about in an old Packard, but it doesn’t really add up to much.
In the Eighties, when I made it my business to see every last horror movie on VHS, I never was in a rush to see
The Hearse. Finally catching up to it now, thanks to Vinegar Syndrome, I can see why. It confirmed my suspicions that it was just a blatant rip-off of Dan Curtis’
Burnt Offerings (1976) that likewise had a ghostly chauffeur (Anthony James). The chauffeur in
The Hearse, Barto, is bigger, beefier, but not the slightest bit scary. Whereas James creepy, grinning specter chilled spines, Barto imposes a physical menace but is as frightening as a second-string football player on a bender. Even worse,
The Hearse skates around the devil worshipping angle with a few read-aloud diary entries but no tangible dread. While beautifully photographed by Mori Kawa, the film’s main setting is brightly lit and Country Corny. One hopes that Jane will stumble into a dark alcove full of pentagrams and occult kitsch – but no luck. Even the overly serious, overbearing
The Blackcoats Daughter (2015) threw the audience a bone in this respect. The closest
The Hearse gets to this is a mist-laden nightmare sequence in a funeral home that is over far too soon.
