This review was first published after The Funeral Home s UK premiere at the October FrightFest 2020.
The opening sequence guides the viewer around a derelict scrappy area that has clearly seen better days. The property is a funeral home owned Bernardo (Luis Machin) who lives there with his wife Estela (Celeste Gerez) and her daughter Irina (Camila Vaccarini).
It’s fairly unique in that they share the grounds with ghosts though they are confined to their own section, and it’s been fine for a while. However they are now trespassing beyond them as Irina witnesses terrifying her back under the sheets.
Horror movies were a primarily US form for many years, as the genre was variably considered too juvenile, preposterous, violent, grotesque and/or tasteless in some nations. Government censors blocked their release where such material was considered inappropriate for public consumption; in certain other locations, the public simply wasn’t interested, whether the films in question were imported or homegrown.
Today, however, such cultural differences are largely gone. For myriad reasons, particularly the exported ubiquity of certain franchises online and in home formats, horror has become the most international of genres as well as the one that (due to its commerciality and usually low budget demands) many young filmmakers choose to start their careers with. So it’s not that unusual that this week brings new entries in the form from not just the US, but Argentina, Chile, Indonesia, and Iranian expats.