Mauro Ivan Ojeda (director)
(studio)
86 (length)
13 May 2021 (released)
13 May 2021
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.
That shouldn’t have happened Bernardo says; we have an agreement. It’s just something else to add to Irina’s list of reason to go and live with her grandmother. It’s a delicate situation that Bernardo bungles when talking to Irina. Reminding her that her father was a wife-beater and that her mother is better with him, wasn’t the right tack. This line also sours their increasingly difficult relationship with Estela who has her own dark secrets.
The spirits become ever more disruptive so Bernardo calls on Ramona (Susana Varela) the exorcist who arranged the agreement in the first place. On arriving there is something definitely off so she sets about finding out what has gone wrong, in the process digging up the family’s past, and pacts.
One of the first thing that you realise while watching The Funeral Home is the terrific/terrifying score by Jeremías Smith and the sound. It’s all enveloping, heightening tension or providing a pulsing dread, though towards the end there’s a relaxing as a certain peace is made with a very moving sequence that refers right back to the beginning of the film and is a satisfying coda.
It’s an example of Mauro Ivan Ojeda’s versatility as a director and writer; he can draw on deep emotions with that sequence or when Bernardo is pathetically begging for his spirit bound exes to return to him, shred the nerves when the ghosts become restive, to full on horror when required.
The Funeral Home is currently streaming on Shudder.
