A troubled teacher vacationing in her late aunt's country house finds herself threatened both by hostile locals and a mysterious, seemingly supernatural, hearse.
Subgenres: haunting, past lives
Director: George Bowers
Starring: Trish Van Devere, Joseph Cotten
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I suppose my review of The Hearse requires a bit of background. This film was a great mystery to me. See, I first saw it mentioned in an essay on The Changeling (they share star Trish Van Devere), then discovered that no video store in south Jersey had a copy for rent. After more than a year of searching, I finally bought it on eBay. So was the film itself worth the wait? Well, no, not really. The Hearse has a good lead in Van Devere, but the rest of the cast--especially legendary Jospeh Cotten--is wasted. There is some nice at-home-alone-at-night atmosphere going toward the beginning of the film, but that eventually developes into obviousness. The plot itself is predictable--a bit about devil worship--and the ending, which strives to be ambiguous, is merely mildly frustrating. In other words . . . don't spend a year looking for this film. (Aug 27, 1999) | ||||||
Novelization by Henry Clement.
