the funeral home movie review

• Become a Critical Movie Critic
• Movie Review Archives

Movie Review: The Funeral Home (2020)

• Vincent Gaine
• Movie Reviews
• --> November 27, 2020

The Funeral Home , “La Funeraria” in its native tongue, is a gloomy and moody Argentinian haunted house tale. Written and directed by Mauro Iván Ojeda, the film pervades both its atmosphere and characters with gloom and moodiness. The titular domicile is the home and business of undertaker Bernardo (Luis Machín, “The Moneychanger”), a man crushed under the grief and regret of his profession. Sharing his home (though the business is kept separate) are his wife Estela (Celeste Gerez) and her daughter Irina (Camila Vaccarini). This central trio snipe at each other regularly, their family dinners likely be familiar to anyone with strained family relations.

The fractures of this family may be familiar, but they are also distinct. As mentioned, Bernardo has trouble separating the somberness of his work from his homelife. Estela is deeply troubled by a previous abusive relationship, but Irina is strongly attached to the memory of her deceased father and openly resents Bernardo. Focused on her smart phone and wishing to leave, Irina is a familiar teenager, although as becomes clear, the family situation is not altogether every day.

A painted red line through the middle of the garden and parts of the house indicates that the family are not alone, but interestingly, the haunting is something expected and accepted. The ghosts of Bernardo’s clients haunt the premises and the family have learned to live with them. Ojeda ties this haunting closely to domesticity, including gifts for the ghosts, messages on fogged windows, and the family’s personal hygiene. Buckets in bedrooms as well as a portable toilet in the garden indicate the allowances they have to make for their disembodied houseguests, which make some of the resentments among Irina and Estela understandable. Then something else starts threatening them, the film employing a different type of dread to communicate this new danger.

Many a ghost story, such as the recent “ Relic ,” “ The Banishing ” as well as “The Sixth Sense,” “The Others” and “The Orphanage,” use the device of wide angles to capture something unexpected or out of place in the frame. The Funeral Home uses this technique as well, and also that of objects appearing from darkened spaces. Combining haunted house tropes with those of possession, sometimes a door opens and nothing emerges; other times a clearly inhuman hand makes an appearance. Close-ups of red eyes add to the creeping horror as the space becomes ever more menacing.

In its parts, the film is fine. It does the job, it unsettles, it has some jump scares, there is some gore; overall it works. However, it is rather one note. Ojeda relies to a great extent on tracking shots through the dark house, shadows and shapes suggesting malevolence, as well as a recurring device of chickens running back and forth. The trouble is, that’s about it, and the moody visuals do become somewhat repetitive. The late addition of another character feels forced, while flashbacks presenting Bernardo’s relationship with his father add little to the drama. Worse, the ending is very strange and feels not of a piece with the rest of the film. When potentially shocking events take place, there has been insufficient dramatic weight to make them effective. More variety might have increased the suspense and allowed a greater sense of peril. Still, as a debut The Funeral Home shows plenty of potential for Ojeda, and hopefully we will see more from him in the future.

Tagged: business , frightfest , ghosts , haunted house , secret , supernatural

Dr. Vincent M. Gaine is a film and television researcher. His first book, Existentialism and Social Engagement in the Films of Michael Mann was published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2011. His work on film and media has been published in Cinema Journal and The Journal of Technology , Theology and Religion , as well as edited collections including The 21st Century Superhero and The Directory of World Cinema .

Movie Review: It Lives Inside (2023) Movie Review: The Inhabitant (2022) Movie Review: The Man from Rome (2022) Movie Review: The Breach (2022) Movie Review: Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) Movie Review: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) Movie Review: The Batman (2022)

Privacy Policy | About Us

 |  Log in

The Funeral Home Review: Stylish Horror is a Solid Debut

• Cameron Fairchild
• January 25, 2021

The Funeral Home , the debut feature from Argentinian director Mauro Iván Ojeda, is well-tuned in fits, but remains somewhat indistinct.

The horror genre is a vast ocean, and it makes it hard for new ideas to distinguish themselves. Perhaps it is most helpful to view the successes and shortcomings of the new horror film The Funeral Home through the lens of its status as a debut feature . Mauro Iván Ojeda, a first-time writer-director from Argentina, has clearly done his research: a glance at Ojeda’s Instagram shows an affinity for Hitchcock and a sustained passion for the macabre. At a slight 85 minutes and firmly planted in a hybrid zombie-ghost story , The Funeral Home is a comfortable space for Ojeda to stretch these influences to feature length, even if the project is not particularly ambitious in its final state.

The Funeral Home focuses initially on undertaker Bernard (played dexterously by prolific Argentinian character actor Luis Machín ), a beleaguered and aging man trying to do best by his wife Estela (Celeste Gerez) and stoic stepdaughter Irina (Camila Vaccarini). The film takes its time in introducing both its setting and characters; still and steady camera movements through the empty home at the beginning set the tone long before we first see a human’s face. This is a fractured group, dispossessed from each other in ways not dissimilar to the ways their cadaverous charges have been separated from the living. The family finds itself haunted by spirits of former relatives , further dredging up the unsavory details of their shared history.

From this rich premise, The Funeral Home stumbles primarily in its script ’s execution. The structure of the film regularly alternates between exposition-laden, unnaturally blunted conversations and impressive, often near-silent set pieces accompanied by tactile, practical creature effect work, and the latter greatly outweighs the former.

Ojeda builds tension in silent moments best. His opening shot sequence of the empty home and a particularly beguiling scene towards the end of the film – an expressive dance in the dark, performed elegantly by Vaccarini – play particularly well, showing both ambition and ability. It’s the dialogue that lets things down, halting the flow of the film with plainspoken character motivation hardly befitting such an otherwise reticent family unit. One or two rote horror beats, such as bringing in a medium to assess the haunting, also downplay the film’s more unique ideas. 

The Funeral Home is a fun and sturdy film, but its best moments make one wish it was as careful in exploring its character dynamics as it is in its visuals.

The Funeral Home plays virtual theaters on January 29 , before a digital release February 2 via Uncork’d Entertainment.

• TAGS: genre: thriller

Batman (1989) Review: Electric Reinvention

• Branyan Towe
• August 13, 2024
• Film Festivals , Venice Film Festival

2024 Venice film festival: Stars confirmed in attendance

• Loud And Clear Reviews

Bad Monkey Review: Vaughn’s Still Got It

• Keeley Brooks

Alice in Wonderland (2010) Review: Ode to Child-like Imagination

• Clotilde Chinnici
• August 12, 2024

Caligula: The Ultimate Cut Film Review

• Hector A. Gonzalez
• Films , Must Watch

Lore Film Review: Crafty & Original Anthology

• Justin Bower

LATEST POSTS

The Funeral Home

The Funeral Home  Movie Review

Written by Stuart D. Monroe

Released by Uncork'd Entertainment

Written and directed by Mauro Iván Ojeda 2020, 86 minutes, Not Rated Released on January 29th, 2021

Starring: Luis Machín as Bernardo Celeste Gerez as Estela Camila Vaccarini as Irina Hugo Arana as Salvador Pablo Pevereli as Padre Irina Graciela Bonomi as Abuela Susana Varela as Ramona

The life of an undertaker is, by its very nature, a bit different than everyone else. Living right next to your work can also be a bit of a hassle. Now let’s suppose that the people you see the most – the dead – aren’t exactly quiet. It’s starting to sound like a shitty gig, right? That’s just the jumping off point for The Funeral Home ( La Funeraria ), the admittedly uncut gem of a debut from Argentinian director Mauro Iván Ojeda.

Bernardo (Luis Machín; Necrophobia 3D ) lives his work. He’s an undertaker who operates a funeral home adjacent to his family home. The living clients aren’t the only ones he can’t get away from, however – the dead are extremely active with Bernardo, as well as his wife, Estela (Celeste Gerez), and stepdaughter, Irina (Camila Vaccarini). It’s tearing apart a new family that each came into the arrangement with their own various sets of emotional baggage and abuse. The property is literally split in half; a red line separates the “safe space” from the spaces where the various presences hold sway. A local witch named Ramona (Susana Varela) has been helping keep the line strong, but something new has entered the funeral home. As dark secrets come to light, the family will have to fight to keep from becoming permanent residents.

The Funeral Home lays the mood and atmosphere on heavy from the opening tracking shot, a rather lovely affair that takes you around the property. On one side of the line is some light and happiness. On the other side of the line all is dark, gray, worn, and dead. The film actually relies quite heavily on tracking shots and background horror, counterbalanced by The Sixth Sense -esque moments of fright that will give you a decent chill. It’s truly effective, even if it is a bit of a one-trick pony stylistically.

While it may not be trying to break new ground in both the haunting and possession aspects of the story, that doesn’t mean that The Funeral Home is derivative or clichéd. It’s a darkly gorgeous film that echoes the aforementioned The Sixth Sense as well as The Orphanage . The musical cues are on point, and the tension builds in a fashion that’s just erratic enough to make you feel some real unease. Simply put, it’s a film that does one thing one way but does it with just the right amount of attitude and flair.

The family dynamic is so strong between Bernardo, Estela, and Irina, it occasionally overpowers the ghostly happenings early on. This is a tense family situation even without help from the restless dead, so it legitimately makes a potent mix when the demon’s arrival turns up the intensity. What you do see of the demon screams of homage to Lamberto Bava’s Demons , and if you’re anything like me then that will have you grinning from ear to ear. Give props where they’re due, right?

The Funeral Home has a damn strong finish after using the range of haunting tropes (moving furniture, crazy lights, impressions in the bed, ghostly messages) and progressing into more of a straight possession flick. Some extraneous characters muddy the waters a tad (along with a smattering of interpretive dance!), but why complain about a higher body count? The closing moments are frankly lovely and haunting as the story comes full circle.

It’s not a perfect film, but The Funeral Home is one hell of an auspicious debut from Mauro Iván Ojeda that will age extremely well. That’s the cool thing about haunted house stories – they’re great at showing you what the writer/director has up their sleeve.

It appears that Ojeda has some seriously long sleeves.

This page includes affiliate links where Horror DNA may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

• The Coffee Table
• H.P. Lovecraft’s the Old Ones
• Uncork'd Entertainment
• Stuart D. Monroe
• Mauro Iván Ojeda

OBEY - CONSUME

Hit the buttons below to follow us, you won't regret it...

Movie Review: Uncork’d Entertainment’s “The Funeral Home” is an Amazing Mix of Dysfunction and Demons

Friday, January 29, 2021 | Reviews

BY: DAKOTA DAHL

Starring Luis Machín, Celeste Gerez and Camila Vaccarini Written and Directed by Mauro Iván Ojeda Del Toro Films/Uncork’d Entertainment

Not to sound too much like an 8th grade graduation speech, but I’m going to open this review with a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald: “Family quarrels are bitter things. They don’t go according to any rules. They’re not like aches or wounds, they’re more like splits in the skin that won’t heal because there’s not enough material.” This seems extremely relevant when discussing Mauro Iván Ojeda’s premiere horror film THE FUNERAL HOME, which takes a terrifying and frank look at family dysfunction that would be tough to watch in it’s own right, but gets even tougher with the presence of just, like, so many goddamn ghosts. It’s equal parts Hereditary and Insidious , a swirling mix of family hatred and malevolent spirits that make for a sad, crazy but ultimately enjoyable film.

Originally titled La Funeraria in its original Spanish, and also alternately titled The Undertaker’s Home (which this author prefers), the film follows Bernardo, Estela and Irina who run a mortuary out of their home. Irina is Estela’s daughter from a previous marriage, and Irina’s birth father is out of the picture due to dying in a motorcycle crash. Estela was brutally abused by her previous husband, and is glad he’s dead, much preferring her new life with Bernardo. Meanwhile, Bernardo is acting like he is fine with Irina’s continued disrespect while dealing with the grief of his own father dying, something he struggles with since he forcibly committed his father to a care home.

All pretty dark stuff, frankly, and watching this family nag itself into oblivion would have made for plenty evil viewing material, but then the big reveal is that the funeral home is mega haunted. So haunted, in fact, that they have all become kind of businesslike about the fact that there’s just a buttload of wraiths swirling about at all times. Apparently, a psychic/medium/ghost-whisperer told them that the massive amount of spirits is due to the constant parade of dead bodies coming and going through the home. If you guessed that this isn’t a totally accurate summation of what is going on, congratulations, you win even more ghosts.

Through a series of flashbacks, the film shows that the family isn’t just surface-level dysfunctional, they’re advanced dysfunctional, with a whole trail mix of sexual hangups, lies, manipulation and abuse pulling the ectoplasmic strings from behind the scenes. Each reveal is pretty shocking, so to discuss them in depth would rob you precious viewers of the full impact, but I can tell you that you’ll probably end up hating each character a little bit more with each second. When the final confrontation with the big boss demon comes, you’re kind of rooting for him.

Considering this is Mauro Iván Ojeda’s writing and directing debut, THE FUNERAL HOME is a startling achievement. The directing is thoughtful and well-paced. Ojeda eschews frenetic cuts or throwaway angles, and each frame is a piece of art. You feel like you are slowly swimming through a house not just haunted by the departed, but by the still living, who want to move on from their self imposed suffering as much as any spirit.

The acting is incredible as well. At first, it seems like the actors are underplaying everything, but as the plot reveals itself, you realize that they aren’t missing the mark, they are accurately portraying people who have felt too much fear for far too long, and are now just tired and sad, going through the motions. When things begin to truly ramp up, so do the emotions, all perfectly captured by Luis Machín (Bernardo), Celeste Gerez (Estela) and Camila Vaccarini (Irina).

THE FUNERAL HOME is a beautiful slow burn with no cheap jump scares that still manages to illicit genuine fear and discomfort. The final bits of action do feel out of place, taking a left turn into slightly slasher-y territory, but it doesn’t detract from the overall effect, especially after the film course corrects into a flat-out heartbreaking finale. THE FUNERAL HOME is a surprising bit of excellence that will definitely grow in popularity as more people discover it. Keep an eye on this one, I expect it to generate a lot of buzz.

THE FUNERAL HOME plays virtual theaters January 29th before a digital release on February 2nd from Uncork’d Entertainment.

• Camila Vaccarini
• Celeste Gerez
• Del Toro Films
• La Funeraria
• Luis Machín
• Mauro Ivan Ojeda
• THE FUNERAL HOME
• THE UNDERTAKER'S HOME
• Uncork'd Entertainment

• Rue Morgue TV
• Faculty of Horror
• HorrorBabble
• Submit Content
• Mailing List
• Privacy Policy
• Terms and Conditions

© 2024 MARRS MEDIA INC. All rights reserved.

Letterboxd — Your life in film

Forgotten username or password ?

• Start a new list…
• Add all films to a list…
• Add all films to watchlist

Add to your films…

Press Tab to complete, Enter to create

A moderator has locked this field.

Add to lists

Where to watch

The funeral home, la funeraria.

Directed by Mauro Iván Ojeda

Dare you visit?

Bernardo is an undertaker. He runs his mortuary business in the same house where he resides. In the front, he has his clients. And in the back, his dysfunctional family lives amongst coffins, wreaths, and the mischievous but nonviolent ghosts that visit on a daily basis. But when a malevolent entity enters the scene, it wreaks havoc on the already fractured household.

Luis Machín Celeste Gerez Camila Vaccarini Hugo Arana Graciela Bonomi Isabel Iglesias Pablo Peverelli Rafael Antonio Sola Susana Varela

Director Director

Mauro Iván Ojeda

Producers Producers

Javier Ramírez Néstor Sánchez Sotelo Mauro Iván Ojeda

Writer Writer

Editor editor.

Lionel Cornistein

Cinematography Cinematography

Lucas Timerman

Assistant Director Asst. Director

Sergio Suárez

Art Direction Art Direction

Martín Conti

Composer Composer

Jeremías Smith

Sound Sound

Pablo Isola

Costume Design Costume Design

Verónica Ieno

Del Toro Films

Alternative Title

The Undertaker’s Home

Releases by Date

20 aug 2020, 08 oct 2020, 15 apr 2021, 22 apr 2021, releases by country, russian federation.

• Theatrical 18+
• Premiere Sitges Film Festival
• Premiere Fantasia International Film Festival

86 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Tony the Terror ★★★★ 2

Stuff is popping up on Shudder pretty regularly these days that looks good, but I really wanted to see this because I’m a sucker for anything with a haunted house and this did the trick!

I didn’t know anything about the story and maybe it’s the zero expectations going in but I found the story very interesting. The funeral home itself isn’t really featured much. It’s the home of the owners next door where all the shit goes down and these people just try to go about their business as usual until things start getting especially sinister. Love that because I’d do the same exact thing.

There are a lot of fun little creepy moments. I watched this with the lights out and the headphones on and I’m sure that helped the scare factor but still: excellent choice and glad Shudder is out there looking for all the gems not found on the beaten path.

Review by haley ★★

it's always a bad choice to have all of your main characters be incredibly unlikable, especially when you want us to sympathize with the bitchy and ungrateful daughter in the end. i mean, do you really expect me to root for her? it makes it so hard to take movies that do this seriously

Review by Slig001 ★★

The Funeral Home is an Argentinian ghost story, focusing on a funeral home plagued by spirits of the deceased. The director and his family live next door, trying to exist normally despite the supernatural entities. The film is very good cinematically - the atmosphere is tense and oppressive, the soundtrack is effective and there's some good scares - but unfortunately this is not matched by the story which is meandering and conpletely lacking in anything to really get your teeth into. There is an attempt in the final act to tie up the central concept with the ghosts and the accompanying story with the family of the funeral home director but it falls flat because the film never really gives…

Review by Paul Thomas ★★

Only an accomplished director like Jennifer Kent or JA Bayona can merge trauma and grief with horror so seamlessly they can maintain both the drama and the horror.

Director Mauro Ivan Ojeda isn't up to task. This is like watching a series of scenes that you can see how someone else may think they're scary, but they aren't working. This movie earns neither the pathos or the horror it desperately wants.

Review by sirvived ★★

An Argentinian haunted house film that has very solid foundation and is relatively successful at creating an atmosphere of dread but doesn't go anywhere substantial with it. It becomes nonsensical and messy and I find my interest progressively diminished. It's a shame because it has the story that I don't see often in most haunted house films. I'd still recommend it though for that alone.

2021 Horror Ranked

Review by My God's kitten ★★

Way too much melodrama for my tastes! Most of the scares are generic haunted house stuff up until the end, when it does pull off a decent body count, but then fucks it up with a strained heartfelt moment.

Review by Wiccaburr ★★★

Caskets in the backyard, ghosts in the house, and a dysfunctional family living there.

This had the makings of a good haunted tale but it doesn't quite make it up there. The atmosphere and story often delivered in this movie. However, the movie does have some slow pace moments that makes the feel of this movie drag at times until the last 20 minutes.

The ending was a gut punch. This movie won't be a winner for most people due to the story and pace. It definitely got a great atmosphere going for it and a decent story in my book. It does start off like a standard haunted tale but you'll see it will end pretty differently.

Overall, this movie was a decent watch for those into haunted tales that happened within the home and to those occupying it.

Review by tsu_seven ½

los fantasmas le hicieron un pete al tipo ?

Review by Zay ★★½

This haunted family horror film is unique cause the family KNOWS they're haunted. The threesome(mother, daughter, and mother's new hubby) deal with various ghosts daily as the hubby owns a mortuary. They go about their day mostly unbothered by the presence of these spirits. They're biggest problem is dealing with eachother. Until one rather nasty demonic entity starts creating chaos in their home.

This has some cool n creepy moments but there's wayyyy to much melodramatic fuckery going on. Especially during the climax with one sequence in particular smfh. There's also some bloodshed during the climax to so that was good at least. I liked it but this could've been much better without all that sappy dramatic bullshit.

Review by AScaryGhost ★★

I really like the way the hauntings manifest in this house, it's creepy but cool and makes for an awesome spooky looking interior. I had a hard time really getting into this though. The english subtitles are really confusing at times, and that contributed to my losing track of what was going on pretty regularly. The characters were also really unlikable, except for the badass medium lady who should have been there the whole time. The ending was definitely not to my taste. Lots of cool imagery though - worth checking out on shudder if you like ghostes

Review by StarlaShreature ★★★

History of Horror Week 11: F I really liked the idea of the family splitting their home with the ghosts 80s sitcom style with the line down the middle. The story here was pretty solid all around. I don't really have any complaints about this actually, acting was good, mood was good. It was good. Not great, I wasn't super invested in it, but it's worth a watch. At first I thought it was a little corny, but I actually kind of liked the dance at the end. I think this is the first Argentinian movie I've logged?

Review by Ben “Trash King” Jones ★★★★

Grief and regret can lead someone down a dark and lonely path. Add this to an ingrained sense of superstition and it can wreak havoc on not only the self but everyone around them.

The Funeral Home is an oddly unique take on the haunted family trope that we have all become oh so familiar with over the years. Instead of this being an unknown force, as the home shares the grounds with the titular funeral home (the family business), dealing with these spirits is a daily occurrence. There are rules to follow that must be obeyed. This from the off already sets it apart and was a most welcome idea. It also didn’t play its hand right away, instead…

Select your preferred backdrop

Select your preferred poster.

• WordPress.org
• Documentation
• Learn WordPress

FILM REVIEW: The Funeral Home

Reviewer: richard maguire.

Writer and Director: Mauro Iván Ojeda

In this present time the world probably does not need a film called The Funeral Home , but nothing about this daft, low budget horror from Argentina is likely, apart from the title, to offend anyone. Here, in a film that appears to take itself very seriously, evil lurks in the toilet.

The opening shots, complete with stock scary music, reveal the garden of the house that is attached to the funeral home. A few chickens peck among the flowers, some of which are in raised beds made from unneeded caskets, but what catches the eye, even though the camera only gives us a glimpse, is a blue Portaloo, the kind that middle-class people have in their front gardens when the builders are in. God forbid that the builders should use the inside bathroom with their dirty boots and toilet habits.

But the small family that run the funeral home don’t have builders; instead they have ghosts. These ‘presences’ are to be expected to some extent, the family is told, because of the funeral home, but Ramona, the local exorcist, says that they shouldn’t use the inside toilet at night so as not to antagonise the ghosts further. Conveniently, someone has written on the toilet door in big letters ‘Do Not Use At Night’.

The presences also write messages, usually on the condensation on windows, to Bernardo the funeral home director .At night when his wife is upstairs, knocked out on sleeping pills, and his stepdaughter listening to her music through headphones, he brings gifts to spirits that write him. In the daytime wife Estela can smell ghostly aftershave, while Irina, her daughter, is waiting for the ghost of her real father, killed in a motorbike accident, to appear.

Despite this premise, some of the early scenes are intriguing with their undercurrents of domestic and sexual abuse, and also helped by Luis Machin’s performance as Bernardo. With a deathly pallor and full of sweaty, nervous tics, Machin adds more horror than the scaly presences that haunt the house. Celeste Gerez makes Estela into a dreary character, and it’s shame that her devious storyline isn’t fleshed out more. Camila Vaccarini does well with the grumpy teenage Irina, but the role is one we’ve seen before.

Writer-director Mauro Iván Ojeda does well to relate the claustrophobia of the funeral home to the audience, and towards the end shows a surreal streak that you wish had come earlier. It’s certainly an unforgettable ending, but it’s difficult to know whether to respond with laughter or derision. The Funeral Home is Ojeda’s debut feature film, and surely this balance between the supernatural and the surreal, the domestic and the fantastic can be perfected in future work. But let’s hope the Portaloo doesn’t make a reappearance.

Released on 2 February 2021

The Reviews Hub Score

Finally facing my portaloo.

The Reviews Hub - London

Related articles.

The Suitcase: Losing Famagusta – Camden Fringe 2024, Theatro Technis

Confessions Of An Usher – Camden Fringe 2024, The Libra Theatre Café

Aileen – Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin

Farm Hall – Theatre Royal Haymarket, London

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Fandango at Home
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• 78% Cuckoo Link to Cuckoo
• 97% Dìdi Link to Dìdi
• 97% Good One Link to Good One

New TV Tonight

• 95% Industry: Season 3
• 92% Bad Monkey: Season 1
• 100% Solar Opposites: Season 5
• -- Emily in Paris: Season 4
• -- Bel-Air: Season 3
• -- Rick and Morty: The Anime: Season 1
• -- SEAL Team: Season 7
• -- RuPaul's Drag Race Global All Stars: Season 1
• -- Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures: Season 2
• -- Worst Ex Ever: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

• 59% The Umbrella Academy: Season 4
• 81% A Good Girl's Guide to Murder: Season 1
• 78% Star Wars: The Acolyte: Season 1
• 95% Batman: Caped Crusader: Season 1
• 100% Supacell: Season 1
• 100% Women in Blue: Season 1
• 80% Mr. Throwback: Season 1
• 78% Presumed Innocent: Season 1
• 77% Lady in the Lake: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• 95% Industry: Season 3 Link to Industry: Season 3
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

All Alien Movies In Order: How to Watch Chronologically

30 Most Popular Movies Right Now: What to Watch In Theaters and Streaming

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

The Freakier Friday Cast on New Music, Filming the Iconic Scream Scene, and More

Weekend Box Office: Deadpool & Wolverine Crosses $1 Billion

• Trending on RT
• Video Game Movies
• Best Movies of 2024
• Re-Release Calendar
• TV Premiere Dates

The Funeral Home Reviews

No All Critics reviews for The Funeral Home.

• Now Playing
• Airing Today
• Popular People
• Discussions
• Leaderboard
• Alternative Titles
• Cast & Crew
• Release Dates
• Translations
• Backdrops 2
• Content Issues 0

Now Streaming

The funeral home (2021).

Login to use TMDB's new rating system.

Welcome to Vibes, TMDB's new rating system! For more information, visit the contribution bible .

• Play Trailer

Dare you visit?

Bernardo is an undertaker. He runs his mortuary business in the same house where he resides. In the front, he has his clients. And in the back, his dysfunctional family lives amongst coffins, wreaths, and the mischievous but nonviolent ghosts that visit on a daily basis. But when a malevolent entity enters the scene, it wreaks havoc on the already fractured household.

Mauro Iván Ojeda

Director, Writer

Top Billed Cast

Luis Machín

Celeste Gerez

Camila Vaccarini

Graciela Bonomi

Isabel Iglesias

Mirta Sánchez

Pablo Peverelli

Padre Irina

Rafael Antonio Sola

Susana Varela

Full Cast & Crew

• Discussions 0

We don't have any reviews for The Funeral Home.

• Most Popular

Original Title La funeraria

Status Released

Original Language Spanish; Castilian

• poltergeist
• haunted house
• dysfunctional family
• funeral home
• corpse in coffin
• family home
• horror comedy
• souls of mischief

Content Score 

Yes! Looking good!

Looks like we're missing the following data in en-US or en-US ...

Top Contributors

28 franco2601

5 WardenclyffeTower

4 siryle1213

View Edit History

Popularity Trend

Login to edit

Keyboard Shortcuts

Login to report an issue

You need to be logged in to continue. Click here to login or here to sign up.

Can't find a movie or TV show? Login to create it.

On media pages

On tv season pages, on tv episode pages, on all image pages, on all edit pages, on discussion pages.

Want to rate or add this item to a list?

Not a member?

Sign up and join the community

Join or Sign In

Sign in to customize your TV listings

By joining TV Guide, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy .

• TV Listings
• Cast & Crew

The Funeral Home Reviews

• 1 hr 26 mins
• Watchlist Where to Watch

An Argentine patriarch tries to manage his dysfunctional family life and his work as a funeral home operator. Their home becomes increasingly infested with evil spirits (who coexist with ghosts of former lovers and family members), forcing him to locate the source of the imbalance.

The Death of Stalin

Review by brian eggert march 27, 2018.

The Death of Stalin  opens with a sequence that perfectly articulates its exploration of how fear leads to the absurd. In the Stalinist Soviet Union of 1953, during a concerto broadcast over Moscow radio, pianist Maria Yudina (Olga Kurylenko) plays a selection from Mozart. At the same time, a radio programmer (Paddy Considine) receives a call from Joseph Stalin himself, played Adrian McLoughlin. With strict orders to call Stalin back in precisely 17 minutes, the programmer scrambles to determine whether the countdown started 30 seconds or a minute ago, fearing that if he should return the call late, he will be another name on the totalitarian ruler’s dreaded kill lists. When he eventually calls back, the programmer gets instructions to have a recording of the performance ready for pickup, which is a simple request, except the concert wasn’t recorded. Thinking fast, the programmer convinces the orchestra and pianist to play again for Stalin’s recording, this time with louder applause from an audience he wrangles off the street. Compelled by a desperate fear, he completes the recording, which is delivered to Stalin, who never hears it. Yudina included a harsh note along with the recording, and upon reading it, Stalin collapses.

Merciless and riotously funny,  The Death of Stalin  transforms the authoritarian regime into a site for macabre humor, often twisting one of history’s most genocidal eras into the punchlines of a scathing comedy. Armando Iannucci’s film blends actual history with an equal dose of fictionalized satire, condensing and reordering history to turn the most outlandish factual accounts into broad-spectrum humor composed of acidic British wit, slapstick, and political parody. Getting his start in British television, the Glasgow-born Iannucci is best known for the BBC’s  The Thick of It (2005-2012), its cinematization In the Loop (2009), and HBO’s  Veep (2012-still going strong), though not in that order. He also co-created Alan Partridge alongside Steve Coogan, making him something of a treasure to all of humanity. With  The Death of Stalin , Iannucci finds eerie relevance in the material, namely in the inherent danger and horror that occurs from blindly towing the party line amid political chaos.

Based on graphic novels by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin, the film shows Chairman Stalin basking in the adulation of his Council of Ministers until, at last, he topples over from a cerebral hemorrhage in his country dacha, facing certain death. Even with their leader unlikely to wake, his counsel remains fearful of saying anything that he might hear, just in case he regains consciousness and seeks reprisals. Stalin’s inner circle consists of Deputy Chairman Georgy Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor), an assured dope and next in line to the throne; Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi, outstanding), a chair on the council and most sensible hyena in the pack; the ousted Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov (Michael Palin); and the repugnant Lavrentiy Beria (Simon Russell Beale), head of the NKVD secret police and administrator of the Gulag. Stalin’s seniormost acolytes vie for primacy over the regime in anticipation of his death, while also fumbling amid the remnants of their leader’s bureaucracy. Of course, these men have carried out Stalinism’s worst crimes, including a daily routine of mass killings and arrests. Rooting for any of them becomes a thorny prospect. Nonetheless, Beria, a serial rapist—who kisses Stalin’s hand one moment, cheers the instant he thinks Stalin has died and then cowers again when it turns out he’s still breathing—presents a compelling villain of the bunch.

Elsewhere, Stalin’s daughter Svetlana (Andrea Riseborough) arrives and incites a competition between Beria and Khrushchev, each trying to gain the favor of their leader’s beloved offspring. They’re less interested in her brother Vasily (Rupert Friend), a reckless and trigger-happy drunk. When Stalin eventually dies, Malenkov assumes his position and, in doing so, becomes a puppet—with Beria pulling the strings on his girdle. It’s appropriate, then, that Tambor’s makeup gets thicker and his lips darker, as Malenkov prepares himself for photo opportunities by donning the look of a silent film star. Khrushchev and Beria quickly try to align Malenkov with their own interests, knowing the weak replacement cannot last. The Council assigns Khrushchev the unhappy task of arranging a funeral for Stalin, while Beria continues to make impulsive, or perhaps devilishly calculated political moves, knowing that amid the ensuing chaos, he can seize power for himself. Meanwhile, the members of Stalin’s Council on the outer orbit—Lazar Kaganovich (Dermot Crowley), Anastas Mikoyan (Paul Whitehouse), and Nikolai Bulganin (Paul Chahidi)—flow with the tide, their loyalties determined by whoever resides in power.

Iannucci’s inspired casting places certain actors into familiar roles. He borrows from HBO’s ranks to cast Buscemi as Khrushchev, who recalls the actor’s Nucky Thompson from  Boardwalk Empire . Tambor plays Malenkov as dimwitted and egomaniacal, bringing to mind his thick-headed sidekick Hank Kingsley from  The Larry Sanders Show . Palin has an opportunity for  Brazil -esque speech as Molotov, as his character explains his loyalties in twisted logic to an increasingly frustrated Council: “I have always been loyal to Stalin. Always. And these arrests were authorized by Stalin. But Stalin was always loyal to the collective leadership. That is true  loyalty. But he had an iron principle, undeviating, strong. Shouldn’t we do the same, and stick to what we believed in? No. It’s stronger still to forge one’s own beliefs into the beliefs of collective leadership… Which I have now done.” The wordsmithing of such a speech is equally funny and impressive.

To be sure,  The Death of Stalin  occupies a distinctly British humor (as opposed to a Russian sensibility), combining wit and absurdity in deadpan notes, yet through a Brechtian delivery system that never allows the viewer to forget they’re watching satire. The screenplay by Iannucci, Nury, David Schneider, Ian Martin, and Peter Fellows feels whole, or at least as much as something rooted in political disorder chaos can attain cohesiveness. Scenes alternate between Iannucci’s biting humor and brutally funny insults (“You’re not a person, you’re a testicle!”), and the grim realities of Stalin’s USSR. There are brief glimpses inside the Gulag with emaciated prisoners and point-blank executions; citizens shot down in the streets by the NKVD; and perhaps least funny of all, during Beria’s eventual execution, the details of his sex crimes read aloud, his victims listed in the hundreds, at ages as low as 7-years-old—a detail followed by Beria’s corpse burning in a gruesome image. The brilliance of Iannucci’s limber tonal shifts is that he can switch between them in an instant, keeping a sharp audience on edge, while never losing our investment in the film.

The Death of Stalin was written and shot before Trump took office, though it cannot help but reflect our current cult of personality surrounding the celebrity-turned-President, a figure allegedly controlled by Russian interests. Certainly, it’s enough if the film   occupied nothing more than a historical satire, lampooning the anxieties and ridiculous behavior that actually occurred around Stalin’s deathbed and funeral with an appropriate amount of artistic license. But perhaps it also reveals how life around an authoritarian leader, inevitably, gives way to moral gray areas out of sheer self-preservation, linking Stalin’s distinctly hypermasculine court to that of Trump. In his depiction of power’s absurdity, Iannucci may have (unintentionally, and yet unapologetically) revealed what the reported chaos in the White House must be like, with self-interested parties carrying out ludicrous requests that, at the moment, seem justified. For today’s audiences, the film demonstrates how towing the party line with blind complicity leads to a gross distortion of ideology until the only ideology is obedience.

Although  The Death of Stalin  initially secured a license for exhibition in Russia, officials in their Culture Ministry balked at the film’s humor toward their history and banned the film, not only in Russia but in several other countries that were part of the former Soviet Union. Among other things, the Culture Ministry took aim at the film’s portrayal of Zhukov, given his heroic place in Russian culture for winning the Battle of Stalingrad against the Nazis—a victory that has emboldened the current streak of nationalism that seems to validate similar Stalinist crimes in Russia today. Laughter might be the only way to process contemporary political hysterics around the globe, and Iannucci delivers a wry sense of historical irony.  The Death of Stalin ‘s comically circular structure brings us back to the opening scene’s concert hall in the last shot, with Khrushchev having seized power and Leonid Brezhnev behind him, waiting for his moment. If nothing else, the film reassures, through laughter and historical relativity, that every power-mad leader soon meets their end.

(Editor’s Note: Review updated to reflect Jason Isaacs’ South Yorkshire, not Cockney, accent. )

Related Titles

• In Theaters

Recent Reviews

• Borderlands 1.5 Stars ☆ ☆
• Dìdi 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Cuckoo 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Strange Darling 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• The Instigators 2 Stars ☆ ☆
• Trap 2.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Patreon Exclusive: House of Pleasures 4 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• Patreon Exclusive: La chimera 4 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• Deadpool & Wolverine 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Starve Acre 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Twisters 2.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Patreon Exclusive: Twister 2.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Patreon Exclusive: Saint Laurent 3.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• Longlegs 2 Stars ☆ ☆
• Sing Sing 3.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Recent Articles

• The Labyrinth of Memory in Chris Marker’s La Jetée
• Reader's Choice: Thanksgiving
• Reader's Choice: Perfect Days
• The Definitives: Kagemusha
• The Scrappy Independents of Mumblegore
• Reader's Choice: Creep 2
• Reader's Choice: The Innkeepers
• Reader's Choice: The House of the Devil
• Reader's Choice: Creep
• Reader's Choice: A Horrible Way to Die

GOP critics say Tim Walz 'let Minnesota burn' in 2020 protests. Here's what happened

Tim Walz joining the Democratic Party’s presidential ticket has prompted renewed scrutiny of how the Minnesota governor handled the protests following George Floyd's death.

Opponents of the pick by Vice President Kamala Harris wasted no time bringing up the demonstrations that began in Walz’s state and grew increasingly violent during the week that followed Floyd’s killing at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer in 2020.

Four years later, the images of Minneapolis in May 2020 remain striking. Flames bursting from the city’s 3rd Precinct police headquarters and raging inside a looted AutoZone store. A protester illuminated by fire carrying an upside-down U.S. flag , a sign of distress, down a burning street.

More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page

Those snapshots were referenced in a post on X, formerly Twitter, by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who said Walz “ sat by and let Minneapolis burn .” Similarly, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan posted that Walz “ let rioters and looters burn a police station to the ground in 20 20 ," and Minnesota Republican Party chair David Hann said Walz “did nothing ” to stop the riots.

Follow-up interviews with these critics showed a focus on how and when Walz activated the National Guard, an authority reserved for the governor of each state.

In an email to USA TODAY, Hann said Walz "waited three days before activating the National Guard" and claimed the governor was reluctant to oppose Democrats' characterization of the protests as peaceful. Jordan spokesperson Russell Dye referenced a New York Post article detailing an October 2020 report from a Republican-controlled Minnesota Senate committee that states Walz "failed to act" during the riots and specifically criticized the speed of the National Guard deployment. USA TODAY reached out to spokespeople for DeSantis and for Walz's gubernatorial office and the Harris-Walz campaign but did not immediately receive responses.

Let’s look back at the chain of events during that tumultuous week in May 2020.

Fact check : Gov. Walz does not need to resign after VP selection

More from the Fact-Check Team:   How we pick and research claims  |  Email newsletter  |  Facebook page

Protests began after video of Floyd death went viral

It started on May 25, 2020 – Memorial Day, a Monday – when the Minneapolis Police Department received a call that someone spent a possible counterfeit $20 bill on cigarettes at a convenience store.

Responding officers came across a 46-year-old Black man, later identified as Floyd, and handcuffed him. He was placed on the ground, and Officer Derek Chauvin proceeded to hold his knee on Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes while ignoring Floyd's protests that he couldn't breathe. Floyd was declared dead shortly thereafter.

A bystander shared a video of his killing on social media – sparking the first of the protests .

“By the time we get to Tuesday, we’re already seeing some emergent conflicts between protesters and the police, but they’re relatively small-scale,” said Michelle Phelps , a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota and the author of a book about policing in Minneapolis that examines the protests.

But by that Wednesday, things changed. The demonstrations became more violent, with officers firing noise devices and projectiles toward crowds of protesters and fires breaking out at the AutoZone and other locations.

“Wednesday is when things really started picking up,” said Rachel Moran , an associate professor of law at St. Thomas University and an expert on police accountability. “And then Thursday morning, he calls in the National Guard. … It actually happened relatively quickly. It was just, the protests were massive, and Wednesday … I think that’s when everyone in Minneapolis, they’re realizing, ‘OK, this is going to be bigger than what we’ve seen.’”

That prompted Jacob Frey, the Democratic mayor of Minneapolis, to call Walz on Wednesday and discuss activating National Guard troops. The governor – not then-President Donald Trump, as some have wrongly claimed – activated the Guard that Thursday.

But with only 90 troops on the ground in the Twin Cities later that night , The Star Tribune reported, protesters set fire to the 3rd Precinct station. That led Trump to call protesters “thugs” and vow that “ when the looting starts, the shooting starts " in an X post the following day. Walz mobilized the full Guard that Saturday – its first full mobilization since World War II – and conceded his administration underestimated the size of the crowds of protesters. By Sunday, even as protests spread across the U.S., the violence in Minneapolis had calmed.

Walz activated Guard after written request, not mayor’s phone call

One of the most powerful tools at a governor's disposal is the National Guard , and it's largely up to him to decide when and to what degree to use it . Experts say the rhetoric aimed at Walz's National Guard activation oversimplifies a chaotic and complicated moment.

“I don’t think city officials or the governor knew exactly what to do,” Moran said. “But that’s very different than saying he stood by and let it burn. I absolutely wouldn’t agree with that."

John Harrington , the state's public safety commissioner at the time, told MinnPost in 2023 that officials in Minneapolis typically do not request state assistance for protests "because most of the time, Minneapolis handles their own business." So when state help became necessary, the parties involved weren't well-versed in how to make that happen.

The question of who to blame for the speed of the National Guard response, then, hinges on a bit of bureaucracy: Walz couldn't activate the guard until Frey formally asked him to do so, an expert said, and the two leaders disagree on when that request was made.

"There's some back and forth between the mayor and the governor. So, the mayor had to formally request the National Guard activation, because until that point, it was the city that was responsible for managing the unrest," said Phelps, the sociology professor.

Frey said his call to the governor that Wednesday evening qualified as a formal request and claimed Walz was "hesitating." Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo asked for Guard troops in an email sent that night to Harrington, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis reported.

But National Guard mobilization guidelines reference a request from a mayor, not a police chief. And Walz's office has countered that the mayor misunderstood the requirements of a formal request, saying Walz recognized the written letter he received a day later as that request. The Guard was activated that afternoon.

Harrington characterized Frey’s phone call as vague, and an outside firm that reviewed the response largely agreed . A request for Guard assistance must include specific details typically found in an operations plan or an incident action plan that the firm said in its 2022 report “we did not receive and that we determined through interviews did not exist.”

In its report released three weeks before Election Day in 2020 and criticized by Democrats as the product of " one-sided hearings ," the GOP-led state Senate Joint Transportation and Judiciary and Public Safety Committee blamed Walz for poor decision-making and said he wanted to "wait for assignments " from the city before mobilizing the Guard. The document paraphrases Harrington as saying during a hearing that officials should have been "quicker to bring people in " and that the state could have been more "successful " had it mobilized the right personnel and used the right tactics – without specifying what those should have been.

"There were a lot of imperfect attempts to figure out how to respond," Moran said. "Part of the city did burn, for sure. I don't disagree with the actual results. But it wasn't a matter of people standing by."

Additionally, increasing the police presence prematurely ran the risk of introducing a different set of problems. Moran noted, "These were protests about the police, and so the presence of law enforcement was, in a way, antagonizing."

Experts also said attacking Walz over the timing of the Guard's activation oversimplifies the logistical challenge of transporting them and providing them with a mission. Gen. Jon Jensen, the Guard’s former adjutant general, later testified that only 700 of the state’s 13,000 troops had riot training .

“It takes a while to get all of those troops on the ground,” Phelps said.

That delay was illustrated Thursday, when more than 500 soldiers were activated but reports indicated fewer than 100 troops were on the ground . That number on the ground grew to 700 on Friday and swelled to 4,500 by Saturday , as Walz activated the full Guard for the first time since WWII . More than 7,000 were on duty by Sunday as the violence eased.

“To say that he let Minnesota or Minneapolis burn is just a wild misconstruing of the facts," Phelps said. “It was a response to a really unusual set of circumstances, and I think they responded as fast as was reasonably possible, given the scale of the operation."

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here .

USA TODAY is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network, which requires a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisanship, fairness and transparency. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Meta .

In Theaters and Digital

The funeral home - movie review.

Ready to get drawn into a dark family drama that handles the supernatural element with grace and style?  Then writer/director Mauro Iván Ojeda ’s chilling journey into The Funeral Home is definitely for you.  Thanks to an opening which sets the stage for some seriously dreadful things to rollout upon, we already know that this meditation on all things which go bump in the night is going to be moody and pitch perfect.  Spanish language horror delivers once again!

The Funeral Home is yet another example of low budget terror which absolutely works thanks to an understanding of the genre.  It is also steady in its handling of suspense as a family of three - Bernardo, his wife Estela, her daughter Irina, all maintaining a “normal” life inside a funeral home - experience all sorts of haunted affairs.  They might even be used to it - which makes it no less creepier for The Funeral Home ’s audience.  Such things - oh, let’s say like regular ghostly visits from the past bodies they’ve worked on - shouldn’t be normal, but they are for this family.

The eeriness continues when we realize just how far gone the family is when it comes to liking each other and accepting the past dark dealings of their deceased family.  Something deep, dark, and truly demented is slowly bubbling to the surface of this horror film and Ojeda keeps the audience in the dark, just like the shadows that keep consuming the family members in the funeral home.  

The dysfunction and the death is visceral with each minute the film logs and you, if you are anything like me, will succumb to the moment, drowning in the gothic nature of this truly haunting film.  Bernardo is the undertaker here, but he struggles to find value in his domesticated life and each daily visit from the other side - whether they be mischievous or not - doesn’t help the doom that he feels.  It comes with his line of work, he thinks . . . but the real source of all the many happenings isn’t from the mortuary work alone.

There’s a helping hand at play here and, within the walls of The Funeral Home , is where it longs to keep the terrifying truth.  Madness, it seems, is relative.  With plenty of momentum when it comes to deftly handling suspense and true terror, Ojeda ’s film is a true slow burn.  It will not simply give you the answers; this one leaves it all up to you and that is one of this film’s best moves as the mystery to be solved reinforces the terror surrounding this family.

Starring Luis Machín, Celeste Gerez, Camila Vaccarini, Susana Varela , and Hugo Arana , The Funeral Home arrives directly from its premiere at Fantasia and plays in theaters on January 29 before a digital release February 2 via Uncork’d Entertainment .

Things truly do go bump in the night!  Find out why in The Funeral Home .

Home Video Distributor: Available on Blu-ray Screen Formats: Subtitles : Audio: Discs: Region Encoding:

MPAA Rating: Unrated. Runtime: 86 mins Director : Mauro Iván Ojeda Writer: Mauro Iván Ojeda Cast: Luis Machín, Celeste Gerez, Camila Vaccarini Genre : Horror Tagline: Nothing here ever rests in peace. Memorable Movie Quote: "How can we not have presences if we have a funeral home in the house." Theatrical Distributor: Uncork'd Entertainment Official Site: Release Date: Select virtual theaters January 29 and digital Feb 2 DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: Synopsis : Bernardo is an undertaker. He and his dysfunctional family lives amongst coffins, wreaths and mischievous supernatural entities that visit daily. They attribute the paranormal manifestations to the dead bodies from their mortuary work. Finding the real source of all this madness will be their quest, but they might find a terrifying truth.

New in Theaters/VOD

New on Home Video

• The Scarecrows Are Alive in Trailer for SCARECROWS
• Christmas is Under Siege in New Trailer for ELVES
• Discover the Krampus Backstory in New Trailer for KRAMPUS ORIGINS
• Death Kiss (2018) - Blu-ray Review
• My Pet Dinosaur (2018) - Movie Review

Movie Trailers

• Trailer Watch - SLINGSHOT (2024)
• Trailer Watch - PACHINKO - Season Two
• Trailer Watch - KNOCK OUT BLONDE: THE KELLY MALONEY STORY
• Trailer Watch - THE BECOMERS
• Trailer Watch - GENEVIEVE BURNS

Movie Reviews

Morbidly Hollywood

• Colorado Street Suicide Bridge
• Death of a Princess - The Story of Grace Kelly's Fatal Car Crash
• Joaquin Phoenix 911 Call - River Phoenix - Viper Room
• Screen Legend Elizabeth Taylor Dies at 79
• Suicide and the Hollywood Sign - The Girl Who Jumped from the Hollywood Sign
• The Amityville Horror House
• The Black Dahlia Murder - The Death of Elizabeth Short
• The Death of Actress Jane Russell
• The Death of Brandon Lee
• The Death of Chris Farley
• The Death of Dominique Dunne
• The Death of George Reeves - the Original Superman

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, chaz's journal, great movies, contributors, the last front.

Now streaming on:

"The Last Front" is a first-rate calling-card movie—a medium-budget project that feels much bigger because it puts all the money on the screen, as studio executives like to say, and that will make people want to trust first-time director Julien Hayet-Kerknawi with bigger budgets moving forward. But it seems more likely that it'll be a Dwayne Johnson action thriller than a historical drama, which is troubling considering the subject matter of the film: the attempts to liberate a small Belgian farming community from German troops who've occupied it during World War I, and the unrelenting cruelty that invading soldiers inflict on civilian populations under the guise of carrying out orders.

The two main characters are Leonard Lambert ( Iain Glen )—a soft-spoken widower who lives on a farm with his daughter Johanna ( Emma Dupont ) and his son Adrien ( James Downie )—and a German army officer, Lt. Laurentz ( Joe Anderson ). On top of his obvious psychological problems (including psychosis, a hair-trigger temper, and alcoholism), Laurentz is a world-class scumbag villain, the kind you spend an entire movie rooting for somebody to murder as gruesomely as possible.

This is not a shades-of-grey kind of movie. Nor is it one where the characters have more than two dimensions or the hint of a personal life beyond their immediate plot function. Lambert is, it appears, a committed pacifist who would rather avoid confrontation than participate in it (his last name begins with "Lamb" after all). At the same time, Laurentz is so detestable and chaotic that his superior officer and actual dad, Commander Maximilian ( Philippe Brenninkmeyer ), calls him a monster and briefly ends up having the lad's pistol pointed at his forehead. The rest of the characters—including Adrien's girlfriend Louise ( Sasha Luss ) and her father, Dr. Janssen ( Koen De Bouw ), and the parish priest Father Michael ( David Calder )—are mainly there to create suspense as to whether they'll be tormented or murdered by Laurentz, whose solution to every problem is to reach for his gun. (Gotta hand it to the guy: he's not big on delegating. He personally kills so many people in this movie that you start to wonder why he brought those other folks with him.) 

The violence is circumscribed, usually showing you just enough gore and/or pain to get across the idea that war is indeed hell (though the goopy sound effects and screams fill in the blanks as far as horrors-of-war). But the more "The Last Front" seems to want to speak seriously to the inhumanity of wartime, the less I was inclined to trust it because it traffics in the visual and aural language of the red-meat revenge thriller. At many points, connoisseurs of action cinema may be reminded of films starring and/or directed by Mel Gibson, such as " The Patriot ," " Braveheart ," and " Hacksaw Ridge " that genuflect toward some kind of larger statement about a certain historical period but end up being functionally indistinguishable from a 1980s Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone picture where one man can become an army. 

Considering that other villagers almost immediately start suggesting that Lambert is the perfect guy to lead a rebellion against the Germans—plus the fact that Glen is best known for spending eight seasons on "Game of Thrones" playing the only thoughtful guy in a room full of petty, bloodthirsty maniacs, then dutifully kicking butt, often on horseback—it's mystifying that the film spends so much time letting us watch the poor man do the "to be or not to be" thing. Why not skip to the part where he takes up arms against a sea of troubles? This is not a psychodrama--there's not a whole lot of "psych" to dramatize--so there's no reason to delay the inevitable scenes of Lambert going full John Wayne on the Huns. 

There are compensatory pleasures. The supporting performances are above and beyond, and Glen is so likable and so believable as a decent man pushed too far that if this film does well, he might be in line to have a late-in-life career renaissance in another of the senior action flicks that have become ubiquitous. The cinematography by Xavier Van D'huynslager puts the widescreen format to excellent use in presenting information and blocking large numbers of people, something many contemporary filmmakers no longer seem to know how to do. The action sequences are lean and clean; you know what's happening, what's at stake, and why things turned out as they did. Frederik Van de Moortel's score is fundamentally honest in that it's more "'80s action thriller" than "Oh, the humanity!" It's superb at escalating tension in the lead-up to violence, and there's a brilliant moment in the second half where he introduces what sounds like distorted and truncated feedback loops, as if to suggest that the character the scene is focused on is losing his grip on reality. 

If Liam Neeson ever wants to get back into the " Taken " business, he could save time by hiring this entire team, including Glen as the hero's previously unmentioned cousin Nigel, who used to work for MI-6. I don't know if that's the impression the filmmakers wanted to leave, but that's what comes across.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

Now playing

Peyton Robinson

The Convert

Monica castillo.

Customs Frontline

Simon abrams.

Mother, Couch!

Robert daniels.

My Spy The Eternal City

Christy lemire.

Film Credits

The Last Front (2024)

Iain Glen as Leonard

Sasha Luss as Louise

Joe Anderson as Laurentz

David Calder as Father Michael

James Downie as Adrien

Koen De Bouw as Dr. Janssen

• Julien Hayet-Kerknawi

Latest blog posts

Apple TV+'s Bad Monkey Struggles to Find Its Voice

The Box Office is Everything: In Praise of the Window at the Front of the Theater

The Fairy Tale Shoes: Interview With the Cast and Crew of Cuckoo

On the Trail: India Donaldson on Good One

• Rent or buy
• Categories Categories
• Getting Started

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Customers also watched.

Cast and Crew

Other formats

4844 global ratings

How are ratings calculated? Toggle Expand Toggle Expand

• About Amazon
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell products on Amazon
• Sell on Amazon Business
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Become an Affiliate
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Host an Amazon Hub
• › See More Make Money with Us
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Amazon and COVID-19
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices

• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

U.S. Funeral Home Where Rotting Bodies Discovered Fined $950 Million

T he owners of a Colorado funeral home have been ordered to pay $950 million to the families of 190 victims whose bodies were found decaying inside.

The judge in a civil case ruled Monday that Return to Nature home in Penrose should pay grieving families who paid for cremation services and were given fake ashes while their bodies decomposed in a maggot-infested building .

The couple allegedly took $130,000 from families for cremation and burial services that were never carried out. But the legal victory is largely a symbolic one as families may never see a payout.

The home’s founders, Jon and Carie Hallford—who are also facing hundreds of criminal charges in separate federal and state cases—have long been facing financial ruin. They had missed tax payments and were evicted from the home in 2023.

“If nothing else […] the judgment will bring more understanding to the case,” Crystina Page, a mother who hired the home to cremate her deceased son in 2019, told the Associated Press . “I’m hoping it’ll make people go, ‘Oh, wow, this isn’t just about ashes.’”

Jon is a multi-generational funeral home owner with 19 years of experience in the industry, according to KRDO, a local radio station. The couple opened the Return to Nature home in May 2016, touting it as a place for environmentally conscious burials that use no chemicals or embalming fluids, and opt for biodegradable caskets. Green funerals are legal in Colorado but bodies must be buried within a 24 hour window, or else refrigerated.

Fremont County Sheriff's Office launched an investigation into Return to Nature on Oct. 4, after an odor coming from the home led officials to the site. When investigators discovered more than 100 bodies stacked at the home, the couple allegedly fled Colorado to escape prosecution.

They were later arrested in Oklahoma in November and charged with multiple counts of money laundering, forgery, theft, and abuse of a corpse. Jon remains in custody, while Carie has received bail but did not show up to hearings for the civil case. 

Andrew Swan, a class action’s attorney for the families of the victims, said he hoped the case would compel the Halfords to court. 

“I would have preferred that they participate,” Swan said, “if only because I wanted to put them on the witness stand, have them put under oath and ask them how they came to do this, not once, not twice, but hundreds of times.”

Colorado has lenient regulations for funeral homes compared to other states. But the case of the Halfords has played a role in passing new legislation to license funeral workers in the state. From 2026, funeral home operators will be required to hold a degree in mortuary science and undertake a one-year apprenticeship, as well as pass exams and background checks.

More Must-Reads from TIME

• The Reintroduction of Kamala Harris
• The 7 States That Will Decide the Election
• Is the U.S. Ready for Psychedelics?
• Inside Sam Bankman-Fried's Siege of D.C.
• Do You Really Store Stress in Your Body?
• The Rise of a New Kind of Parenting Guru
• The 50 Best Romance Novels to Read Right Now
• Can Food Really Change Your Hormones?

Write to Armani Syed at [email protected]

• Cast & crew

Venom: The Last Dance

Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddi... Read all Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie's last dance. Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie's last dance.

• Kelly Marcel
• Juno Temple
• 2 Critic reviews

Top cast 13

• Eddie Brock …

• Detective Mulligan

• Donald The Security Guard
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

New and Upcoming Action Movies & Series

More like this

Did you know

• Trivia Tom Holland said he and Amy Pascal had discussed him potentially reprising his role as Spider-Man in future Venom sequels.

Venom : Eddie... my home has found us.

• Connections Follows Venom (2018)
• When will Venom: The Last Dance be released? Powered by Alexa
• October 25, 2024 (United States)
• United States
• United Kingdom
• Official Website
• Venom: Kèo Cuối
• Cartagena, Spain
• Columbia Pictures
• Arad Productions
• Hutch Parker Entertainment
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Dolby Atmos
• IMAX 6-Track

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• See more gaps
• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Recently viewed.