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Trish VanDevere, Joseph Cotten, David Gautreaux, Donald Hotton, Med Flory ... see more see more... , Perry Lang , Allison Balson , Dominic Barto , Jimmy Gatherum , Christopher McDonald , Chuck Mitchell , Nick Shields , Donald Petrie , Olive Dunbar , Al Hansen , Frederic Franklyn , George Bowers , Trish Van Devere

The Hearse, directed by George Bowers is a clichéd, predictable horror film which, despite its interesting cast, is derivative and uninspired. Jane (Trish Van Devere) inherits a mansion from an aunt, ... read more read more...whom she closely resembles. The townspeople believe that her aunt was possessed by Satan, and Jane becomes increasingly frightened when she is haunted by visions of a hearse that keeps showing up in front of her door. Walter Prichard (Joseph Cotton) is a argumentative attorney who does nothing to help Jane, who begins to think she is having a nervous breakdown. All of this is familiar and has been done far better elsewhere. Director Bowers paces the film far too leisurely to create much suspense, and the "surprise" ending is evident to all but the most unsophisticated viewer. The Hearse, routine and slow, will lull most horror fans to sleep. ~ Linda Rasmussen, Rovi

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24% want to see it

954 ratings

PG, 1 hr. 37 min.

Directed by: George Bowers

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DVD Release Date: February 12, 2002

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Flixster Reviews (74)

  • FilmFanatik
    December 26, 2011
    FilmFanatik
    One of the few movies that ever nailed the lone female moving into an old house and taking on the supernatural is The Sentinel. It has some geuinely creepy moments and managed to throw everything but the kitchen sink into the mix in terms of batshit story ideas. It's a brilliantl... read morey insane piece of work, and definitely underappreciated. I can certainly give it much more praise than The Hearse, which sort of tries to do the same thing, but ultimately winds up being boring. It has a couple of good things about it. It has a late career performance from Joseph Cotton and a small part for Perry Lang. Trish Van Devere's performance is mostly straightfoward, and she's just not very good in it. The only time when she gives it her all is when she's acting crazy and frustrated. In those moments she's very believable, but uninteresting in the rest of the film. The score had me laughing from how cheesy it was, but there's really not much about this movie to like. If you're a feminist, you'll appreciate how strong Van Devere's character is I suppose, but if you want a superior film, watch The Sentinel instead. The Hearse is a curiosity, and nothing more.
  • TheDudeLebowski65
    October 13, 2011
    TheDudeLebowski65
    The Hearse is a pretty interesting idea for a horror film. I found that the film is fairly underrated and despite the fact that it's somewhat cliché, inspired and derivative of other, better horror films; The Hearse is a good enough film. One thing that you should keep in mind wh... read moreile watching The Hearse is that despite some overused ideas, a horror film can still be fun. The Hearse is most certainly that. There's some decent acting on-screen and the chills are decent. As a ghost story, The Hearse is a good enough film to watch, and is underrated. The film does use elements from other horror films, and director George Bowers steadily builds up the tension to a surprise final. The film is certainly entertaining, but there are of course a lot of aspects in the film that could have been improved upon. The Hearse has some creepy moments, but after a while the plot seems to fall apart. The film is a good enough horror film to watch, but is never really excellent. The films idea is wonderful and there is a good cast here. As a horror film, The Hearse does entertain, but it uses a derivative formula and what could have been a great horror film is simply a good one. Nothing wrong with that, however considering that the plot revolves around a haunted house and Hearse, the film could have been much better than it is. I enjoyed the film, but once you finish it, you realize that there are plenty of elements that could have been improved upon. Still, if you love a good ghost story, The Hearse despite its flaws, is still worth checking out.
  • ajv2688
    October 8, 2011
    ajv2688
    Not a good movie. There was potential for an alright horror movie here, but it wasn't used properly, and then it crashed and burned in the end. I was surprised to see Joseph Cotton was in this movie too, he used to be a great actor. Overall this movie is unbalanced, confusing,... read more and dull.
  • flixsterman
    February 12, 2011
    flixsterman
    Pointless drive-in fodder that is really just a hodge-podge of elements gleaned from other horror films.

    *NOTE: Am I losing my mind or did I see a very young Dennis Quaid as the telephone repairman???
  • DrBenway
    October 16, 2008
    DrBenway
    Hmmm...well, The Hearse makes use of a lot of standard fare; dolls, slamming doors, banging pipes, repeated stock footage of a car, bad dreams, and the camera's point of view providing tension (pretty bad camerawork, by the way). As for the story, there are plenty of gaps, and t... read morehe writers apparently realized an hour in that people are supposed to die in these movies. The ending is completely predictable, which is better than forcing a twist, but not very satisfying overall.

    In general, The Hearse is a haunted house movie that tries to also be a haunted car movie, combining two formulas for flat results. Too bad it's one of Joseph Cotten's last films.
  • YosemiteSamFan
    July 19, 2007
    YosemiteSamFan
    A freaky and effective horror movie as a woman is stalked by a spooky hearse and its creepy driver.
  • xterminal
    July 18, 2011
    xterminal
    The Hearse (George Bowers, 1980)

    In 1980, Trish Van Devere, George C. Scott's distinctive, lovely fourth wife (Scott was married five times, but two of those were to Colleen Dewhurst), made two supernatural thrillers. One was The Changeling, in which ... read moreshe and Scott co-star. It's a real barnburner of a movie, one of the great eighties horror films that was neglected for a few decades, but is starting to get the critical recognition it so richly deserves. The other was The Hearse. Absolutely nothing that I said about The Changeling applies here.

    Jane Hardy (Van Devere) has just gone through a nasty divorce and is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She decided she needs to get away from the city, and heads out to the small town that contains the house left her by her aunt, which has been untouched for the past thirty years. (What a different world it was, when one could just let a piece of real estate sit, not to mention pay the taxes on it on a nursery school teacher's salary!) Walter Pritchard (the inimitable Joseph Cotten), the crotchety lawyer who was her aunt's executor, opens the house for her, but cautions her not to stay too long. She soon finds out why: her aunt was a witch, and was shunned by the townsfolk. Thanks to guilt by association, Jane, too, is shunned by most of them, though the lecherous town sheriff (The Boogens' Med Flory) does some sniffing around, and Paul Gordon, the son of the local hardware store's owners, who also does handiwork (Perry Lang, now a successful TV director), finds himself drawn to her. But one's too pushy and the other's too young. So when Tom Sullivan (Star Trek: The Motion Picture's David Gautreaux) enters the picture, Jane finally feels she may be able to move on from her marriage. The only problem is, it seems some of her aunt's psychic residue may be hanging on, in the form of a hearse no one else sees, but which does its best to try and kill her every time she's out on the road at night.

    The worst thing about The Hearse is how good it could have been. It has a surprisingly strong cast for what now seems like a bad made-for-TV movie, the script is a bit derivative (especially of Let's Scare Jessica to Death) but could've been solid with another rewrite. The weak link in the chain is George Bowers, much better known for his work as an editor (recently on such projects as From Hell, Roll Bounce, and The Preacher's Wife) than as a director (his best-known film in that capacity: the 1983 sex comedy My Tutor, the first big-screen appearance of a promising young actor named Crispin Glover). His direction is limp, pallid, all over the map. Half the time it seems as if he doesn't know what kind of a movie he wants to direct. The other half of the time he knows what kind of movie it is, but every decision he made was the wrong one. Have you ever heard less subtle music in a movie? Ever? And yes, I'm including awful made-for-Nickelodeon kids' movies.

    There's enough innate talent in the cast to slightly recommend this if you're a fan of one or more of the actors (and who isn't a Joseph Cotten fan?), but otherwise you can avoid it. **
  • kingmob6
    May 28, 2010
    kingmob6
    This started off really interesting but the final moments made me reconsider my initial approval and reduce the overall grade to the halfway mark, as I would've enjoyed it more if it had a better ending.

    Has some fun spooky moments scattered throughout and is a pretty decent lit... read moretle ghost story for most of the running time, but the later reveals left it limping to the finish line.

    Rental.
  • mnovak1
    July 6, 2007
    mnovak1
    This is more of a haunted house story than a woman being terrorized by a hearse which made it sort of disappointing.
  • jeffman52001
    June 25, 2007
    jeffman52001
    An intersting film with a great story. A hearse, poseesed by an evil spirit terrorizes other and a woman in a small town. A very entertaining movie from 1980, a classic.

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Critic Reviews

Roger Ebert
January 8, 2008
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

The events in this movie happen because they have happened in other horror movies and seemed like a good idea at the time. We know better. Full Review

January 8, 2008
TV Guide's Movie Guide

A pretty dull affair. Full Review

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The Hearse Trivia

  • In this movie, four men battle the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, meet a ghost named Slimer and a ghost named Zuul. This 1984 film takes place in New York City and they drive a converted hearse called Ecto-1. Can you name this film?  Answer »
  • The Ghostbuster's car Ecto 1 was converted from what type of car?  Answer »
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