All these people were the victims of their own frailties, their own petty foibles.
I will be otherwise engaged this weekend, so I figured I'd bump up my "Chilling Classic" from Saturday to today. My reason? I simply couldn't pass up the opportunity to follow The House of the Devil with a film called The House of the Dead. Made in 1978, it's also a good followup to Funeral Home since it, too, is centered around the undertaking business. In this case, though, director Sharron Miller uses the setting as the jumping-off point for a series of otherwise unrelated stories which are relayed by pedantic mortician Ivor Francis to adulterous plumbing supplies salesman John Ericson, who picks the wrong doorway to stand in when he gets caught in the rain.
The whole shebang kicks off with a cheerful number that features the refrain "the saddest melody is the sound of goodbye," which is really sad if you think about the money that paying customers had to part with in order to see this movie. Then we cut straight to Ericson in bed with his lover, who implores him to stay but he insists on returning to his hotel and calling his wife. Unfortunately, he makes the mistake of attempting to talk about the weather with his cab driver, who drops him off in front of Francis's establishment. It's completely nondescript, though, so after Francis invites him in and makes him a cup of coffee he has to tell Ericson that his line of work, which he "wouldn't be interested in," is embalming. He elaborates further: "Embalming and such. I'm a mortician. I take care of the deceased. After they're dead, I get them. That's my work." It's the kind of speech somebody would write after watching "The Parrot Sketch" one too many times.
As soon as his brain is able to work out exactly what an embalmer is, Ericson tries to leave, but Francis insists that he stick around and hear the macabre tales of his current "clients." First there's the kid-hating teacher (who's played by an actress at least 20 years too young for the role) who is terrorized in her own home by some fiend who keeps turning off her radio, leaving her water running and taking her roast out of the oven before it's done and stabbing it with a large knife. Then there's the amateur filmmaker ("He had a rather abnormal predilection for cameras. Photography, and all that sort of thing," Francis helpfully explains) who likes to invite women over to his apartment so he can film himself killing them. Then there's the Columbo-like police detective who engages in a battle of wits with a Scotland Yard inspector for the title of world's leading criminologist. And finally there's the story of a mildly unpleasant executive (whose every whiny thought can be heard in voice over) who is toyed with mercilessly by an unseen tormentor because he was rude to a few people and (shock! horror!) didn't want to get a hamburger with an associate.
Of all the stories, Ericson understandably objects to the last one the most, but then it's his turn to pay for his crime (he is, after all, an adulterer) and Francis sends him back out into the night so he can be gunned down by his lover's jealous husband. The end, roll credits -- complete with a reprise of that toe-tapper, "The Sound of 'Goodbye.'" And if you're lucky, you'll never think about The House of the Dead again. I sure hope I don't.