It's impossible for me to be objective. The House by the Cemetery is one of my favorite films ever. I cannot defend it's lack of story, the fact that it's influences are pinned to its sleeve or that it makes little to no sense. The first time I watched it - at a drive-in marathon that also included Zombi 2 - was an experience that burned the film into my brain.The beginning will grab you in seconds, as a woman searches for her boyfriend in an abandoned house. She finds him dead, stabbed with scissors. Just then, she's stabbed in the back of the head and the blade of the knife comes out of her mouth! We see her dragged away as the movie begins.Meanwhile in New York City, Bob Boyle (Giovanni Frezza, Warriors of the Wasteland, Manhattan Baby, Demons) and his folks, Norman (Paolo Malco, The New York Ripper, Escape from the Bronx) and Lucy (Katherine MacColl, City of the Living Dead, The Beyond) are moving to the abandoned house we saw in the beginning of the film. Sure, Norman's friend Dr. Peterson killed his mistress and committed suicide there, but why would that be a problem?In one of the eeriest scenes in the film, Bob looks at a photo of the house and notices a young girl moving from room to room. This is the most subtle of all frights, a small moment where reality is not as it should be, and far more potent than even the goriest of grue that Fulci will soon serve up with glee. Only Bob can see this vision, which warns him to stay away.As his parents get the keys to the house, Bob sees the girl again. Inside the rental office, Mrs. Gittleson (Dagmar Lassander, Hatchet for the Honeymoon) is upset that the couple has the Freudstein keys to Oak Mansion, but she promises to find a babysitter from Bob.The mansion is a mess. Yet when the babysitter (Ania Pieroni, Inferno) comes, she enters the previously locked and nailed shut cellar door. Strangeness follows, like a librarian recognizing Norman despite never meeting him, the discovery of a tomb inside the house and a bat attack.The Boyles demand a new house as Norman goes to the hospital. Mrs. Gittleson comes to tell them that she's found a new property, but the Freudstein tombstone in the ground holds her while a figure stabs her in the neck. The next morning, Ann the babysitter cleans up the blood and avoids questions.While the Boyles are at the hospital to treat Norman's injuries from the bat, Mrs. Gittleson arrives at the house to tell them of a new property. Letting herself in, she stands over the Freudstein tombstone, which cracks apart, pinning her ankle. A figure emerges, stabs her in the neck with a fireplace poker, and drags her into the cellar.The next morning, Lucy finds Ann cleaning a bloodstain on the kitchen floor while eluding Lucy's questions about the stain. As they drink their morning coffee, Norman tells Lucy that the house was once home to Dr. Fruedstein, who conducted horrific experiments in the basement. He decides to go to New York City to learn more and on the way, he finds out that Freudstein killed his old friend Peterson's family.Ann can't find Bob, so she goes to the basement where Freudstein slashes her throat and decapitates her. Bob finds her head and screams, but his mother refuses to believe the story. Bob goes back to the cellar but gets locked in. His mother tries to open the door, which can't be unlocked. Norman returns and they make their way down to see Freudstein's hands holding Bob. One axe slash later and the hand is cut off as the monster goes away to recover.Inside the basement, Norman and Lucy find mutilated bodies, surgical equipment and a slab. Turns out that Freudstein is 150 years old and has learned to escape death. He returns and attacks Norman, who returns the favor by stabbing him. The twisted doctor replies by ripping out Norman's throat. Lucy and Bon try to escape, but Freudstein drags her down to the basement where he rams her head into the floor until she dies.Finally, the doctor grabs Bob, who is rescued by Mar and her mother, Mary Fredustein. Mary tells them that it's time to leave as she leads Mae and Bob down to a world of gloom and ghosts.House by the Cemetery is a mash-up of Frankenstein, The Amityville Horror and The Shining. And it's another in the series of classics that Dardano Sacchetti (working with Giorgio Mariuzzo here) wrote for Fulci. If you think it's nonsensical, imagine how early American audiences felt when the original VHS copies released in the U.S. had several of the reels out of order!Seriously, this movie makes no sense whatsoever. There aren't plot holes because there's not even a plot. And sure, some say there's too much gore. Yes, I've heard these complaints and I say no to all of them! Look, you're either going to become an evangelist for this film (if you need me in person, there's a good chance I'll have on a t-shirt with this film's logo, I wear the shirt all the time) and you'll think it's the biggest piece of garbage ever made.

Following on from his "zombie invasion" trilogy, Fulci returned to the realm of the undead in THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY, a slightly disappointing movie considering how much I love the first three. Although not without its moments, HOUSE is let down by a very slow pacing which is unlike Fulci in his prime, and the usual problems with cheap Italian movies: bad dubbing, acting, and editing. Standing alone, THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY is still an enjoyable film, nice and mysterious with a plentiful smattering of gore, but compared to his earlier works it appears as a confused, sometimes boring mess. As one other reviewer has said, the film is "trivial" in comparison to his zombie epics and seems more akin to one of the much-despised slasher movies filling the screens from the period.Things start well with an atmospheric Gothic music score playing over the credits (sadly its only used later for the ending credits). The typical blonde bimbo and her dumb boyfriend are seen making love in abandoned house, only to be imaginatively killed (the girl gets a huge old knife shoved right through her skull!). We're introduced to the main bunch of characters, who this time aren't up to Fulci's standard. At least the obligatory Fulci cameo is in there, right at the beginning too. The male lead is played by Paolo Malco, who is no Christopher George, David Warbeck, or even Ian McCulloch.Instead, he's a boringly studious type who spends all of his time hanging out in the library instead of with his wife and child. Thankfully that wife is played by Catriona MacColl, who was so good as the lead in THE BEYOND. Although her role and acting aren't as accomplished in this movie, her presence does certainly lift things a bit. The family is rounded out by Giovanni Frezza as "Bob", the blond-haired nuisance of a son. Frezza joins the troupe of weird-looking Italian child actors and his presence is a most irritating one in the film. Other familiar faces like those of Carlo de Mejo and John Olson pop up occasionally but the film is mainly centred around the three family members.Things move very slowly at first, although Fulci does take pains to build up the atmosphere in the spooky house by having some creepy music and lots of shadows. There's a surreal scene where a shop mannikin's head is chopped off and Bob befriends a young girl who turns out to be the ghost child of the killer (as you do). Eventually - at around the halfway mark - things begin to happen. The father ventures into the cellar for the first time (what took him so long?) and is attacked by an evil toy shop bat which bites open his hand. In retaliation he stabs it repeatedly with a kitchen knife which makes a right old mess everywhere! Meanwhile Fulci keeps things moving by throwing in a grisly tracking shot of some splattery body parts, while the family's estate agent (played by giallo starlet Dagmar Lassander) arrives to find that nobody's home and gets stabbed by Dr Freudstein, a previous occupier who is now a zombie living in the cellar. Also killed is the weirdo housekeeper, a lady with demonic eyebrows who hangs around suspiciously and mops up a huge bloodstain without thinking to enquire where it came from in the first place! Bob ventures into the cellar to discover the housekeeper's decapitated head (and is alarmed by the film's best scare, the materialisation of two glowing yellow eyes in the dark). His mother hears his girlish screams and rescues him. Being a stupid movie character, Bob decides to go down into the cellar later on and finds himself trapped, and comes face to face with Freudstein who is now an effectively ghoulish rotting corpse (who bleeds maggots when stabbed), and who also moves extremely slowly.Well, that's the movie in a nutshell, although bear in mind that I've written about all of the action and none of the slow atmosphere-building scenes in between where little happens. The movie benefits from some excessive gore from father-and-son team Giannetto and Gino de Rossi, which is as graphic as previous Fulci masterpieces but doesn't have the same level of imagination behind it. Otherwise everything else is merely perfunctory, with forgettable dumb music (apart from the theme) and direction from Fulci which is spoiled by his need for eye closeups. If you're looking for a standard haunted house flick then this one is worth a look, and there are a lot worse, but it's no masterpiece and not up to the same level of the director's earlier work.

The House by the Cemetery is a classic. Apparently. Now, let me start by saying that I'm a big fan of 'so bad they're good' movies. Normally, these are horror films, preferably made in the seventies and eighties (think Dario Agento's Demons 1 and 2). So, I like to think I approached The House by the Cemetery in the right frame of mind. I knew it would be old fashioned. I knew it would be dubbed and I knew it would have pretty awful dialogue.Yet still I failed to see what all the hype was about. Yes, it scores points for being nicely gory, but that's about it. Currently, we movie-buffs like to pour scorn on Hollywood's obsession with remaking every vaguely famous film from yesteryear. However, in my opinion, this is one film that's crying out for a remake.It was too old fashioned, even for me. I know this is really trivial, but I just couldn't bring myself to get past the incredibly bad haircuts, fashion sense and seriously awful dubbing to actually enjoy this film. I know I should have been able to look past that, but I couldn't. About the scariest thing about this film is the main child. He's seriously weird-looking and, not only that, but they chose to dub his voice with that of an adult trying to sound like a child. It only made it weirder.Too many beards. Too little action.If anyone can please explain to me what I'm missing, drop me a line.I would give it 2/10, but the levels of gore (and scene with the bat on a string which made me laugh), I'll up the overall mark to 4/10.

The House by the Cemetery is directed by famed splatter meister Lucio Fulci, and it pretty much reverts to Lucio's type. Which of course is often enough for fan's of Fulci's work. Plot is irrelevant, but basically a family moves into a creepy house in New England and discover a flesh eating ghoul is in residence down in the basement. The ghoul needs to continue its bizarre medical habits to remain, well, a ghoul! Cue screams, serious bloody gore, bad dubbing and incoherent narrative.Visually, as you would expect from Fulci and cinematographer Sergio Salvati, it has inspired moments, the whole irreverence of it draped in Grand Guignol textures. The ghouls lair is a place of nightmares, while the appearance of a scary bat and doll further add to the weirdness. Yet it undoubtedly is a hack job by Fulci, where he clutches from some famous American horror movies and just inserts a bloody killing at regular intervals. The whole film serves only to shed some blood for the gore hounds delight, regardless of if it actually matters to what was left on the writing table.Its reputation, certainly in Britain in the 1980s when it was ridiculously banned during the even more ridiculous Video Nasty craze, is that of a blood thirsty cult movie unfairly held from interested eyes. The banner proudly proclaiming that the work of an Italian horror visionary was being stymied, that's unfair for anyone looking at it now because it's more funny than scary. Had I saw it as a early teenager back then? I'm sure I would have felt disturbed to my guts, though I do believe that even then I could spot a messy hack job when I saw one! This has some skills, but it's not great and really only for Fulci and pulp splatter completists only. 5/10