That was an excellent one.

Sadly Over-hyped

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

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.

The House by the Cemetery is a badly dubbed mess, that makes no sense. Having said that, the beginning and the end are interesting, but the rest is ruined by the little boy, who should have been first to die, and the lack of plot.

OK, this one has some genuine frights. It's cheaply made, cheesily acted and not at all fresh, but considering the amount of horror garbage that I've been forcing myself to watch, this one is classic by comparison. Some of the shocks just take the gore way to far, but the frightening moments really took me by shock. I prefer suspense over blood and guts, and if it's done right, I will be genuinely chilled to the bone. So I have seen this plot before, but at least it made an impression on me.The opening scene is a shocker, so beware. It sets up the visual of the little boy looking at a picture of a mysterious house, and he is shocked when he ends up in the house near Boston with his parents also recognizing it. Mommy seems to be having some sort of breakdown as they settle in, and when they go into the basement, an encounter with a bat really sets everybody (including me) on edge. The scary scenes, for the most part, really help move the story along.Surprised by the fact that this kept my interest, I couldn't help but turn away in the really grizzly scenes that include decapitations and disembowelment. But that didn't take away from my overall impression of the film, because I knew that the conclusion would be intense and tie everything together. So if you are as squeamish as I am, be prepared. This one is worth putting up with those moments.

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.