Customer Reviews

House by the Cemetery

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This was the first Lucio Fulci film I've had the pleasure of viewing! I look forward to seeing his other works! The House by the Cemetery hits on all points of a horror movie! It's creepy, eerie and has some awesome killing scenes and GORE!! They don't call Lucio "The godfather of gore" for nothing! The acting? Well, sub-par at best. Plot? Interesting, but not deep. The dubbing well it's pretty bad but who cares it's a great horror film.

The Boyle family move from their cramped New York apartment into an old mansion near Boston so that the father can do some needed research. The new tenants, unbeknownst to them, have a god awful secret living in their basement. A certain Dr. Freudstein has been housed below since 1879 and has kept himself alive by murdering inhabitants of the mansion and using their cells to keep his body going. Gore, horror, and great special effects makes a visit to the House by the Cemetery a killer stay! A knife through the skull, nice throat ripping and slashing, decapatation, and some maggot spewing make for a "pleasurable" movie for the avid horror fan.

We all know horror movies aren't supposed to be deep with Academy Award winning acting. If we wanted that we wouldn't be watching this type of film. I can't compare this film to Fulci's other works because I haven't seen any others, but to me this was impressive and one I would recommend to fans of the genre!!

I picked up this little gem for about 5 bucks from a local used DVD shop. I would recommend this to fans of older horror movies. True, the dubbing does suck and the acting is questionable, but the last 15 minutes of this movie almost make up for it. Dr. Freudstein is truly one of the most twisted and interesting villians I've yet seen in a horror movie and its easy to see Rob Zombie's inspiration for his Dr. Death character in House of 1000 Corpses. Not to mention, there's a few scenes near the end that push the gore envelope to the max! Love the maggot-stew gushing out of Freudsteins wounds... Truly twisted!! They don't make gore effects like this anymore, i hate CGI gore!!

The great thing about Lucio Fulci movies on DVD is that you can skip right to the gore without the annoying need to fast forward or rewind those worn out ol' vhs tapes found at your local video store. I assume that if you're searching this movie on amazon, you know about Fulci or you've heard about him from one of your horror-movie buddies and you want to know what all the fuss is about.

Let me fill you in. House by the Cemetary is not Fulci's goriest movie, but it is his most atmospherically directed. Don't get me wrong, there is some good gore, but if you haven't ever seen a Fulci movie before and want to know what all the goreheads are raving about, start with Zombie, The Beyond, or even City of the Living Dead. House by the Cemetary is a good second or third Fulci movie to check out if you dig him.

The plot (as if you care) is this: a family moves into a house by a cemetary (who'd a thunk it!) though the cemetary really never comes into play in the movie. Go figure. The son of the family keeps seeing a red-haired little girl who warns him of imminent danger. The house is full of giant bats and weird noises, and a killer lurks in the basement. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Here's the rundown on the gore (yep, I knew this was what you were really interested in): first scene of the movie, a young woman is stabbed in the head. Later on, another woman is impaled by some kind of metal pole. Cue the capitation. A throat gets ripped out. A bat gets knived in gooey fashion. This, more or less, is the extent of it. For a Fulci film, this is pretty conservative.

Despite his penchant for gore, Fulci has a nice creepy vibe flowing through HBTC, starting early on with the image of the girl standing by a window in an old picture. The woods and tombstones around the house add a nice air of eerie atmosphere. The performances are ok, but the dubbing for the blonde kid is ridiculously annoying.

Some of you may wonder what the deal is with Fulci. For instance, ine one scene Fulci implies that something is going on between the father of the family and the new nanny by cutting between their two eyes peering at one another; however, nothing SEEMS to be going on between them. These sort of weird "what's this all about" camera tricks and moments pop up through the film, but remember this is a Fulci flick. Weirdness is the order of the day, and forget about it.

Despite himself, Fulci has a nice nightmarish quality to his work that, no matter how silly it seems, can seep into your dreams.

The Boyle family, father/doctor Norman, soccor mom Lucy, and 7 year old Bob (what a name for a kid, huh), are moving from New York City to the Boston suburbs so Dr. Dad can do some scientific reaserch. They move into a house with a strange history (is there any other kind?). Appearently one Dr. Fruedstein (almost sounds like Frankenstein, right?) used to run weird experiments in the basement some fifty years ago. Now people start dying very (VERY) bloody deaths. The movie never makes a lot of sense. For example, what is that thing in the basement? Is it one of Fruedstein's zombies? Is it Fruedstein himself? Or something else entirely? My theory is it's the doctor. Also the boy having an imaginary friend that warns Bob of danger is way too "Shinning"ish. The ending is horrid, it dosn't end so much as stops. Also I really have no idea what happened at the end. It is that dense. The editing is horribly obvious and ubtrusive; not so much like an eye blink but having your jerked into the next scene. You'd think they edited the film with an axe. But that is the Fulci touch, it's in all his movies. The acting is terrible, but it's hard to blame the actors on that one, it was dubbed from Italian to English. But the diologue is terrible. There is only one saving grace here, it is the gore. Gino De Rossi is the Italian Tom Savaini. If he could pare the effects with some good movies, he would be excellent. The Italian gore makes the American gore look like Disney. There are eye violence are cringing; there are also super bloody stabings and shootings. It's a gore hounds delight, assuming the viewer can overlook the horrid story and editing, and nonscense narritive. All in all, I would avoid this movie, unless it comes on cable somewhere.

This isn't a review of sorts. Just to tell people who might not know there is another name for this movie its called ZOMBIE HELL HOUSE. I found this on a 4 movie zombie disc set which i picked up for under $10. Its put out by brentwood home video. Thought I would share this with everyone intersted.

House by the cemetery is not a solid horror film by all means, and really will end up only on the shelves of Fulci or Italian Exploitation Devotees (most likely one and the same) such as myself. The casual horror-goer has much to be put off by, which I will get into in a moment.

First, I feel I should summarize a bit on the best period of Fucli's filmmaking, which spanned Zombi 2 to House by the Cemetery. Zombi 2 starts the 'series' off with a bang, delivering shocks and style and the best zombies ever to appear on celluloid (fx maestro Giannetto Di Rossi never even topped himself). The film was a more traditional zombie film in the sense that it took place in the Carribean and keeps with the feel, if not the facts, of vodun zombies. The second film, which is the first of his 'zombie trilogy', was City of the Living Dead. Here, Fulci shifts gears from the table he set in Zombi 2 and starts a series that is more united and share several character traits. The Gates of Hell have opened and the dead have begun to walk the earth. The story is scattered, as Fulci is just beginning to master the themes he would use so well in the Beyond, a dream-like masterpiece. Another Gate opens, and strange occurances, culminating with a zombie invasion, centre around an old hotel which was the site of an execution of a warlock many years earlier. Fulci's last Date with the Dead in the series was House by the Cemetery.

The film starts off with a rousing opening sequence, preparing the viewer for an onslaught that never arrives until almost 85 minutes later. While most of the previous films mentioned have little narrative structure and make barely an ounce of sense, there is even less to be found here. Yet before, where Fulci made up for this with stylish set pieces and mayhem, outside of the opening and the finale, there is little to keep your attention. The plot is nonexistent, as are the characters, and many 'surreal' sequences are plain absurd. The entire middle of the movie is non-stop talking head, during which nothing gets explained anyway, with only a few moments of the good stuff.

The casual horror fan (ie, the one that thought House of 1000 Corpses was the be all end all) will be chased away by the atrocious dubbing, though common with our beloved Italian Flicks, seems particularly bad here, most likely due to the boy cast as Bob, who seems as out of place as the man-child in Burial Ground. He appears almost too foreign...I can't quite place it. Italian Splatter fans will find the redeeming values, and Fulci fans will enjoy it as the last film in a great run.

In short, first-time Fulci viewers are safer to start with Zombi 2 and then peek at the Beyond. This and City of the Living Dead are most likely for the veterans to appreciate.

This is somewhere between ultra-bad and barely passable.

Lucio Fulci is known as a "hit or miss" director. Out of his fifty plus works some are great, others are outstanding, some are mediocre and the remaining, pure rubbish. Unfortunately this is one of Fulci's pure rubbish ones that is further spoiled immensely by Anchor Bay Entertainment's display cover of the secret monster than this film builds up too. Normally Anchor Bay is quite good and their DVD sets are super but this one has pretty much broken the golden rule of not giving certain things away on the sleeve - Bah!

Anyway the film itself is pure rubbish from start to finish and is about a family that move into a haunted house with a sinister presence at work, killing people off. The family try to figure out what is going on and their kid is having visions of a ghost that is trying to warn them of some danger. There is also a subplot involving a strange doctor that once lived in the house and who conducted experiments into prolonging life. Sounds good, but the execution is poor, slow and never really satisfying except for the ending which is not all that bad and helps earn it that one star.

In short, Fulci churned this one out quickly and for the money. He made several other films that same year. If Fulci had given this film a bit more of his precious time and attention we would have had an ace picture on our hands - a five star horror, but It feels rushed and contrived and much of the story is slow with lots of meaningless time filler stuff. In fact, and I hate to say it!, this horror film is one that deserves a remake... but no one can be blamed for that except Fulci who could have done it so much better instead of cashing in on the moment.

If i could take the 1 star out of 5 of my rating,i would do it,but i cant.
Cutting to the chase.
Worst horror movie of all time.
I prefer watching the TV episodes of goosebumps with my kids, then buying that fulci fart.

U been warned

House by the Cemetery (Lucio Fulci, 1981)

One wonders, idly, why it is that Fulci felt the need to make (essentially) the same movie twice in one year. While House by the Cemetery is set in Boston, the family configuration is different, and the long-leggetie beastie is a different sort of thing, House by the Cemetery might as well have been outtakes from the superior The Beyond. Just to add to the similarity, Fulci cast Catriona MacColl as the female lead in both.

Just in case you've never seen The Beyond, the story: family (in this case, family has kid) moves into eerie house. Strange things start happening, most of which involve a lot of blood. Family members uncover long-buried secret that is the key to understanding the nastiness, but by that time, it's pretty much too late for the knowledge to actually help anyone, and we end up with a long, bloody climax.

I can't quite put my finger on why, of the two films, The Beyond seems like the superior product. The acting quality is about equal, the set decoration is similar, the plot makes all the appropriate twists and turns (and some of them are unpredictable), the cinematography is appropriately dark and brooding where it needs to be without going over the line into David Fincher-like claustrophobia. I guess it's because House by the Cemetery doesn't have the gratuitous spider scene The Beyond has (and let's not forget Maria Marsala's memorable turn in The Beyond, either, a parallel of which House by the Cemetery lacks).

It's good bloody Fulci fun, and a fine way to kill (with a large axe, of course) an hour and a half. But The Beyond edges it on the rewatchability factor. ***

Typical Fulci fare about a young family who settles into a creepy, run down house that comes complete with cobwebs, killer bats and a BEAST IN THE CELLAR. The lovely Catriona MacColl returns and gives (as usual) a very good performance. The child actor in the film is quite adorable, looking very much like a male version of the POLTERGEIST child star Heather O Rourke. However the dubbing is where this film gets irritating. It sounds like adults were used to dub the child's voices and the end result is extremely annoying.

Before I begin analyzing the gore/violence, I do want to point out that the film's score is quite beautiful. Many scenes in the film are enhanced by the melodic yet eerie score which is rare in a FULCI film.

THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY is Fulci's slowest moving film. It opens with a couple of brutal slayings but you'll have to wait at least another 30 minutes before another life is extinguished. Fulci fans however don't view this as a problem because the film delivers the goods during those few key moments. It has a tremendous amount of Gore. There are head stabbings, throat rippings, and a very graphic be-heading. What disturbed me about this movie was how well done many of these scenes were. It had me questioning my morals as a human being. Why do I like seeing innocent people suffer? Why do I enjoy seeing innocent people being savagely carved up & slaughtered? I honestly can't answer these questions. But this film DID leave me with a very uncomfortable feeling after viewing it.

SO please keep this in mind, if you can stomach the repulsiveness of these films, you should find HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY interesting viewing and the THREE STAR RATING I gave the film is solely for those who like this sort of morbid unpleasantness. All OTHERS, please AVOID AT ALL COSTS. You will do yourself a dis-service by viewing these types of films.