Customer Reviews

The House By the Cemetery

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Sometimes I get in the mood for a good old fashioned blood bash. I don't mean something as pasturized as the latest "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remakes. I don't want something loaded down with CGI effects like "300". I want good old latex and red-corn-syrup blood-letting. Something that could only have come out of Italy in the 1980's. Usually when I'm in this mood I will turn to Fulci's "Gates of Hell", (blood by the bucketful) but I've worn that flick out in recent years so I turned to "House by the Cemetery". The movie starts right out with a great splatter of the red stuff and we are off and runnin'! The first thing you will notice about this movie is the haunting score. It's fantastic, one of the best elements of the film. The second thing you will notice is the lousy vocal dub for "Bob"??? Not sure who or what is providing that voice....but it is pretty jarring when first heard to say the least. Finally you will notice that "House" actually serves up more suspense than oozing red stuff as it plays out. There are some pretty chilling scenes sprinkled throughout the film, and the final 15 minutes is fantastic! The blood does flow, don't get me wrong, there are several scenes to satisfy the gorehound, but the emphasis on suspense and the creepiness the underlies the entire film really make the gore secondary. If you can get past "Bob", then you will really enjoy this film.

I won't lie, I did not care for this movie when I first watched it back in 1987 and pretty much put it out of my head since then. recently, my wife had bought one of those cheap dvd collections of movies like Deep Red, Cat O' nine Tails, Last Man On Earth, Night Of The Living Dead, ect. But what did I see included with these gems? House By The Cemetery. So, feeling nostalgic for bad taste, I popped some popcorn, grabbed me a hard lemonade and sat down to give this Lucio Fulci offering a second look. Well, believe or not, I actually enjoyed it, with some minor complaints which, by the way, reminded me why I didn't care for it the first time around. First I'll talk about the negatives, not enough details about Freudstein's motive, he's a paper thin type killer with not a whole lot of depth. The same I would say about the other characters as well, who did not put up much of a fight against a slow moving, maggot filled corpse. The kid (Bob) voice dubbing is downright annoying, I almost put the volume on mute whenever he was going to talk. (I'd rather listen to a whining 2 year old with nasal issues than hear "Bob" again!) Positives: awesome soundtrack, good cinematography, a few well pace suspensful scenes creating the right atmosphere for an otherwise creepy horror film. Oh, did I mention the gory murder scenes? Makes Friday The 13th look like Romper Room! Hmm, maybe it was it the six pack and a half of hard lemonade that made this film more bearable a second time around. Ah, nonethless, I did like House By The Cemetery and would probably pick up a copy of the Anchor Bay release as an addition to my growing collection of Italian horror films. Besides for a walking maggot farm, Dr. Freudstein is a pretty cool monster!

just a quick jab at a movie i do like. i love fulci , i love gore, i even love odd plots, but this movie is mediocre in all columns.to say it is a great movie is insulting considering the offerings from the same director we've all grown to love.

I got into Fulci after watching Zombie. Although this movie doesn't really have zombies in it, I really enjoyed it a lot. Fulci is a great director and this movie did not disappoint me one bit. I have watched many of his movies and I like Zombie the best and this movie is my second favorite. It has an incredible dreamlike quality that is a Fulci trademark. The blurring of reality with make-believe allows the viewer to once again tap into the highly developed imagination that we all have as children when what we imagine is sometimes even more real than what actually exists.
This movie is actually scary in a way that even Zombie isn't. The final debacle is so creepy that it really, really affected me as I was watching it.
The music, as with many of Fulci's movies, matches the script perfectly and is very, very creepy.
If you liked Zombie or the Beyond you will definitely want to watch this film by maestro Fulci.

When a family moves from New York City to a New England town where they found the perfect place to stay, however their young child has a psychic power that enables him to see a ghost that warns him of the terrible things that happened there once. Long ago, a mad scientist named Dr. Freudstein conducted horrific experiments on people as he murdered them in the basement and used them, now a curse brings him back to life as a ravenous murderous zombie that kills as he seeks new blood and more people to kill and experiment on with ghostly events happening.

Ghastly, unique and stylish supernatural zombie/haunted house thriller from Lucio Fulci is one of his best movies yet. Sure it lacks coherence but this movie delivers dark atmosphere, great scares, gory sequences like the skull stabbing and Bat mutilation sequences, and a chilling music score. I love how this movie combines both the zombie and haunted house movie genres especially influence by HP Lovecraft into one movie thanks to the magic of Fulci whom also makes a cameo in this motion picture, this is one of my all time favorite scary movies ever and highly recommended for fans of the genres but not for the squeamish.

This DVD is a re-issue of the Anchor Bay edition which has a great transfer and good sound with fine extras like an easter egg, TV Spot, Trailer, Bio of Fulci and poster-and-still gallery.

Also recommended: "House (1986)", "The Others", "The Shining", "Re-Animator", "Pet Sematary", "City of the Living Dead", "Demons 1 & 2", "Evil Dead 1 & 2", "Dawn of the Dead (1978)", "Making Contact (a.k.a. Joey)", "The Devil's Backbone", "Beetlejuice", "From Dusk Till Dawn", "Suspiria", "Dagon", "From Beyond", "Zombie (a.k.a. Zombi 2)", "The New York Ripper", "Versus", "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (aka Living Dead at The Manchester Morgue)", "Poltergeist", "Burnt Offerings", "The Amityville Horror (1979 and 2005)", "Day of the Dead (1985)", "Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror", "Cemetery Man", "Phenomena (a.k.a. creepers)", "Hellraiser 1 & 2", "Candyman", "Blood Diner', "An American Werewolf in London", "A Nightmare on Elm Street", "Event Horizon", "Maniac (1980)", "The Haunting (1963)", "House on Haunted Hill (1958 and 1999)", "Dead Alive (a.k.a. Braindead)", "Final Destination Series", "The Gate", "House of 1000 Corpses", "The Innocents", "The Legend of Hell House", "Inferno" and "The Beyond".

Hilarious movie with a little blonde girl called Bob, an actor with the hairiest head and face I've ever seen and a babysitter with a lisp who calls a character called Mrs. Gittleson (?) Mrs. Gittlethon. I think Fulci was still trippin' when he made this one. Absolutely insane.. just my type of movie.

This is the third in a loose trilogy of films by Italian master of the macabre Lucio Fulci set in New England that evoke the uncanny and cosmic terrors of H.P. Lovecraft. The other two films "City of the Living Dead" and "The Beyond" are quite a bit better than "House by the Cemetery", but that doesn't mean this film is totally without merit. At times Fulci succeeds very well in creating an atmosphere of dread and fear, and the film is not without some subtle moments of terror, due mainly to an eerie soundtrack and a couple of creepy kids. But fans of Fulci and Italian horror cinema in general are not interested in the type of subtle scares one might find in English ghost stories; instead his films are marked by unusual levels of graphic violence. Although this film is not without its moments (throats ripped out, maggot ridden bodies and decapitation), the violence seems quite muted compared to other Fulci films. Fulci is perhaps aiming too strongly for the atmosphere of Lovecraft, and subsequently forgets to invest in his film the graphic and absurdly violent scenes which have afforded his work a cult following. The film as is usually the case with Fulci makes little sense and is full of continuity errors, its difficult to know whether this is down to bad editing, or an intentional effort to create an uncanny world in which time and space are confused, personally I prefer the latter possibility. There has always been something dream like and hallucinatory about Italian horror cinema and this film doesn't disappoint on that level. By combing Freud and Frankenstein in the name of the films ostensible monster/zombie, the rotting cadaver of the once great scientist Dr. Freudstein provides an interesting connection between psychoanalysis and the scientist playing god. In light of Fulci's career post "House by the Cemetery", this has to be considered one of his last decent efforts.

This DVD re-issue is by Blue Underground, who seem to have acquired some of the titles of Anchor Bay's back catalogue for re-issue. My only main grumble is with the audio, which is particularly tinny, other than that this is a good reasonably priced package.

A very good movie with again lot of gore and blood with twisted plot and surprises,anyway what could horror fans ask for.............with italain horror with decapitation and meat slicing,zombies,magots and many more,wil give 5 stars

I remember the first time I saw 'House By the Cemetary' I was in my early teens and since then I loved this movie.The background story leaves a few questions to be answered but it's a low-budget horror film,what did you expect?beyond the small details the film is fantastic!This film came out in 1984 to be exact(I should know I have the original Vestron Video),this film is not for the squeamish.If your'e unfamiliar with Lucio Fulci's films he has some realistic gore effects used in his movies.But if you can handle the SAW films,you can handle House By The Cemetary:)I would recommend renting it before buying it though.

I just don't get it.

No one who's read any of my reviews can accuse me of not appreciating low-budget, badly acted, crazy no-sense plots, poor dubbing, and awful special effects for what they are, and for making huge allowances for the time the film was created as well as its cultural differences. And anyone who's read my reviews also knows that I revere Lucio Fulci's Zombie as a great horror classic. But of the two films by the same director that are part of the so-called Gates of Hell trilogy that I've seen (City of the Living Dead and 'The House by the Cemetary'), I just don't see their appeal.

Aside from the many red herrings and unresolved sub-plots, the story isn't too difficult, even though it ends awkwardly. Essentially a family moves into a house previously occupied by an academic professor doing research on suicide. Due to some enormous strain, the professor has succumbed to the idea of suicide and taken his own life; the family that moves in is headed by the professor's partner, who is going to take over the research. Almost immediately, the mother begins noticing strange occurances around the house, and her young boy is visited by a girl that no one else ever sees. The menace threatening the family takes on more stridant overtones as the film progresses, and in the end, they must confront the history behind the house if they wish to escape the fates of those that came before them.

The problem I had with the film is that I just never thought it established any sense of atmospheric dread due to its many flaws. Other reviewers have no doubt commented on the excrutiating dubbing job for the young boy, Bob, as well as the plot holes and ambigious ending. I could easily look past these faults, but there must be something, some unusual aspect - or unusually well-done techniques - to elevate the entire production. Throwing scenes of gore and dismemberment at the audience has its charms, I suppose, but I think that has to be at the service of the story, not the other way around.

There are many avid fans of this film - and anyone who enjoys Italian horror from the late 70's and early 80's should probably make the effort to see this one as well since it conforms to all the highs and lows of that particular genre. I will say this for it - it isn't very predictable, but its unpredictability comes through in such convoluted ways that it's more of a distraction than a favorable quality. If I had to rate this one against 'City of the Living Dead', I would probably give the edge to 'House by the Cemetary', though it would be close. Both films have a moment or two that are effective - 'House', perhaps, coming closer to sustaining a level of interest due to its plot containing a bit more mystery.

But with both of these films, there should be some temporizing against too many rave reviews. Whether or not some viewers find value here shouldn't cloud the fact that by no stretch of the imagination are these 'good' films. They are what they are, which may also happen to be right up someone's alley, though most casual viewers are apt to dislike them - highly. Previous experience with this type of film is the best guide, though I have to admit that, while I fully expected to find at least some positives, I was, for the most part, disappointed,