Customer Reviews

The House By the Cemetery [VHS]

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

For starters I genuinely enjoy Fulci's films and am a fan of senseless gore movies, so if your an average horror fan you should maybe deduct one star of my rating.

Anyhow, I've seen most of Fulci's film's, The Beyond being my favourite and the Anchorbay DVD of Beyond rocks, but House by the cemetary was one that I had not seen. I decided to buy the film as it was offten ranked as his third greatest (#1 Beyond, #2 Zombi but I like City of the Living Dead a little better than House as third) and also as it starred the super cute Fulci regular Catriona (Katherine) MacColl. I got the Diamond DVD as it was afordable and another guy in his review here said that he had being informed that although the Daimond version was rated 'R', it was actually the uncut version. And although a VERY graphic throat slashing scene remained intact and the rest of the film seemed uncut, I later read somewhere that a version 3 minutes longer was soon to be released. Whether or not the Diamond DVD here is the uncut version I cannot say.

House by the Cemetary basicly centres on a family moving into a house inhabited by a evil doctor who uses his victims fresh body parts to stay alive. It is filmed in typical Fulci style that critics consider full of continuety errors, while fans feel that this makes the films dream/nightmare like. I am fairly in between, I always believed that Fulcis camera technique is certainly artistic but he obviously can't tell a straight story and while this works brilliantly in the Beyond, it just makes some of his work very boring to sit through like Zombi. House had a genuinely eerie ambiance and Fulci does create a creepy atmosphere successfully but not to the extent of his master piece the Beyond.

Being Fulci, there is some great gore in this film. Theres a great throat slashing scene (mentioned above) which is an excellent effect and a knife in the back of the head scene, but there is also a very weak bat attack scene, the bat ten times more phoney than the fake spiders in the Beyond. There was not as much of Fulci's trademark gore in House as some of his other flicks, but once again the Diamond version is 84 minutes and I read somewhere that the uncut running time is 87 minutes, but this is the only version I've seen so I cannont coment.

If your a fulci fan then you will really enjoy this film but if you are new to his work then maybe check out the Beyond first or rent House before you buy.

When i first saw this film on video way back in the early 8os, i thought it was a pile of smudgy ,worm infested pile of crap.It lured me in with it's lurid poster on the video shops shelf among all the great tacky films we love today.So whats changed? Firstly, the video version was full screen and worn and cut. Now that it is on dvd we can all see it in widescream digitallllly mastered and uncut. It is like watching another film, and i must say, i think it is one of Fulcis best films. Full of poetry, atmosphere and creepy menace. Yes it may be tacky in parts and some scenes tend to rely on over the top gore, but this is what makes this film so unique. It's unpredictable and has an almost homemade feel about it that you just don't get anymore from films. Maybe Jess Franco. but he never made a film like this. A film that could only have come out of Italy at that most cherished of times the 80s, and offering somthing that America could never duplicate with all it's millions, and for that it should be appreciated. Go seek it out.

I have long been a Fulci fanatic and this film, "House By The Cemetery," delivers the goods in spades.

The story is simple, if not altogether derivative. A young family moves from their cramped New York apartment into a spacious New England mansion. What sets this place apart from their previous abode, however, is the presence of the home's original owner, the detestable Dr. Freudstein. It would seem that he has been hiding in the home's shuttered basement for the last 100 years, picking off stray dwellers of the house and using their fluids and various other organs to sustain his own decomposing body. Sound far-fetched? Well, it should. But don't let that deter you. This is not "Rebecca From Sunnybrook Farm" or "Meet John Doe" we're talking about. It's a horror film with all the trademark gore and over-the-top violence we've come to expect from Lucio Fulci. Not high art by any stretch, but certainly never boring either. Definitely worth a purchase, especially if, like me, you happen to be a fan of this stuff.

The Anchor Bay DVD is absolutely first-rate with a pristine transfer and some cool theatrical/T.V. trailers.

My rating reflects my affinity for "B" movies. The three stars are "B" movie stars, not "normal" movie stars. I am being a little generous since this is only my first review, and there was a very little bit of skin during the opening credits. If I could I'd give it 2 ½ stars, but I rounded up. If you aren't into 70's and 80's "B" movies, if you only watch "good" movies, then you can consider this movie a zero.

The DVD video quality is very good, and as others have mentioned, it is in wide screen format. The audio quality is clean; however, there is poor volume control. At times the characters are so quiet, they can not be heard; at other times the volume goes high and well past the pain threshold. I understand this was most likely done for effect, but it is so badly done I almost wonder if it wasn't caused by an error in the transfer process, which appears to have come directly from laser disc. As the price would suggest, there are no frills or extras with this DVD. The movie is adequately dubbed.

There are the expected plot problems; in fact, the plot gets down right confused at points. In my opinion, Fulci failed to fully utilize the creepy Librarian character. While the gore is pretty cheesy, it was ample, and managed to make me squirm more than once. The "Bat scene" was a laugh riot, and there is some hilarious dialogue in the film. The husband is tasked with consoling his nervous wife saying things like, "This is New England, everybody has a tomb in their house". Lucio Fulci nailed my childhood fears of the basement, and I believe many people will appreciate this as well. I wish there had been more development on how Dr. Freudstein used his victim's to stay alive. Any demonstration is notably absent though it is mentioned on the back cover, as well as once in the last 10 minutes of the movie. This is not Lucio Fulci best work, but it had its moments, and in between the obligatory confusion, managed to scare me. If you're a fan of the genre, then by all means, rent it. If you are a hard core Fulci fan, and already own better titles like Zombie, then you can't beet the price of adding it to your collection.

The house by the cementery is a horror movie of mine taste!
It contains lots of blood and gore, and it is pretty scary to.
If you are afraid of basements and darkness, you wount get any sleep in the last two months.
The story is well made and fx are very good. The acting may not be perfect and the people in the film are realy stupid.
After two have get killed in the house and there are dryed blood on the kitchenfloor next morning, they just klean it up and dont get suspicius.When you se the film for the first time you will think like "Who is it that cryes like a five year old kid down from the besement?" "Who is Dr.Freudstein??" "Who are is this little girl that play with the boy???" and you abslolutely will wounder "Who is the killer?" well..why don't you find out?

I recomand this mountion picture on DvD cause it is uncut and in Wide-screen and the sound are refreshed.

I love horror movies, and have a soft spot for low budget horror films made during the late 70s and into the 80s. Lucio Fulci was one of the masters of the low-budget, fast-make gore films. I had never seen this one before, but I had seen Zombie 2, his unofficial sequel to George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, so I kind of new what to expect. I was not disappointed.

Lots of atmosphere, lots of blood and gore, and a story that was downright eerie. The music had a haunting, melancholy flavor that was very appropriate for the story line. The players, including the two principal children costars, were more than adequate. Of course you're going to see weak plot points (for instance, where'd all the blood go when the baby sitter was decapitated and just moments later two principal characters walk onto the scene, and it's a dry and dusty floor; in reality, they'd be slipping and sliding like a panicked cat on ice), but then again, you can get the same kind of weak plot points in a John Carpenter film, and I don't seem to mind them either. You just expect it to happen in this kind of movie. Look past the weaknesses, and what you've got in "House by the Cemetery" is almost a homage to the great Hammer Films of the 60s and 70s. You've got a gothic ghost story, with a Ghoul that feeds on warm living flesh to stay alive, like a vampire. The scene in the basement, when we see where the "good Doctor Freudstein" does his butchering with dirty surgical tools on a steel table top, made me think of the recent remake of "House On Haunted Hill"; some tricks of the trade never change.

Surprisingly, for such a low cost DVD, it was presented wonderfully, in Wide Screen format, with restored sound and music. It includes a short Bio on Fulci, and nice scene access, should you decide you want to see some finely done vivisectioning over and over again.

If you like horror and you like gore to the extent you find yourself leaping up and laughing at the over-the-top-splatter, then you'll love this film. Great Buy.

Another Fulci masterpiece how does this guy do it?? I think this is his 3rd best and in my opinion it was alot better than City Of The living dead maybe not on the gore but still HBTC has plenty of it with an even better story..Fulci is the man

House By The Cemetery is another fine film that is often missed among horror lovers. While it's not a masterpiece, it is a very satisfying killer flick.

Trimming down the movie's plot to it's essentials, HBTC presents the story of the horrifying legend of a man, Dr. Freudstein, who has been living in the basement of a creepy house for many years -- surviving off of the cells of living humans he captures. The Boyle family, who've just moved into the house, are the most recent unlucky bunch to meet the zombie Doctor and face his diabolical intentions. Will they escape? Or will they just become a few more bodies in Freudstein's mass grave of a laboratory?

Fulci attempts to throw in a little "twist" for the ending, and I suppose he succeeds, even though I, for one, was a little confused by the ending. It seems interesting, but the meaning of it is not too clear. Nonetheless, you can be assured that even if you miss any underlying cleverness, you should still be able to enjoy this good old-fashioned piece of horror. The only complaint I have is of the english overdubs. I warn you: the vocal actors are horrible. But hopefully you can ignore it and only use it as hate for the victims. Mwahahahaha...

I really enjoyed this film a lot. I'd only seen one other Fulci film. That movie was really good, though i vaguely remember that parts of it made no sense. Still, i can't wait to own it on dvd. House By The Cemetery is a really good haunted house movie. Don't bother over-analyzing this movie. Just watch it with all the lights off like i did. The first thing i noticed was how incredibly great and effective the music was. The music that accompanies the opening credits and the scene immediately following that where the boy is looking at the photograph of the house is very beautiful. That music reminded me of another memorable piece of music from the horror classic Phantasm. I love when horror movies use instrumental music instead of the current trend of using songs from current pop rock and heavy metal groups, which totally ruins things in my opinion. I love pop rock and heavy metal, but neither genre belongs in a horror movie because it just takes the scariness of the movie away totally. Horror movies should be about building atmosphere through music, not selling a current band's tunes. I give the opening and closing credits music a five star rating. Secondly, the cinematography is excellent, and the director builds tension and suspense with good camera work and also the effective use of sound effects. The gore is fairly decent, and very excessive in several scenes, as it is with most Italian and Euro horror movies. A lot of people talk about the annoying kid in the movie. I thought he did a good job for a kid his age. They should have picked someone who looked more like a boy. I'm pretty sure his voice was dubbed, and they should have picked a better-sounding voice. Maybe it's the kid's voice that everyone finds annoying. All in all i really liked this movie a lot. It has some really great elements to it and i found it very stylish and effective. I'd definitely watch it again.

Anchor Bay are to be commended for releasing classics by directors like Fulci and Argento, even more so for presenting clean transfers (not counting ZOMBIE), in the fullest uncut versions, AND IN THE ORIGINAL ASPECT RATIO.

HOUSE's transfer really shows off Fulci's ability to create a magnificent atmosphere, and is evident of his mastery of composition in the 'scope format.

The film is one of Fulci's best. It isn't as volcanic as THE BEYOND, but it's probably just as brilliant. It forsakes the Surrealist logic of the former film, it doesn't jump abstractly from one seemingly unconnected moment to the next, and is far more linear in its story telling. But that is not to say that HOUSE shirks the weird nightmare qualities: it just builds up to them a little mre slowly. By the end you'll still feel as though you've been taken into another strange world. The story itself isn't anything special; it plays on certain archetypes of the haunted house flick and the zombie in the cellar set piece. But what elevates this film above such popular classics as NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, the slightly overrated LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE and others is Fulci's total command of the formal aspects of cinema. The visuals and sounds are unlike anything else.

Almost every image in the film is beautiful and melancholy. At times the film has the oneiric quality of dreams and nightmares. Fulci composes his images as a painter would. The link between Fulci's cinema and painting is heightened by the motif of the ghosts in the painting, as the line between the corporeal (the physical world) and the ethereal (the world of ghosts associated with the painting)is blurred until it is obliterated in the haunting finish. Many people will find the atmosphere too depressing, but it enhances the film's power.

I must also comment on the music. It perfectly complemented the imagery, and is truly eerie. The acting is good, too, especially Ania Peroni as a weirdo babysitter. The close ups of her eyes are unsettling.

Overall, I would highly recommend this for people interested in Euro horror, because this is one of the finest examples. Also, people interested in formalism and poetic cinema combined with horror will also be impressed. It is not for all tastes. It won't satisfy gore hounds because there are only three or four scenes of pure horror. But it's still great.