Far from perfect and lacking in credibility here and there, it is quite clear that director, Fulci is concentrating on what he considers important. This is undoubtedly a most scary and gory experience, never mind that we might not care about this or that character, so hypnotic, so gripping are the nightmare effects that we are drawn in nevertheless, to partake in this madness. The director seems to have more success with children than adults for while there are certain qualities lacking in the grown-ups the children are stunning. There is a nod at the end to Henry James and clearly the creation of these devastating child performers owe something to the James novel - or at least an adaptation of it. From the opening to the very end the children are at the centre of this and it makes for the horrendous violence to seem even more terrible. There may be too many trips down into the basement, too many people searching for each other in the house and too many inconsistencies but to experience and appreciate the extent of horror that can be created with image and sound on celluloid - watch this film!

"The House by the Cemetery" is directed by famed splatter master 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.The film tries to weave a web of unease and mystery around the secret in the cellar, and for a while it really works. The camera work and the general look of the locations is pretty good, with a sense of brooding Gothic mystery hanging over the poor family. The house itself looks particularly impressive in most of the external shots. However the story rapidly unravels as the film proceeds to throw countless red herrings into the mix and then either completely abandons them (people claiming to have seen Norman at the house in the past, the things that Bob's mysterious playmate Mae tells him about the house's former occupants), or blatantly contradicts itself (most notably the Boyles babysitter, Ann, who's behavior suddenly swings from one style to the total opposites with no explanation). But if you can put the irregularities of the script to one side, you should enjoy the ride on a purely shallow level. Lots of scenes are drenched in great atmosphere, such as those involving the enigmatic Mae, and especially the last portion of the film when we get to see exactly what has been going on in the depths of the cellar. If you like cheesy and quite gory/violent horror films then you will like this.Overall rating: 6 out of 10.

It's pretty discouraging to see so many idiots in one place, giving this thing 10 stars and calling it a masterpiece. There is NOTHING redeeming about it. Someone asked if it's a slasher film or a zombie film. It's a garbage film. It reminds me of the little stunt they did for the Halloween party in third grade, playing a recorded horror story in a darkened room while passing around raw chicken parts. The storyline is inane, the editing is crummy, of course the voices are dubbed. The gore is gore for its own sake unconnected to whatever it's emerging from.The candidate for worst movie ever made is Manos, the Hands of Fate. This one is just as bad, but without the unintended humor. The continuous and gratuitous gore makes this mess impossible to watch except to those like the infants at the Halloween party, a kind of cult following for spaghetti slasher movies. Getting off on stuff like this isn't so sick as it is mediocre.

Father, mother and annoying son move to a creepy old house where - after several years have passed, though only for you, not in the film - mum and dad are killed by the evil old zombie monster which inhabits the house, and annoying son is saved by the ghost of the evil old zombie monster's daughter.If you are a fan of Lucio Fulci and/or overwrought 1970s Italian gorefests then you may indeed regard this film as a masterpiece. I am not - although I remain open minded and open to persuasion - and I thought that this film was almost entirely without merit. I award points for use of tripod, staying in focus, and gore (on the assumption that's why you're watching it).But it makes little sense, the dubbing is poor, it is full of basic amateur technical mistakes (kid screaming down in the basement, parents hear it outside the basement door at exactly the same volume), and is fairly tedious. I thought it was pretty rubbishy.