"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.

Goreful, Zombie/Slasher/Haunted House Movie from Acclaimed Italian Auteur Lucio Fulci that is Ripe with Full-Blown Fulci Flourishes.It is a Horror Feast for Famished Fans of this Type and is Loudly Lauded with Endless Praise and every Frame has been Studied and Analyzed Ad Nauseum, Savouring Morsel after Mosel from a Master of Mayhem that Serves Up what He Promises to the Devotees.What it is for those Not Initiated into the Cult is a Sleek and Sick Study in Human Excretion, Blood and Guts to be Exact. But it also has Supernatural Elements and other Creepy Considerations.The Cinematography is Outstanding as are the Cobweb Draped Sets and it has a Surreal Appeal and is Above Average in the Genre. The Acting is Typical B-Grade Screaming and looking justifiably Terrified at the Goings On, Crying, Sweating, and Eyes Wide Open.Speaking of Eyes, there is an Over-Abundance of Peeper Close-Ups and is only Eclipsed by the Over-Over-Abundance of Character Names being said Over-Over and Over again to the Point of Irritating Distraction. Steve, Steve, Steve, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob , Anne, Anne, Anne...Sheesh!If You can sit through that "Fingers on the blackboard" Irritant and find it Tolerable, this is a Must Watch for Horror and Cult Movie Enthusiasts. Fulci, along with Mario Bava, and Dario Argento has an Enormous Fan Base and Following. This is as good as any to see what the Fuss Over Fulci is all about.

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.

The acting? It's bad. ... The dubbing? Atrocious! ... The plot? Huh? ... Photography? Sophomoric ... Character Development? Don't make me laugh!!! However, the gore is nothing short of superb! There are plenty of gory, oozy, bloody, disgusting scenes which the camera lingers on, rather than flashes at, as this film revels in its moments to shine. And there are enough of them to keep the lame dialogue, inexplicable actions, and ludicrous plot holes from making you hurl your TV through the window, just barely. A family moves into a house that is haunted, by a cemetery. The cemetery plays absolutely no role in the film besides for being there. Their outlandishly annoyingly dubbed boy child is seeing a girl who may or may not be a ghost. Is she? I don't know! Nobody else sees her. The basement door is locked and bolted. But they must go down there. They simply must. Again and again. Even after they are attacked by one mean badass bat. They must keep going down there. Some weird lady shows up as a housekeeper or something. She is very weird and they make you think she is going to have some kind of sinister tie-in with the evil that dwells in the house. Does she? I don't know! The real estate agent (none other than a chunkified Dagmar Lassander, queen of Giallo films) also seems like she has some kind of connection to the evil in the house. Does she? I don't know!!If you are into Italian horror films of the late 70's and early 80's - you know what you are in for. An incoherent mess of a film highlighted by gore and bad dubbing. Did I mention the kid in this film has awful awful dubbing by an obvious adult!!! I mean seriously, its the pits! I have seen hundreds of films with bad dubbing but the dubbing on this child sits rightfully on the throne at the top of that heap of crappy dubbing. Especially for a character that is so crucial to the film, you'd think they would at least have found a slightly less annoying voice anywhere!! They could literally have just grabbed any real kid off the street, gave him a candy bar in exchange for dubbing duties and he would have done a much much better job!Everyone in the film does things that just don't make sense! They just do it to get you to the killings. They start to create an air of mystery about something (like those rotating close-up shots of the eyeballs of the characters) and then just abandon it and kill someone! Let me ask you this? If you were a real estate agent who had just sold a "house by the cemetery" to a family, and you're driving away from the house and back into one of the tombstones right in front of the house, knocking it down, as the family is standing right there in the front yard, what would you do? Get out of the car and apologize, right? What does she do? She mumbles "These damn tombstones!!" and speeds off!!! What does the family do? Nothing!!! It's almost like being in a dream and things happen that don't make sense. Ideas are built and then abandoned for the next idea to be partially built and abandoned. There are only two types of people I can see being entertained by this film. A child who would certainly find this to be terrifying (well, maybe a child 25 years ago). And then those who enjoy the randomness just for the sake of it being so ridiculous. Oh yeah, and then those Fulci/Argento gorehound fans who just dig this sort of thing. Somehow I found the swirl of confusion, extreme gore, cold distant unfleshed out characters, and eyeball closeup shots to create a unexplainable creepy vibe, which I'm sure was by accident and not due to the planned technical skill of the director. I give it a 6.