Many horror-film characters would have been well advised "Don't look in the basement" (just ask Lila Crane!), but perhaps none more so than the members of the Boyle family, in Lucio Fulci's 1981 gore extravaganza "The House By the Cemetery." In the film, the Boyle parents, along with their cute little blond son, rent a deserted old pile, the Freudstein House, in the fictitious town of New Whitby, Mass. Norman, the father, hopes to continue his ex-colleague's historical research, Lucy grows increasingly unsettled by the creepy house's strange noises and indoor crypt, while young Bob amuses himself talking to a ghostly little girl who keeps warning him away. Too bad, though, that the Boyles' Realtor failed to tell them that a murderous entity happens to reside in that darn basement! Anyway, Fulci's film is a must-see for all the confirmed gorehounds out there, featuring such grossouts as a knife through the skull, possibly the nastiest bat attack sequence in screen history, death by fire poker, a beheading, the outgushing of maggots from a 150-year-old living corpse (!), a throat ripping and on and on. The film's plot barely hangs together and only makes as much sense as it wants to; I personally could have used a bit more explication regarding that thing in the cellar. Even with the cursory scientific and supernatural rationales given, many questions still remain by the film's end: Why does that store mannequin resemble the Boyles' babysitter, Anne? Why does Anne herself behave so very oddly? Why does the Freudstein House so closely resemble the house in a framed picture in the Boyles' NYC living room? Why do the town librarians behave so strangely and claim to have seen Norman before? You get the idea. Still, even WITH all these unresolved mysteries, the film works, and manages to frighten. And how nice to see Dagmar Lassander again, a bit past her prime here but still able to scream her head off so effectively; her death scene here might even be more nerve racking than the one she gave in Fulci's "Black Cat" that same year. Throw in an effective score by Walter Rizzati, Fulci's typically strong direction, and another imaginative script by horror veteran Dardano Sacchetti and you've got yourself quite a harrowing wringer indeed. And this great-looking DVD from the always dependable folks at Blue Underground only adds to the enjoyment. In short, a well-done if bewildering horror outing, but certainly not for the squeamish....
Review of The House by the Cemetery
