The House By The Cemetery (1981)

My rating - 7.5/10

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Directed by Lucio Fulci The House By The Cemetery is part of his superenatural zombie trilogy, which also included The Beyond and City Of The Living Dead. I really enjoy this film and first saw it at the cinema on a great double feature with City Of The Living Dead. Ah the good old days where you could go into the cinema on a weekday afternoon where a couple of films were being shown back to back on a loop and you'd sit through each one 2 or 3 times before you got kicked out because you'd only paid to see them once.

The cast is great, if you're an Italian horror movie fan then you'll reconize a lot of faces here, including a brief appearance from Fulci himself. But, I think we can all agree that the kid, Bob is genuinely annoying as hell but that's down to his awful dubbed voice than anything else though. Great gore as always from the great Giannetto De Rossi. This includes the long suffering Daniela Doria getting a knife through the back of her head which exits through her mouth. There's throat rippings, guts spilled, decapitations, a long drawn out scene of someone being stabbed by a poker numerous times, a bloody bat attack, maggot spilling wounds and lots more. Dr. Freudstein is also one of my favorite zombie creations, I love the way he looks here. I'd still love to see the extra footage of the estate agents death though as originally it was much longer and more brutal. We see all the facial and eye damage as she's dragged away but it's never shown in the film as Fulci said it didn't look realistic enough. Hopefully the cut footage is out there somewhere and will turn up at some point.

Of the three films in this little trilogy this is genuinely considered to be most peoples least favorite, and I tend to agree to a certain extent. I think The Beyond is a better film overall and City Of The Living Dead is scarier and more atmospheric, but as this was the first I saw I'm always going to have a fondness for this one.There are some geuninely creepy scenes here though like the sound of children crying even when there's no one else in the house, and some nice touches like the gravestone in the living room floor. I'd highly recommend The House By The Cemetery though, especially to those wanting to get into Fulci or Italian horror.

SCREEN SHOTS

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