"The House By The Cemetery"
Where do I begin to explain this literal cheese fest?
Is it a slasher movie, a ghost story, a Frankenstein. (err I mean Freudstein) or just a very strange paranormal movie? It starts off as a slasher movie, with a young woman's bare breasts, popping right in your face. It then, just changes to a haunted house story, to a ghost story and back to a slasher film again. Fans of infamous Italian horror director Dario Argento, will probably enjoy some of the blood soaked scenes, music and cinematography of director Lucio Fulci , that strongly resemble some of his best works. Anyway, lets delve into this assorted cheese platter, shall we?
The house is not by the cemetery, it IS the cemetery. The fact that anyone would want to live in a creepy old Victorian mansion, that not only is built over and around a cemetery, but actually has people buried in tombs inside is beyond me? When Mrs. Boyle's husband nonchalantly explains that in the winter in Boston, the ground is too cold and hard "like a rock" outside to bury the dead outside, so they just buried their dead inside instead. Stating that "many old homes around here do it", she simply accepts it. Yet, just minutes before she finds the dusty old tomb in the middle of her living room, the basement door almost shook itself off of the hinges, leaving poor Mrs. Boyle to let out, not one, but two long , bloodcurdling screams of terror. When Professor Boyle returns home from work, she is curled up in a ball by the tomb in her living room, crying in hysterics. It takes only mere seconds to regain her composure and to just calmly accept her husband's explanation. My question is, why the hell didn't she say "oh and by the way, something very evil is living in our basement?". The vampire bat scene is long and hilarious. The bat looks so fake and there is so much blood, that it is just laughable. Another question comes to mind, why if the mother, Mrs. Boyle is "on vacation" at home, basically doing nothing all day, except a little light sweeping and finding tombs in her living room, would they need to hire a creepy young babysitter, who by the way, looks a lot like 80's pop icon Laura Branigan ( God rest her soul)? The director, Lucio Fulci , must think that we can't be trusted as viewers to remember something from just mere minutes ago, so they have to keep flashing back and forth. Yes, we get it, the house is the same picture as the one in their house in New York. Yes, the little girl is the same creepy little girl in the window in the picture in New York, when they arrive in Boston. Yes, the babysitter looks exactly like the creepy mannequin in the store window. It's like the director must think we are morons? The Professor ( Mr. Boyle) hears very strange noises in the night, so he goes to check on his sleeping son, who is peacefully, fast asleep in a fetal position, but that doesn't stop him from doing something completely unnecessary and a bit strange. He totally pulls back the sheets, pulls his legs down and re-positions him before pulling the sheets back up over him? I mean, was that really necessary? He acts like he wants to keep the child peacefully sleeping, but yet, as he hears another strange noise, he runs out of the bedroom slamming the door? Like that wouldn't wake the kid? Let's talk about this strange kid for a minute. From the very second he opens his mouth , it is disturbing. Yes, I know it is an Italian film dubbed in English, but why would they use an adult's voice instead of a child's? It is just off-putting. It reminds me of the bad adult for a child's voice, overdub in Halloween II . I always thought that it was strange in the flashback. Anyway, Professor Boyle finds the creepy Laura Branigan lookalike, trying to pry open the basement door that is boarded up and nailed shut, which won't do her any good anyway, since the door needs a key and then a strong man and a knife to pry the old rusty lock open (and later, an axe). The good professor doesn't even say "WTF are you doing, trying to pry open my doors in the night, waking the whole house up"? They just exchange strange looks without a sound, with close up shots of the eyes, which remind me of a music video from the 80's. How about the next morning when the creepy, Laura Branigan look alike, babysitter is on her hands and knees trying, not so obviously, to clean up a ton of blood from the massacre of the realtor, Mrs.Gittleson ? Mrs. Boyle does not even raise an eyebrow about the blood fest in front of her. The babysitter throws her off any possible questioning by simply saying "I made coffee" which seems like a good enough explanation for the carnage in her kitchen for Mrs. Boyle??? Well for no apparent and never explained reason, the professor burns the only recorded evidence of Dr. Freudstein 's bloody history. The mysterious and creepy babysitter, who you are led to think has something to do with everything, I guess actually does not, and meets her foreshadowed fate (as the decapitated mannequin in the store window, from earlier in the movie). We see very cheap and cheesy light up eyes in the dark basement, that are laughable, at best.
There was never an explanation for Bob's creepy girlfriend, that obviously was the ghost of the slaughtered Freudstein family.
Eventually you get to meet Dr. Freudstein , who is just barely alive and looks more like a space alien from Doctor Who, than an undead denizen. When he is stabbed by professor Boyle, it's stew and maggots for everyone.
Lots more gore, blood, bad acting and then the ghost of Mrs. and May Freudstein appears and little Bob walks away with them, hand in hand without a care after the brutal slaughter of his parents??? The sad thing is that even a three year old, could have totally kicked Dr. Freudstein 's ass, as he could barely walk, only had one arm and was basically dead.
So, if you like watching 90 minutes of steamy Italian cheese, and don't care that nothing you watched makes any sense or has much of an explanation, then "The House By The Cemetery" is waiting.. for YOU!
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