La Maison près du cimetière

This is enjoyable. If you are looking for a serious horror movie that makes sense, give this one a skip.

By this point in his career Lucio Fulci was cranking out gorefest after gorefest. This film is no different. With a great opening involving two lovers in an abandoned house we are introduced to the great score by Walter Rizzati that plays through out the film. After the credit sequence we are introduced to the Boyle family. Mother Lucy (Catriona MacColl in I believe her third Fulci film after THE CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD and THE BEYOND), father Norman (Paulo Malco) and son Bob (Giovanni Frezza) are going to be moving to a new home with New England. Only problem is the previous owner murdered his mistress and then committed suicide.

The first half of the movie is good and quite restrained if you will for Fulci. It is introducing characters, infusing creepiness and at times visually impressive while not exactly going for the gore. But, to me it is the second half where it does amp up the gore, bring on the great, gruesome kills and really the tension at times is almost chaotic in the basement (especially when Bob goes down there) of their new house that brings this film up on the rating scale for me. I mean that is what I am expecting from a Fulci movie.

If gobs of gore isn't your thing you should probably stay away, but if you are a fan of Fulci or like a mix of gore and tension in your films I recommend this 1981 horror flick for you.

Two final notes: Mr. Fulci himself portrays Dr. Mueller and whomever did the voice over work for Bob does in fact have a slightly annoying whiny voice. So just be prepared for that.

For an hour i was thinking to myself 'this kid has one of the worst dubs in the history of cinema'. And then that scream happened. Now it's official. It's the worst voice dubbing in movie history. Why on earth someone thought it wise that when a boy of 7/8 screams he sounds like a prime scream queen i'll never know, truly one of the most ridiculous and startling things i've come across.

As for the rest of the movie, there are 3 brutally bloody scenes (one in particular towards the end is rather gross out) which explains why it was a video nasty in it's day. The story tries to set up a little mystery with possible suspects including the nanny and the dad but the choppy editing and scene placement make it hard to believe anything other than the supernatural. Not one of Fulci's best, it's still got enough good moments to warrant at least one viewing.

The son of the researcher is a fair haired boy who is frightened repeatedly throughout the film and seems to spend his entire time banging on doors and calling for his mommy. The boy has the single most annoying child's voice ever heard on film and this alone makes him a character who needing killing off in the first minutes.

Not great but made worse by the kid.

In New York, Dr. Norman Boyle (Paolo Malco) assumes the research about Dr. Freudstein of his colleague Dr. Petersen, who committed suicide after killing his mistress. Norman heads to Boston with his wife Lucy Boyle (Katherine MacColl) and their son Bobby (Giovanni Frezza) to live in an isolated house in the woods that belonged to Dr. Petersen. Bob befriends the girl Mae (Silvia Collatina) that only he can see and she warns him to leave the house. Soon his parents hire the mysterious babysitter Ann (Ania Pieroni) and creepy things happen in the house, When Bobby goes to the basement, his parents discover the secret of the house.

"Quella villa accanto al cimitero", a.k.a. "The House by the Cemetery", is a sinister horror movie by Lucio Fulci. The screenplay is confused with poor development of the characters, but the supernatural atmosphere is creepy and the camera-work is great. The metaphoric conclusion, with the soul of Bob following Mae and her mother, is excellent. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Casa do Cemitério" ("The House by the Cemetery")

Note: On 23 March 2016, I saw this movie again on DVD with the original language (Italian) and subtitles in Portuguese.