Horror
1 hour and 26 minutes
Unrated
Written by: Lucio Fulci, Giorgio Mariuzzo, and Dardano Sacchetti
Directed by: Lucio Fulci
Produced by: Fabrizio De Angelis
Cast
Catriona MacColl
Paolo Malco
Ania Pieroni
Giovanni Frezza
Silvia Collatina
Past and present collide in a vortex of fear!
The late 1970s and early 1980s was an era that bequeathed a great deal of success and notoriety upon Italian gore-hound filmmaker Lucio Fulci. Beginning with his 1979 response to George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, Fulci cranked out horror films that began to earn his name a great deal of attention both at home in Italy as well as in foreign markets such as the United States, England, and Japan. Zombie, City of the Living Dead, The Black Cat, and The Beyond to this day are all films that often come up first when discussing Fulci's oeuvre. And there is good reason for this. Mainly, they are truly terrific films. Following those four films mentioned, producer Fabrizio De Angelis knew it best not to screw up with his winning formula and funded Fulci and screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti for another project: The House by the Cemetery.
Like both City of the Living Dead and The Beyond, Sacchetti and Fulci borrowed many ideas within The House by the Cemetery from turn of the century horror writer HP Lovecraft - specifically, from Lovecraft's story The Shunned House. However, like the previous two films, Fulci and Sacchetti merely pick grand ideas, names and other obscure things from Lovecraft that horror fans can later see they just wink at more than anything. The story for The House by the Cemetery is more Fulci's and Sacchetti's ideas on child psychology than it is anything HP Lovecraft. Its more brilliant moments are scenes where the child protagonist, Bob, must confront situations that most children in the world find to be horrifying, mainly fear of old houses and cellars. Like most Fulci films, the story is not the important focus, but rather the ideas and the technical aspects. As far as ideas go, The House by the Cemetery had an interesting premise - child psychology - but it is not executed effectively. If Fulci and Sacchetti had really wanted this to be the main drive of the film, then it should have been a movie completely glued to its child protagonist. Instead what we get is a movie that follows the parents around more than the child. There should have been more doubt in our minds regarding the child's fears so that by the end of the movie the payoff of those fears being reality would have been much more haunting. Because we understand the child's fears regarding the house are reality the entire movie, the big ideas behind The House by the Cemetery fall flat upon execution.
The movie's technical aspects, however, are praise worthy - and despite some of the film's blander moments, are quite thrilling to see. A woman being stabbed through the back of the head with a blade, another woman being pierced by an iron fire-stick, and a babysitter's head being sliced off are all some of the standout gore moments within the film - and honestly showcase some of the best effects work ever done in Fulci's career. A bloody confrontation between Paolo Malco and an obviously fake animatronic bat showcases Fulci's flair for slapstick. Lingering shots on the fake animal recall the close ups of the clearly fake, face-eating tarantulas in The Beyond. Fulci knew these fake animals look silly and he wants his audience in on the joke as well. A more thrilling sequence involves no gore at all, but the film's villain pressing young actor Giovanni Frezza's head up against the cellar door as Paolo Malco tries to break through it with an axe from the other side. A savvy audience member would never put child killing - even protagonist child killing - past Lucio Fulci, and it is a sequence that will surely cause anyone watching the film to hold their breath during its entirety.
The film's overall look should be commended as well. Cinematographer Sergio Salvati, one of the most underrated cinematographers of all time, delivers everything and then some. From the film's violent opening sequence, the atmosphere is set. As the film progresses, Salvati utilizes more and more diffusion, thus making the films "happy" ending all the more confusing. Did Bob really escape the evil clutches of Dr. Freudstein, or does the diffused, dream-like quality of the film suggest that Bob really died in the cellar and now his spirit lives on with Mae and Mrs. Freudstein? Vincenzo Tomassi, the best of the editors to ever work with Lucio Fulci, solidifies why he was the best man to piece together Fulci's works. The film's pacing is terrific, and if the film drags it is only due to the lack of inspiration involving its story and not due to editorial error.
Catriona MacColl is stunning as always, but as the troubled mother Lucy, she is actually less interesting than previous characters she played for Fulci in both City of the Living Dead and The Beyond. The same can be said of Paolo Malco playing the driven father Norman - mainly that he would go on to deliver a better performance in Fulci's giallo flick The New York Ripper. But why is that? These are characters who on paper ought to be really damn interesting. Norman is a man driven by his obsession to understand what happened to his colleague Stevens by discovering the truth about the sinister Dr. Freudstein. And Lucy is a woman that has struggled with some sort of emotional breakdown in the past. Yet these characters - including Giovanni Frezza's portrayal of their son Bob - lack any sort of depth. The most obvious explanation for this is Fulci's non-commitment to character as a filmmaker. It is not an important aspect to him, at least not at this moment in his career (his earlier spaghetti western Four of the Apocalypse and giallo Don't Torture a Duckling might suggest otherwise). And because of this, the actors weren't given the direction needed to fully fledge these interesting figures into a believable state of life.
While it is often discussed as one of Fulci's most remembered movies, The House by the Cemetery is a much more hollow film than previous or subsequent works of Lucio Fulci's career. It contained all the right pieces - including interesting characters, big ideas placed at the core of the story, some of the director's best special effects work including some truly harrowing sequences, and brilliant cinematography and editing - and yet The House by the Cemetery still falls short of all of its potential. Perhaps had it been a film delivered by a less genius Italian horror filmmaker than Fulci it would be something to praise, but as it stands as a Lucio Fulci movie, it is far from the filmmaker's best ... but certainly it is not his worst either.
4.5/10
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