The House By The Cemetery Movie Review
After Dr. Petersen kills himself and his mistress, Petersen's colleague Dr. Norman Boyle moves his family to Petersen's house to continue his research, but once there they discover the murder-suicide isn't the only creepy thing that has happened in the mansion. This Lucio Fulci movie is truly a mixed bag of the really good and the really bad. Being the optimist I am, lets start with the good--the film is wonderfully bloody and gory. Fans of Fulci films come to expect this, and The House By The Cemetery certainly delivers. Beheadings, a knife through the skull, slit throats--it's all here. The special effects are, for the most part, really believable and effective (the bat scene notwithstanding). Fulci does a superb job setting a dark atmosphere throughout the film, and some of the scenes are very deliberate and spine tingling.
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Unfortunately, as I said, there is a lot of bad with this film as well, and it all starts with this kid...
Bob
This is one of the most irritating kids in film history--yes, I know this film is Italian and the voice I hear is dubbed, but even taking the voice out, the way the kid acts, his facial expressions, etc, are just so bad they are distracting. Speaking of the dubbing--it's horrible. To me, however, the worst part of the film is the zoom shots. Used occasionally a quick zoom can be an effective way to jolt the audience and/or capture a moment of terror--used almost constantly, it becomes unbearable, and good grief, is it ever used constantly in this film. And then there's the bat scene--the fact that it was clearly on a string (I say clearly because, well, you can see the string) didn't bother me--it actually made me laugh. There are two things that kill the scene and takes away a lot from the movie--it is an unnecessarily long, drawn out scene, and the sound the bat is making is ear piercing to the point I actually wanted to jab a screwdriver into my ears.
The House By The Cemetery is still a decent horror flick--it has a really good ending and is worth checking out (especially if you are a fan of Fulci), but I came away from thinking more about what could have been than what actually was.
On A Scale Of One To Ten: 5
The House By The Cemetery Trailer
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