LUCIO FULCI... really what more is there to say? The man did it all. He was a founding father of so so many idea's and movies and just all genre's... It's really too bad he was shunned so much and only really noted for his horror efforts.
However, his legions of fans, myself included... who actually wrote and dedicated COFFIN CANYON for him and to him. I know what he was capable of and what his talents really were.
HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY: no different... the movie is brilliant, however, very disturbing and off beat. A lot of people won't give it a chance for this reason... hell most people I've told about it turn it off after the 1st five minutes when the guy gets hung up and gutted on the door and the girl gets a knife thru her mouth. However there is a deep, complex and well thought out story in all of this macabre mayhem.
A family of 3 move to BOSTON so the father can finish up his research in the medical field. Not knowing the house they are going to be living in belonged to a sadistic, brutal, Doctor by the name DR.FREUDSTEIN...
"and yes he is the scariest movie monster of all time. He makes Jason, Leatherface, Freddy and Michael Myers look like piss ants"
Once there, or even before actually in this very creepy picture in their old house a little girl keeps telling "BOB" the son, to not go there. Don't move. Don't go into the house... Very creepy stuff. Well it gets worse as the little boy gets there... The little girl becomes sorta friends with the boy... or does she?
All while the father is going mad, in a tamed, toned down way. He's actually not working on what he's supposed to be but actually digging into DR. FRUEDSTEINS past... he discovers that the DR who lived there before and he took over for, was murderd. This drives the movie onward into even more mystery as people star dying in the house and a strange babysitter comes to visit.
A locked and heavily secured basement is the key to the riddle the father thinks... but what lurks deep within the old Victorian houses basement...? What lumbers in the bowls of the basement? DR. FRUEDSTEIN!
A rotted, 127 year old, FRUEDSTEIN at that... he's been killing people and using the humman skin cells to complete his lifes work... to stay alive. However, the doesn't have the decaying issue under control, just yet ;)
This killer means business... He's very mythodical and very erie just to watch. His movements are very timed and just... freaky! His one yellow eye will just grab ahold of you and not let go.
I've never been more afraid of any killer in any movie. I've never been actually scared of anything in a movie... this was the guy to do it and leave it to the brilliance of LUCI FULCI to give us this one.
In the end we find out the little girl and her mother have a seceret of their own and since little BOB is now an orphan or maybe even worse... they take him back to their home... THE CEMETERY.
It's a brilliant, beautiful gory train wreck of a movie. It's deep. It's off beat and it's got a melodic tone that no other horror movie has ever captured since. The Shinning has nothing on this one... Kings or Kubricks versions.
5 out of 5: This movie should be in every horror movie fans collection. If it's not then you're missing a vital piece of the puzzle. Easily one of FULCI's best works and scarriest by far.