The House By The Cemetery Movie Review 75

This movie is an Italian horror movie released in 1981 and directed by a favourite of mine, Lucio Fulci. This movie was branded a 'video nasty' in the 1980's because there is some gore in it. By today's standards, it wouldn't be considered nasty at all.

The movie begins with a young woman being murdered in an old house. Cut to New York City where a young boy, Bob(Giovanni Frezza) is staring at a picture of an old house which is very like the house we saw in the opening scene. He sees a young girl in the window of the house and she tells him not to go to the house. We find out that her name is Mae. She seems to know something about this house. We see that Bob and his mother, Lucy(Catriona McColl) and his dad Norman(Paolo Malco) are moving to Boston and the house they are moving into is.....you guessed it! It is the same house that was in the picture!!

The house was previously occupied by Dr. Peterson, a colleague of Norman's. Dr. Peterson killed his mistress in the house and took his own life. Norman and his family are staying there for six months while he does some research on old houses. The house is called Oak Mansion by the real estate agent, Mrs. Gittelson(Dagmar Lassander) and she hands them the keys. She also tells the family that she will arrange for a local person to come to the house and babysit for them. The house itself is in a bit of a mess, but they work to try and clean it up. The babysitter arrives. Her name is Anne(Ania Pieroni). She looks a bit weird. That night, Norman hears noises and he comes downstairs and finds Anne trying to unlock the cellar door for some reason.


Bob is wandering around outside when he meets Mae(Silvia Collatina) and they look at grave stones together. She points out one which has Mrs. Freudstein on it. She tells Bob that the woman is not really dead. Inside the house, Lucy is sweeping when she finds a gravestone on the floor. The name on it is Jacob Freudstein. She hears weeping and noises in the house and it scares her. She is upset when Norman arrives home.They open the cellar door and Norman goes down to see what is in it. A bat comes flying at him and it bites his hand. He has to kill it with a scissors to get it off of him. After that, they want to move out of the house, but there isn't much available. Mrs.Gittelson finds them somewhere, but they have to wait a few days. She arrives at the house to tell them and she gets poked to death!!!


She is dragged to the cellar by something...Next day, Anne is wiping up the blood and Lucy tries to talk to her, but she can't get a word out of her and she thinks that Anne is a weirdo. Norman tells Lucy that he has to go to New York to investigate Dr Freudstein. He was a doctor who lives in the house and did illegal experiments on people. So, Lucy goes into t own while Anne is looking after Bob. Anne mistakenly wanders into the cellar and gets beheaded. Bob has heard her screams and he wanders down there too. He sees Anne's head rolling down the steps towards him and he screams. He races out of the cellar and he meets his mother and tells her what has happened. She thinks that he was dreaming or something. Anne has disappeared though. That night, Bob goes back down to the cellar on his own and he gets locked in. Lucy tries to open the door with the key but it breaks. She tries to wedge it open, but fails.

Norman comes home and he grabs an axe and tries to break it down. The monster thing in the cellar is coming for Bob and he screams as he is grabbed by it. The monster is hurt by the axe which plunges through the door. They finally get the door open and they are faced with the monster who is hideous. It is the corpse of Dr. Jacob Freudstein. Norman tells Lucy that the monster needs humans to feed itself and stay alive. They grab Bob and try and escape, but Norman stabs the monster and it rips his throat out. Lucy and Bob try and escape through the opening in the grave into the house,but the monster grabs Lucy and she is squished. Bob tries to get through the opening and the monster grabs him. He is pulled up by something and he finds Mae waiting for him. Mae has her mother, Mrs. Freudstein with her and she takes Bob's hand and leads him away from the house with Mae to another world..

I liked this film and I think that it is worth a look for any horror fan. It gets a 6/10.