House by the Cemetery (Italy. 1981)

When is a zombie film not a zombie film? Does it need to have more than a handful of the shambling dead? Will one do? Do we REALLY need gut munching and brain chomping? How about some stabbings? Everyone loves stabbings! Ohhhhhh-kay?

Italian God-Father of gore Lucio Fulci hit it surprisingly big with City of the Living Dead, Zombie and The Beyond so it was only a matter of time before his other films where lumped into his “Living-Dead” legacy. House comes after all his hits and it seems to suffer for it. It’s almost a chamber drama if you boil it right down to its essentials. If I where the great god of movie reference (I’m working on it), I’d probably file House by the Cemetery under the SLASHER section. It has only one killer, lots of P.O.V shots and most of the suspense scenes are mano-to-mano in nature.

The story follows a family that moves into a mysterious house so the father can continue a dead colleague’s research. The wife doesn’t like it one bit and when things start to go amiss all hell breaks loose: Their annoying little blond haired son starts talking playing with a ghost (?) child, killer bats start attacking hands and peripheral characters lose their heads. It all comes to a head when they discover that the boarded up basement holds more...something...evil. I think.

More questions are posed by the time the credits roll (Who’s the girl? What’s the deal with the déjà-vu? What just happened in the last ten minutes!?) Fulci dosen’t seems to care so you shouldn’t either. Enjoy the creative, if a little stagy, cinematography by Sergio Salvati, the gooey FX from the well-worn hands of Gino De Rossi, and the catchy electronica title tune. Treat the whole affair like a cracked out fever dream you’ll be fine. Just prepare yourself for a slower than usual pace, a minimal amount of mayhem and a child actor you wish would just die.