Absolute Fulci. The plethora of extreme eye close-ups gives it away...along with the plodding, slow-moving but always-seems-to-be-right-where-you-need-to-go zombies that catch you by the last remaining thread of whatever you're wearing at the moment, and with super-human strength (rather than rotting lifeless arms to match the rest of their corpse) drag you into a horrific eternity where your disemboweled figure will forever wander in agony. This had its (very limited!) share of gore and guts…mainly in the final 30 minutes where we're treated to the maggot treatment again (a la City of the Dead ) but dear mercy, these were some... I honestly think the LIVE people were more brainless than the zombies. Had the zombies (zombie? I think there was actually only one in the entire movie) been after brains - as in some zombie flicks - these poor saps would have starved. These (living) people were idiots. I mean, I understand that Italian theater is melodramatic to the extreme but seriously...were Italians really that stupid, to believe some little kid would endure all that horror without going absolutely stark raving lunatic? The entire movie - and I like most...okay, I like a lot...well, okay...I like SOME of Lucio Fulci's films but man this... wow. The storyline from start to finish was difficult to follow, and the ending - just as in City of the Dead made absolutely no sense whatsoever. I still don't know what happened. Although this didn't have a super-high rating by other reviewers - including other Lucio Fulci fans - I watched it anyway because I'm on a "Zombie Movie" kick and was hoping that with Fulci's name on it, I would be pleasantly surprised. I wasn't. I'll stop short of saying "Don't bother watching this..." because there are PLENTY of worse zombie movies out there but this definitely fell short of the mark of excellence I would have expected from one of the greats of Italian horror. In addition to everything else bad about this film, you had that horribly annoying screeching, nasal-whiney little kid "Bob"; I kept rooting for a zombie - or a snake, or a spider, or ANYTHING - to finally take him out of the picture, but alas...
On the plus side, it's always fun (for me; I'm old.) to watch these movies set back in the late '70s and early- to mid-80's. In addition to getting to reminesce about the great cars back then, it's fun to recall the styles (or lack! LOL) and see the city streets the way they were back then. House by the Cemetery actually shows an old Woolworth store, complete with the Luncheonette sign. (Ah, the days of eating in the Woolworth and K-Mart dinettes!) I also spotted an old (talk about memories!) hand-held cassette tape recorder (I used to have one very similar, complete with the "wheel" volume control!) and the C-60 Low Noise cassette tapes... If nothing else, I gotta give this one props just for the memories it brought back. Apart from that, however, it blew chunks and was completely...you guessed it: BRAINLESS
Last of the Fulci trilogy and the weakest. The rate of blood and guts does not drop, the stupidity of the protagonists before the murderer either, but increases
Shout by GreeneidalVIP 9BlockedParent2023-02-17T10:50:41Z
So... Let's get this out of the way first. Bob is annoying as hell... End of story.
The House by the Cemetery, on the other hand, is one of my favourite Fulci films. Generally creepy, with more of a focus on atmosphere than gore. Sure... There's gore here, and very good gore too (duh...Fulci), but it's a lot less gruesome than the other two films in the Gates of Hell trilogy. The acting is OK (at least the adults), and the story is, as most Fulci stories, wearing off towards the confusing sometimes, but is pretty decent as well. Should be both watched and collected by any fans of horror.