The House by the Cemetery (1981)

A hysterical shriek rings out, as an unidentified brutal beast sinks a kitchen knife into the back of a woman’s skull. The smooth, gleaming metal of the blade slides through her head and the roof of her mouth, mockingly freezing the victim in her futile expression of terror. The horrific horror thus explodes onto the screen, quickening the pulse and chilling the blood. 

 The House by the Cemetery is an Italian supernatural film, directed by Lucio Fulci and originally released to a terrified public in 1981. The premise is fairly unsophisticated: intent on pursuing his research project, resident New Yorker Norman moves with his wife, Lucy and young, anaemic-looking son Bob to a sleepy Boston backwater. True to form, things are not as they first appear; whispers of sinister goings-on abound even before the family has left the thriving metropolis.   

In a display of simplistic yet disquieting symbolism, the family car leaves the comforting normality of city life and enters New England just as night is falling. As if a gnarled hand has reached out from beyond the grave, the protagonists are drawn into the underworld which will steadily engulf them.

The seemingly quaint, innocuous village of New Whitby immediately takes on a hellish quality, as the malevolent monster created by master of horror, Fulci, begins to leave his gruesome mark on the eponymous house by the cemetery. The crumbling, gothic mansion looms from the heart of a deserted wood, reminiscent of an Edgar Allan Poe tale. The family learns the haunted house previously belonged to the deceased Dr. Freudstein; the intriguing surname conjures up a myriad of possible allusions.

Black and white photographs, creaking doors, hidden cellars, suggestive shadows, fear-stricken glances, inexplicable sounds: the film is packed with all the ingredients needed for a typical horror story. Fulci chucks buckets of blood, gurgling screams, tangled cobwebs and baleful bats into the concoction, mixing it all together with a generous dose of hammy acting.

But the director is not known as the godfather of gore for nothing. The violence is grotesque, graphic and unflinching, featuring a lot of unrestrained butchering, stabbing and throat slashing. The special effects and cinematic techniques create maximum impact, as the film lurches from one gore fest to the next.

The audience is all too aware of the impending sensation of inescapable doom, yet the victims remain largely unsuspecting. Hard-working Norman keeps his head buried in his books, Lucy’s suspicions are initially aroused by the mysterious mansion but she soothes her distress by popping pills, and Bob is beguiled rather than disturbed by the frequent, ominous apparition of an ethereal little girl.

The director adds texture to his tapestry of horror through a number of other devices. The appearance of child ghosts immediately raises goose bumps. To heighten the disturbance created by her presence, Fulci’s chilling young female phantom totes a broken china doll. An eternal expression of infantile innocence is painted onto the pale face of the toy, menacing rather than endearing. A decapitated shop mannequin serves to expertly increase the aura of nightmarish evil, while the scene in an antiquarian bookshop adds to the atmosphere of dusty decay and eerie enigma.

The gore is merciless and overstated; the loose ends of the plot remain frayed; the acting is questionable and the dubbing leaves a lot to be desired. Nonetheless, this film is an example of ghoulish horror at its bloodthirsty best, and captives the viewer in a state of horrified fascination until the end.

Last edited: 25th July 2009