House by the Cemetery might have its merits and perhaps die-hard fans of Lucio Fulci may find it entertaining, but for myself it was more confusing and even tedious. However, this Limited Edition release by Blue Underground is very well done.
House by the Cemetery
— 3-Disc Limited Edition —
(1981)
Genre(s): Horror, Supernatural
Blue Underground | NR – 86 min. – $49.95 | January 21, 2020
Date Published: 01/15/2020 | Author: The Movieman
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Blue Underground provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post.
The opinions I share are my own.
THE MOVIE — 2.0/5 |
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Plot Synopsis: A young family — Dr. Norman Boyle (PAULO MALCO), Lucy (KATHERINE MACCOLL) and Bob (GIOVANNI FREZZA) — moves from their cramped New York City apartment to a spacious new home in New England. But this is no ordinary house in the country: the previous owner was the deranged Dr. Freudstein, whose monstrous human experiments have left a legacy of bloody mayhem. Now, someone – or something – is alive in the basement, and home sweet home is about to become a horrific hell on earth.
Quick Hit Review: Can’t say I’m a big fan of Italian filmmaker Lucio Fulci, though I did genuinely enjoy his 1979 Zombie. House by the Cemetery, released in 1981, is a muddled mess of a movie. You do have your usual poor dubbing with stilted English dialogue of course, but setting that aside, there are many parts that make little sense or don’t play into the plot, or at the very least perhaps poorly done red herrings. One of them is twice in the film, characters seem to believe Norman has been to this town before, which he denies… with a reaction of either disbelief or maybe he was, and is lying for some reason; initially I thought he was having an affair with the nanny, Ann (ANIA PIERONI), who herself was suspicious… yet neither amounted to anything in the end and felt like filler. Hell, didn’t even add any suspense to a movie that otherwise felt tedious by the time we get to the climax and ultimately reveal the monstrous humanoid figure of Dr. Freudstein.
This isn’t to say House by the Cemetery doesn’t have its moments as I did like the production design of the house itself, the gore effects were pretty impressive and I actually did like the design of the monster at the end, but those parts can’t overcome the terrible logic and some strange choices our characters make. |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 4.75/5 |
| This release comes with a lenticular slip cover. The third disc in this Limited Edition contains the movie’s soundtrack. Also inside is a nice Collectable Booklet.
Disc 1: Deleted Scene (1:01) — An unearthed extended scene, after the bat-kill, that’s only maybe 30 seconds long and contains no audio. Also included is the International Trailer (3:22) and U.S. Trailer (1:48), a TV Spot (0:32) and Poster & Still Galleries. Disc 2:
While most of these were ported over from the 2011 Blu-ray release, it was still great to hear from almost the entire cast, Ania Pieroni was the only one missing, and they each offer their memories of the production, particularly of interest were the two child actors, now grown up. There are two sets of new interviews exclusive to this release, each one pretty standard but still worth checking out. Catriona MacColl Q&A (29:37) from the 2014 Spaghetti Cinema Festival. (NEW) |
VIDEO – 4.75/5 |
| Blue Underground releases House by the Cemetery onto Blu-ray, with a new 4K restoration taken from the original uncut and uncensored camera negative. No real surprises here, but Blue Underground does another amazing job, despite this being a low budget film from nearly 40 years ago, this looks fantastic, detail is incredibly well defined throughout and the heavy grain and noise has been retained, as has the era-appropriate colors which were generally vibrant. |
AUDIO – 4.5/5 |
| Not sure what sort of restoration was done, but the included DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track (the default option with English and Italian DTS-HD 1.0 also available). In any case, dialogue does come through with nice clarity and there is some okay depth making the way through the front and rear channels well enough. |
OVERALL – 3.5/5 |
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House by the Cemetery might have its merits and perhaps die-hard fans of Lucio Fulci may find it entertaining, but for myself it was more confusing and even tedious. However, this Limited Edition release by Blue Underground is very well done with incredible video and audio transfers to go along with a great selection of bonus material. |
Check out some more 1080p screen caps by going to page 2. Please note, these do contain spoilers.