Review- The House by the Cemetery (1981)

Imagine the most annoying kid you can think of in a motion-picture. Think of the red-head from Troll 2, Jake Lloyd from Episode 1, and Veruca Salt all mixed into one kid. Now give that kid a voice that sounds like a fourty-year-old talking in falsetto, and you've got something along the lines of Bob from The House by the Cemetery. Even that's being generous. I am not exaggerating, this child makes me want to rip my teeth out with a pair of tweezers and hammer them into my corneas.

Its a shame, too. This film has some promise. The keyword is some. But any shred of redemption that this film bears is destroyed by the BOB. Focusing on just the film, its typical Lucio Fulci fare. Its slow, at times tense, at other times very boring, and occasionally bloody. The gore here is really good but I can't help but feel like I missed something. Even with the unrated edition, there are only about five deaths, one of which is a bat and one of which is very awkwardly off-screen.

The premise is that there's a creature living in the basement of a creaky old house that comes out to kill people. It's pretty simple, but Fulci wastes his time dealing with Bob's strange powers. I would've liked to see more focus on the monster. And I would've liked to see Bob strangled. Or worse. This movie is almost worth checking out just so you can hear how ridiculous this kid's over-dubbed voice is. But unless you're a hardcore Italian horror fan or under the influence of some kind of substance, I'd stay away from this one.

Rating: