THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY

(Lucio Fulci, 1981)

Fulci's last great film before his gradual fall from grace, The House By The Cemetery is a dark, surreal outing that will immediately appeal to his fans. The Boyle family, Lucy (Catriona MacColl), her husband Dr Norman (Paolo Malco), and their oddly effeminate son Bob (Giovanni Frezza) move from New York to a more spacious house by a cemetery in the country. Prior to the move, Bob is warned by a ghostly little girl to not go, but his parents disbelieve him.

Norman's motive for the move was to resume the unfinished research of his predecessor, Dr Peterson, prior to his suicide. Upon moving in, Lucy is frightened by the discovery of a tombstone set into the floor. They learn that the house used to belong to Dr Freudstein, a man of ill repute who's said to have killed his family and taken his own life.

Shortly after, a mysterious woman named Anne (Ania Pieroni) shows up at the house and professes to be "the babysitter". Nonplussed by the intrusion of the strange woman, the Boyles take her in. Anne, it seems, knows something about the house that the others don't as she first attempts to break into the barricaded cellar, then washes away a trail of blood left by the murder of the house's real estate agent, Mrs Giddleston (Dagmar Lassander). When Anne goes missing, and Lucy and Bob are driven to hysteria by noises and corpses in the cellar, Norman looks into the history of the house and realizes they may have an unwanted tenant living there.

THBTC was the last of Fulci's dark, almost hallucinogenic, and certainly nightmarish films. The lighting is minimal, the Walter Rizzati synth soundtrack is appropriate, and as in The Beyond and City of the Living Dead, the interactions between the characters are enigmatic and nonsensical. In fact, much of the film is nonsensical, but I feel it works as well here as it did in the previously mentioned films. My only real disappointment came not from the amount of gore, but the lack of realism in the other effects ie: the waxy severed head, the mannequin parts representative of real body parts in the cellar, etc. But that's a minor point. I'd recommend it. Buy it here.

THE SCORPION WITH TWO TAILS aka Murder In An Etruscan Cemetery

(Sergio Martino, 1982)

Equal parts giallo, horror, fantasy, and crime drama, The Scorpion With Two Tails is one odd mishmash of a film. Joan Barnard (Elvira Audray) has recurring nightmares of being in a smoke-filled grotto and witnessing an ancient Etruscan sacrificial ceremony wherein the victims have their necks broken and their heads twisted completely around. She is also plagued by the maggot-filled omen of her husband Arthur`s (John Saxon) death.

Soon after, Arthur, an archaeologist excavating a newly discovered Etruscan tomb, is murdered and found with his head twisted backwards. Before dying, he informs Joan of the grotto with which she is already familiar, and she sets out to unmask her husband`s killer and the meaning of her dreams. To thicken the plot, Joan`s father is revealed to have been in some as-yet unfinished shady business with Arthur, and he intends to use Joan to lead him to a large cache of cocaine hidden in the grotto.

Despite the familiar cast and Fabio Frizzi score (some of which was borrowed from the City of the Living Dead soundtrack) TSWTT is an intensely boring film. As a horror film it fails, and despite the nifty head-twisting there is no gore at all. As a giallo it fails, as the deaths are supernatural and the requisite gore, sex, and sleaze are all absent. It fails as a crime drama, as there is too little action (and gore again!). As a fantasy film, it does work to a degree.

Horror and crime bits aside, it almost plays out like an overly-long game of Dungeons and Dragons. Most of the budget was obviously spent on dry ice and foam rock, giving it a foggy, dreamy feel at times, which is punctuated by the equally dreamy soundtrack. The problem with that is, since there is no action to speak of, many a viewer may nod off after the first 30 minutes. Not highly recommended, unless as hangover viewing on a Sunday afternoon. Buy it here.

THE OGRE aka Demons 3

(Lamberto Bava, 1988)

Buyer beware: this title has nothing at all to do with Bava's Demons films. That aside, it's an atmospheric, if at times tedious, viewing experience. Bava heaps on the cobwebs and shadows here, and the soundtrack by Simon Boswell helps give a little substance to an otherwise simplistic story that lacks most of the violence and mean-spiritedness that define the bulk of Bava's work.

Cheryl (Virginia Bryant) has been plagued since childhood by nightmares of being stalked by a humanoid beast through a moldering cellar. Her nightmares prove lucrative, as she becomes a best-selling horror author. She, her husband Tom (Paolo Malco), and son Bob take a trip to stay at a rented villa so she can complete her latest novel. Shock and surprise; it's the same villa from her childhood dreams!

After exploring the cellar and finding in it the teddy bear she abandoned there in her nightmare, Cheryl becomes convinced that the villa is cursed, the ogre is real, and that she and her family are in danger. Tom believes this to be a product of her imagination and repressed sexual desires (of course!). So, we are back to a familiar question: is there really an ogre, or is Cheryl going bonkers?

Despite a brief scene of frontal nudity, The Ogre is a strictly made-for-TV affair. It contains little blood, few scares, and almost no violence. In a horror film, one or more of these elements should always be present. Also, the storyline and several of the set pieces are lifted from numerous other films, most notably the underwater scene that was taken directly from father Mario Bava's contribution to Dario Argento's Inferno.

As previously expressed, The Ogre does play up the Gothic horror angle fairly well. There are a few genuinely creepy aspects, The Ogre himself being the creepiest of the lot. I'd leave this title for a rainy day, as Lamberto has better to offer. Buy it here.

YOU WILL DIE AT MIDNIGHT aka Morirai A Mezzanotte

(Lamberto Bava, 1986)

Police Inspector Nicola Levi has a bit of a dilemma: his wife has been found stabbed to death in the shower shortly after he discovered she was cheating on him. His criminologist friend believes he is innocent, as the murder was too similar to another that had been committed years earlier by the "Midnight Killer", who was supposedly dead...

Lamberto Bava continued to make a few gialli through the 80's, breathing new life into a dead genre. In true giallo fashion, the murders are gory, mean-spirited and beautifully shot (though none seem to occur at midnight!) It's an 80's giallo, so the sets are white and minimal, and brightly lit (a look popularized in Tenebre). Claudio Simonetti provides another great soundtrack, this one quite dark and stringy.

Lara Wendel and Paolo Malco will be welcome faces to those acquainted with the genre, rounding out a competent cast (competent being relative to the genre, haw!) Not as wince-inducing as A Blade In The Dark, but it DOES feature the inappropriate use of an electric mixer towards the end! And ever-present is the flashing blade, an image used in a few Bava thrillers. Recommended, if you can find it. Trailer here.