The House By the Cemetery

Saturday, March 22, 2008


There's something about Lucio Fulci. He made a lot of cheap, violent Italian horror films that were poorly written, poorly acted and poorly edited. They often had gruesome but unconvincing special effects, and a good amount of unintended comedy. The stories had a lot of exposition, but even after repeat viewings don't seem to make any logical sense. Yet there are a few, especially the three in a row he did with Catriona MacColl in the lead roll, that are effectively weird and nightmarish in a way that few horror films are.


The House by the Cemetery is one of my favorite Fulci's. It's not a good movie in many senses, and some of it is downright laughable. But the awkward dubbing, the bad dialogue, the nonsensical plot, the disjointed editing, and the cheapness somehow mingle very well with the violence, atmosphere and especially Fulci's dreamlike, soft-focus visual style to create an unsettling feeling, like a bad dream.

I have this weird idea to sort of pull a Down With Love on Fulci and try to make a film that tries to perfectly copy his style. Just do a mishmash of his plots and ideas (it would definitely have to be about a gateway to hell), dub all the dialogue and try to approximate his look. This wouldn't be some Lost Skeleton of Cadavra thing where I would intentionally make it bad, or some Grindhouse thing where I cheat and make a bigger budget movie, but a genuine attempt to try and duplicate his style.

Shenan had never seen this before, and picked up a $3 used copy. Well done. I still haven't found a reasonably priced copy of The Beyond, but I did just get City of the Living Dead at an acceptable price and will have to watch it some time soon. Maybe I won't have enough time now trying to keep this blog going, but I wouldn't like to start working on my Fulci script some time in the near future, at least just for shits and giggles.