Fulci!

HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY-1981-This starts off with a woman looking for her boyfriend in empty building. She finds him but he's a bloody mess. Then she gets a knife through her head. In NYC Norman (Paolo Malco; also in THE NEW YORK RIPPER for the same director) and his wife Lucy (Catriona MacColl; also in THE BEYOND by the same director) are packing to go live in a rural Boston house (in a cemetery) where Norman's co-worker killed his mistress then committed suicide. Their young song Bob (Giovanni Frezza; also in the director's MANHATTAN BABY) looks at a picture of the house and sees a young girl in the window. Later, when his parents go to pick up the keys Bob meets the little girl, named Mae who only he can see. She warns him to stay away. While they unpack Norman discovers that the basement door has been boarded up. Soon the mysterious looking Ann (Ania Pieroni; also in TENEBRE) shows up to be their babysitter. At night Norman catches her trying to break open the door. When she is alone in the house the next day, Lucy is terrorized by weird noises. Norman decides to open the door to show Lucy there's nothing there and the two of them are attacked by a bat. They decide to move but then the real estate agent is killed in a bloody poker attack by a grunting unseen killer. Meanwhile Bob plays tag with Mae. Ann gets decapitated and Bob is chased by the killer. Lucy doesn't believe him but when he's trapped in the basement (and Norman has to break down the door with an axe) we learn that for some reason a Dr. Freudstein, a deformed one armed killer who needs human cells to survive is living in the basement! When Norman stabs him maggots ooze out of his body. Despite this the monster doctor kills both Bob's parents then terrorizes Bob until Mae (who also seems to be a Freudstein) pulls him to safety (or does she?). Her mother? /grandmother? leads them away (to heaven? or the past?) in the "makes no sense" ending.

HOUSE was directed by cult Italian gore-master Lucio Fulci and to me is one of his weakest films. It's full of plot holes and characters saying ambiguous things that are never explained. Who is the little girl Mae? How suddenly did Norman find out about Freudstein? And what the hell was actually going on? Why did Freudstein become an ugly killer living in the basement? And more importantly where did they get the kid who plays Bob? He was kinda of scary himself a few times and reminded me of Mick Jagger! The story also seems to hint that Norman and Anne could have had an affair.

It does feature some extreme gore (a Fulci specialty) and a little suspense.

Thanks for reading!