Blue Underground‘s 4k restoration of Lucio Fulci‘s The House By The Cemetery is a handsome beast indeed. Cloaked in a faux-3D lenticular cover, it consists of three discs — two blu rays featuring the movie itself and a really quite ridiculous amount of extras, and a CD of Walter Rizzati‘s soundtrack.
Released in 1981, The House By The Cemetery naturally has nods to Stanley Kubrick‘s The Shining, although it takes a very different course (and no, of course that doesn’t mean a happy ending). The restoration is great; pretty much the only fault one can find is that the dubbing is endearingly shonky, but hey, that’s part of the movie, and you can’t get too George Lucas about these things. If you’re wanting Italian horror from the ’80s, that’s what you get, and indeed it’s part of the charm. In one of the interviews included, Giovanni Frezza (Bob, only he’s obviously not a little boy anymore) even apologises for it. It’s got that blend of artistry and schlock that characterises Fulci at his best.
Interestingly, in the extensive cast interviews, Fulci sounds like a nightmare to work with, but without exception they all remember him extremely fondly, Carlo de Mejo even going as far as to consistently call him “the master Lucio Fulci”. Dagmar Lassander has a bizarre anecdote about being arrested in London for having a mummified cat filled with fake blood (during the making of The Black Cat), and we get to see them all reunited at a horror convention, signing autographs and having their pictures taken by delighted fans. The Italians in particular seem baffled (though obviously very pleased) at the film’s status outside Italy, as there it is apparently largely forgotten, whereas in the US and UK it’s a cult classic.https://youtu.be/QN0bx4Czxa8
In this age of CGI, of particular interest to me was the interview with the cinematographer and special effects artist, as they tell us the insane levels of effort that went into making the blade of a knife come out of the mouth of someone who’s just been stabbed in the back of the head, or to enable someone to stab a mechanical bat that’s attached to their hand without injuring themselves.For me, though, and I imagine for many readers of this site, the big draw is an interview with Stephen Thrower, one-time member of the legendary Coil, currently of Cyclobe and UnicaZürn, and author of the definitive book on Fulci, Beyond Terror. He gives a much-needed outsider’s perspective on the whole thing, drawing on his extensive knowledge of the director and alternate versions of the script, and he’s an engaging narrator. As a fan rather than a film-maker, he brings in HP Lovecraft, points out that the Henry James quote at the end of the movie isn’t a Henry James quote at all, and gives us a great overview of the movie, its themes and its influences. He also makes a lovely analogy that House By The Cemetery is structured like a novel, whereas The Beyond is a poem.
And of course the final part of the package is Walter Rizzati’s soundtrack, which is a classic example of Italian horror music — part meditative piano, part quasi-ecclesiastical crescendos with stabs of prog guitar. It’s great.If you haven’t seen the movie then I thoroughly recommend it, and if you’re already a fan, this is a great restoration with all the extra features and information a Fulci fan could want.
-Justin Farrington-
