*Contains minor spoilers* (but it doesn't really matter cos the movie sucks anyway, and you'll probably have more fun reading my spoilers than actually watching it!)

I saw this movie in the bargain DVD rack at my local Blockbuster, and since I had mildly enjoyed some of Fulci's other movies I decided to give it a try. After all, at £5.99 for a DVD, you can't go wrong, can you? Well, yeah, you can! I curse Vipco for parting me with my money and lumbering me with this steaming pile of celluloid excrement! The incoherent plot involves some psycho doctor who has been living in the basement of a Boston mansion since the start of the 20th century, occasionally popping up to hack off the odd body part to replace his decaying limbs. His next victims are the New York psychologist and his family who move there to study suicide. Also, we get some bull about the doctors wife and a little girl (were they supposed to be ghosts?) who turn up from time to time to hang out with the psychologists irritating son and utter some ominous, pseudo-cryptic warnings into the camera while the whole cast try not to laugh. This makes it sound waaaay better than it is.

To be fair, hardcore Fulci fans and students of crappy B-movie eurotrash may glean a little (very little) enjoyment from this. There are a few tense moments (the scenes in the cellar) and some striking imagery (such as the blood rising from Freudstein's tomb), yet the film is so disjointed that even these fail to inject any interest. Endless plot points go unexplained, such as the shop-window sequence and the real estate agents who apparently know there's a nutter under the house but don't bother to do anything about it and keep moving people in there! And what the hell was it with that babysitter!? She was always in the house, even when the parents were there, and spent most of her screen time staring into space! Was she supposed to be scary (she wasn't even a bad guy) or was it just that she didn't know how to act!? Now, I could have overlooked these many problems if the movie had kept me excited, for example if they had put in some kickass good-guys-fight-back battle scenes (like in Zombie or Demons). Unfortunately, nothing vaguely exciting happens in House By The Cemetery, the only action we get is a few bloody killings, which are nothing special, and a cheesy boob-shot near the start (if you're looking for that sort of thing)! And thus I must announce to the world that this film breaks the most important law in Italian horror cinema: You can make it corny and cheap and incoherent - but it has to be fun! House by the Cemetery... is boring!!