On the night of Halloween, I intended to finish Lucio Fulci’s ‘Gates of Hell’ trilogy by watching the final film, The House By The Cemetery (1981; Quella villa accanto al cimitero). I have to agree with the consensus out there that it’s the weakest of the trilogy; I still enjoyed watching it however. It’s basically an Italian version of The Amityville Horror and The Shining shot in Boston and Massachusetts. An academic (Paolo Malco), his wife (Catriona MacColl from The Beyond) and child (Giovanni Frezza) stay at a house… by the cemetery… where a colleague had lived and studied. Though the husband never tells his family the dark secrets within the house – that he’s investigating why his colleague killed his mistress and hung himself. Not to worry, the son is only communicating psychically with a young girl in a photo of the house… telling them not to go there! And when they arrive there, the young girl appears to the boy telling them to leave. If only they listened! The film opens with a brutal knife slaying by an unseen assailant of a young couple making love in the house. As the film continues, there are more gruesome deaths in trademark protracted Fulci fashion with rubbery prosthetics pumping out blood freely like there was a sale at the fake blood store. Yet it’s a slower, more moodier film than the madcap onslaught of The Beyond. In the end, City Of The Living Dead is my favourite of the three ‘Gates Of Hell’ movies for its atmosphere and brutality. This was still good, and seems to mirror in a different, sadder way the eerie, downbeat ending of The Beyond. Brooding synth score by Walter Rizzati. Recommended.
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