House By The Cemetery (Arrow DVD)

There are few movies that have been affected quite as badly as a result of the UK’s video nasty furore than The House By The Cemetery. In 1984 when certification kicked in and movies started to become banned when our government was trying to yurn us into a nanny state House By The Cemetery was one of the first to go. Ironically in 1993 after nearly ten years in the wilderness it was one of the first of the former video nasties to get a release, then by the now defunct S. Gold & Sons sub label Vipco (S. Gold & Sons are also now defunct but were former pioneers in the home entertainment industry). While it secured its release there was a considerable amount of time edited from the movie. As DVD took off and Vipco planned a DVD release of the movie they then presented it before the BBFC (British Board Of Film Classification) again where it was agreed that they could release a slightly lengthened version. But it has taken till 2009, twenty five years since the movie was banned, for the movie to at last be seen in an uncut form in the United Kingdom.

House By The Cemetery is a movie from the infamously titled Godfather Of Gore Lucio Fulci, made during his heyday of 1979-1981 where his “Zombie” horror movies changed the way western culture looked at Zombies. I always feel referring to House By The Cemetery as a zombie movie does it an injustice because the movies killer is not strictly dead, a pretty rudimentary part of being a zombie in my book. None the less this is a movie that has great affection in my eyes, because although I had briefly skated round the genre of the Italian horror/thriller movie, it was after seeing this film that I became a fan of Italian horror forever.

Beginning in New York a young family are on the verge of making a move to Boston where Norman (Paolo Malco) is planning to continue the work of a colleague who seemingly turned insane and killed himself and his family. Wife Lucy (Katherine (or Catriona) MacColl) and son Bob (Giovanni Frezza) in toe, they arrive at Oak Mansion a remote house by a now disused graveyard. While Norman gets straight to work its Lucy’s responsibility to turn this old wreck of a house into a home. While Norman turns up very little Lucy is thrown straight into making discoveries, whilst cleaning the living area she discovers a tombstone with the name Jacob Tess Freudstein on it, a name that’s an essential part of Norman’s investigations. With creepy vocal noises half roaring half child crying, a disturbing looking babysitter, the impression that Norman knows a lot more than he’s letting on, and a bizarre but striking young girl by the name of May; The House By The Cemetery has all the essential factors to make a completely chilling horror movie.

I won’t tell you any lies the acting is not the best, director Fulci believing that the storytelling is more essential than the actors roles, this is in no means helped by the dubbing of all the characters into English; especially when either the dubbing artist or the Italian to English translator cannot identify the difference between a doctor or a baker “You really should be taking those tablets your baker prescribed” states Malco at a moment of high tension. But put aside these two facts and you have potentially the framework of one of the most cleverly crafted horror movies of the 1980’s. Fulci spends a great amount of the movies 85-85 minute running time building the tension, leaking out little snippets of information, or showing you just enough to keep you enthralled. Rather beautifully the movies killer although fairly obvious from the movies offset is not shown to the audience until the final moments of the film, and pretty is not a word you would use to describe it.

The Hostel movies got a lot of acclaim for their rather bloody and in your face gruesomeness; well House By The Cemetery does a similar job, the big difference being that Fulci’s classic was twenty five years earlier in back 1981. As you enter the killer’s lair properly for the first time, you’re treated to the remains of a variety of cannibalised victims, not cannibalised for food however, but for their organs and other essentials that a 200 year old killer might require. YUK!

Many of Lucio Fulci’s movies even through his better times are slightly disjointed leaving you with a “what just went on there?” style thought, City Of The Living Dead (another Fulci movie from the same era) being a classic example, but House By The Cemetery avoids these trappings, your fully aware of what’s just taken place but the burning question as the credits begin to roll is what happens next? If you allow your mind to think about it, there is a good sequel there because all the doors are left open, leaving the viewer with a deep feeling of helplessness. It was exactly this sort of after thought that drew me towards the Italian horror genre.

If you’re not a particularly strong stomached horror movie viewer this is one you might want to slowly wean yourself into. There are some pretty jumpy moments mixed in with the grotesque gore. And while the movies first death might leave you chuckling the combination of gore and tension as it begins to build up can be too much for some to bear.

As well as being presented uncut, this is by far the cleanest print I have seen of the movie. There are some beautiful grainy scenes that give the movie a real texture. Something else that stood out to me from the movies offset was that title font is different from all the other DVD releases that have been seen in the UK, and now bare a pinkish tinge instead of the usual white titles. This combined with the addition of a deleted scene leads me to believe that these titles are the originally intended ones, while this is fairly small fry to the average viewer this is news I’m sure would appeal to the movies hardcore fans. Other special features include a 17 minute documentary that discusses both the movie and the impact Fulci had to the horror movie genre and more interestingly how oblivious he was to the fact that he had fans across the world, and not just in his native Italian homeland. Other features include trailers, tv spots, and a image gallery. The case inlay offers a double sided cover so you can vary your choices slightly.

The House By The Cemetery is due for release on June the 29^th of Arrows Masters Of Giallo label.

Watch Me When I Kill

Few people really understand the influence of Italian cult cinema upon the world of the popular movie, many do not even realise there was a time that Italy knocked out hundreds of movies a year; I recently enlightened a mind when I explained the term Spaghetti Western, leaving the person in question quite surprised as to the roots of this often used phrase. While the movies of Italy focused on what was popular inAmerican cinema and copied it, seldom do you hear the reverse. America however frequently borrows heavily from Italy, Quentin Tarentino reaches into Italian cinema history to steal aspects for his movies, I think I can draw some reference for everyone of his movies that stems from Italy. So inspired is the director that this year we will see a remake of the Italian classic Inglorious Bastards, a movie he frequently raves about. Also this year we will see another Italian classic get the re-make treatment in Suspiria, originally directed by Dario Argento. The Italians realise talent when they see it, and the need to copy ideas that work; this brings me to the latest Shameless release Watch Me When I Kill (Aka il Gatto dagli oochi di giada, The Cats Victims, The Cat With Jade Eyes), this movies writer/director Antonio Bido was clearly so inspired by the Dario Argento movie Deep Red (Profondo Rosso) that the movie mimics it.

Watch Me When I Kill is a rare delight; it’s one of those seldom seen movies that is often discussed by fans of the Italian thriller genre. The trouble being that those lesser seen or less popular movies suffer terribly without careful preservation. Apparently the movie rather surprisingly was one of the highest grossing Italian movies of the 70’s, but unlike movies like the aforementioned Deep Red was not kept alive by the fans. Shameless Films struggled for months to hunt down the best source material, and get specialists in the field to give the movie some new life. I think this needs some praise as it’s a common thought that companies that buy movies to sell on their independent labels are assumed to be literally chucking movies onto discs willy nilly with little thought about quality. It was all the way back last summer that my contact at Shameless told me they were trying to get some better footage... If you want to be taken seriously in the world of DVD production then look to these guys on how to do a job properly, imagine spending half a year preserving a movie before you even know how it will be received?

Onto the movie, about time I hear you cry. What you have here is an effective little thriller, clearly shot on the hoof but with a reasonable amount of time piecing the story together. With Watch Me When I Kill the movie surrounds a shared secret, something that happened in the past that connects a group of seamlessly un-associated characters. The whole series of events begins with the murder of an old pharmacist one day while working in his store. Nightclub performer Mara (Paola Tedesco) stumbles across the scene of the crime, and by association puts herself in the line of danger. When old flame Lukas (the late Corrado Pani) comes into the picture, he starts to connect all the pieces of the puzzle.

Watch Me When I kill is like a typical blueprint whodunit style thriller (this specific type of Italian thriller has become known as Giallo), lots of random murders, and a whole bucket load of red herrings along the way to keep you guessing the movies killer until the very end.

The movie has dated far more than any Italian thriller I can think of, and I’m not referring to the print quality. It’s clear to anyone with the slightest knowledge of Italian thrillers that director Bido is trying to replicate the power of Argento. What Argento is clever to do though is hide tell tale signs that give indication to the movies age, so that with the exclusion iof fashion his movies could have been made anytime. Bido on the other hand throws ever bit of 1977 culture, and technology he can into the movie, meaning that by 1980 the movie already would have looked quite dated. This is not a digging criticism in fact it gives the movie a little charm, anyone researching late 70’s lifestyles would have a field day here; it’s really quite delightful to watch. When not focusing on the culture aspects Bido rushes around Padua, Tivoli, and Rome like you’re a tourist on a 24 hour break, I wonder how much the landscape will have changed.

There are not any real scares, or moments of fright in the movie; however this does not stop the movie from at times being quite disturbing. Using “state of the art” 1977 technology in one rather long scene Lukas takes his neighbour Giovanni Bozzi to a recording studio to dissect a tape recording of noises played down the telephone to the neighbour. The recording is not too pleasant on its own, but when the various aspects are broken down it gets a little more eerie. A movie could have been concocted off the back of this recording alone, and had you shown any signs of flagging on this movie then this would certainly alert your senses.

The story is pieced together quite nicely, with a good flow of action, mystery and a scattering of romance. For those who love those gritty moments of death, there is quite a healthy body count to keep you amused.

This is not a movie that should have been dubbed into English, it does somehow cheapen the movie, making all the actors come off as being a bit cheesy and just plain wrong, for the time you had a collection of reasonably respected actors and public celebrities, who now seem like amateurs due to rather lax dubbing techniques. Early on in the movie Mara drops in rather casually that someone had tried to kill her, the dubbing artists emotionless words make it sound more like she forgot the sugar. This is not a flaw on the side of Shameless but of the producers of the movies that ordered the dubbed version. It’s worth adding that few Italian movies would make sense in their native tongues, as cast members were often plucked from around the globe with no understanding of Italian, using the much mentioned now Deep Red, British actor David Hemmings was dubbed into Italian, but because vast portions of the original soundtrack were scrapped he was then dubbed back into English; in recent years as more of that movie has been recovered the issues of this have become far more obvious.

Sticking with Deep Red, there is this series of scenes that literally copy the movie with new eyes; shadowed figures, a table of totally random items, and false jumps. Just in case you were starting to think it was all copied, Bido curveballs you with a connection to another Argento movie, Suspiria. Musicians Trans Europa Express burst in with a Suspiria inspired soundtrack. The group did not only rip off Goblin/Argento hits, after the initial smack in the face of obviousness you get something far more subdued, almost dreamy, even beautiful.

Watch Me When I Kill is not necessarily a movie that you watch and become an immediate fan of, it can at times be fairly hard going. I chose to watch the movie twice, and knowing the movies hidden secrets the second time round I was more alert, more involved, and as a result I enjoyed it all the more; what went from pretty average rose a few levels in my opinion.

Special Features:

On Watch Me When I kill you get something quite unusual on a Shameless release, and that’s a very frank conversation with Antonio Bido as he talks about the movie in detail, and allows you through his words to see the movie through his eyes. The director is quick to try and put a halt to any Argento comparisons saying these are coincidental, and that if he copied anyone he was following Alfred Hitchcock. Bido also explains about the impact of the movie on Italian Cinema history, the failure of the stereo soundtrack, and the reason the print quality (now pretty well restored by Shameless) has not lasted well with time. On a nice touch the director also addresses his failures and his regrets.

After their previous commentary track, experts on all things Giallo “The Wilson Brothers” have put together a far more relaxed commentary track allowing you to enjoy move the movie and the text that accompanies it, still however managing to retain their unique sense of humour.

There are two trailers for the movie, both the American and International versions.

An alternate opening credits sequence gives an interesting spin on the movie.

There is a pictue gallery and trailers for other Shameless movies including Strip Nude For Your Killer, Baba Yaga, Torso, Oasis Of Fear, The Designated Victim, and The Phantom Of Death.

The movie is available to buy in the UK from the end of February.