The House By The Cemetery

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Sometimes you want your plain old, locally-sourced zombie-like monsters shambling around your house, eating people, and generally being a real inconvenience.

Other times, you have to import something a little...different.

Hi! That'd be me! I'm made from dried apples!

This week, to start the second half of their trek toward 100 episodes, the guys sat down to watch Italian gore master Lucio Fulci's The House By The Cemetery. It's about a family that moves from New York to Boston so the husband can research the mysterious Dr. Freudstein, although it is never explained exactly why he is researching. This is just one of many questions this movie presents and then completely fails to answer.

For example, what the hell is this all about?

Norman (Paolo Malco) and his wife, Lucy (Catriona MacColl) pack up their oddly-voiced son, Bob (Giovanni Frezza) and hit the road, despite Bob's insistence that a little girl (Teresa Rossi Passante) in a picture of the house keeps trying to tell him not to go to Boston. (Probably for chowder-related reasons.)

Brian Bonsall, Richard Chamberlain, and Heather Graham!

Upon arrival, a mannequin's head falls off, and the weird little girl from the picture shows up and gives Bob a filthy old doll while his parents are talking to their realtor, Mrs. Garrett from The Facts of Life. Then, gross doll in tow, they go to the titular cemetery-surrounded house, where they meet up with the new babysitter, Ann (Ania Pieroni) and her upsetting eyebrows.

Oh, hello. Just summoning some evil to freshen the place up, is all.

Almost immediate, weird stuff starts happening. Strange noises, lots of close-ups of people's eyes, an inordinate lack of interest in giant bloodstains on the floor, and the discovery of what appears to be a crypt in the basement leads to a long, drawn-out bat stabbing.

It's filled with delicious Smucker's preserves!

Finally, in a face-off with the creepy guy in the basement, everybody dies and Bob ends up face-to-face with Dr. Freudstein himself, who has been killing people for their body parts, which he uses like batteries to keep himself alive. (Sorta.) After a confrontation...something happens. We think. To be honest, the end is really vague. Did Bob die? Did he escape? Does Dr. Freudstein keep killing to survive? Who is Mae and why? What the hell is going on here?!

Jake has several theories to explain why the movie is so disjointed and confusing. Surprisingly, only one of them involves a lot of drugs!

Larry hates Bob and his voice. It's just awful. Really. As this is an Italian film with Italian actors (despite taking place in Boston), it's understandable that the actors might need to be dubbed. But why do they always pick an adult to do unconvincing kids' voices?

Derek is angered by the iimplied travel times involved in going from New York to Boston, and believes that it might involve some sort of time portal in the kitchen of the house. He also does not trust Ann's eyebrows. They are upsetting.

There's also news in The Lobby, new movies Coming Soon, questions about James Cameron in Hollywood Purgatory, a very loud Larry's List, and a new game show! And a special announcement about October's theme: Month of the Living Dead!

So sit down, plug in, and listen to this week's show!