THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981) d. Lucio Fulci (Italy)
Italian director Lucio Fulci’s 1981 pairing of The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery represents perhaps the most beloved period of his career, especially by horror fans. Paradoxically, these films are also why his wider cinematic career is often overlooked. By this point, Fulci was already a veteran filmmaker who had worked across comedy, westerns, crime films, gialli and historical dramas. But these days, The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery—alongside Zombie and City of the Living Dead—have become almost a shorthand for what “a Fulci film” is.
Those who love The Beyond love it precisely because it seems to operate according to nightmare logic rather than a conventional narrative: the plot is merely an excuse for Fulci and screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti to construct a succession of visceral images such as rotting corpses, carnivorous spiders, blind ghosts, exploding head shots, and an unforgettable vision of the afterlife. Its atmosphere of Southern Gothic decay, combined with Sergio Salvati’s photography and Fabio Frizzi’s hypnotic score, give it a dreamlike quality that immediately distinguishes it from straightforward splatter.
The House by the Cemetery feels inspired by other popular haunted house movies of the era like The Shining and The Amityville Horror, but Fulci makes the material distinctly his own through his fascination with irrationality, narrative threads that go seemingly nowhere, and sudden eruptions of brutality.
When the Boyle family moves into an isolated New England house, their young son Bob becomes convinced that something terrible is living within. The combination of eerie atmosphere, disjointed storytelling, and outrageous violence have earned many fans over the ensuing years.
Together, these two films represent a particular moment in Fulci’s career when he became indelibly linked with extreme horror. Their gore and visual imagination made him a hero to genre fans, while their surrealism, dread-filled atmosphere, and strange visual poetry made it clear he was more than a mere purveyor of exploitation fodder.
Join AC and his amazing panel of guests (Sarah Binion, Jon Kitley, Bryan Martinez, Jimmy Seiersen) as we celebrate 45 years of The Beyond and The House By The Cemetery, the double-barreled blessing and curse of Lucio Fulci, The Italian Godfather of Gore… and yet so much more.
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