The House by the Cemetery: 4K Remaster – Blue Underground (4k UHD)

Theatrical Release Date: Italy, 1981
Director: Lucio Fulci
Writers: Elisa Briganti, Lucio Fulci, Giorgio Mariuzzo, Dardano Sacchetti
Cast: Catriona MacColl, Paolo Malco, Ania Pieroni, Giovanni Frezza, Silvia Collatina, Dagmar Lassander, Giovanni De Nava, Daniela Doria, Gianpaolo Saccarola, Carlo De Mejo

Release Date: May 26th, 2020
Approximate running time: 86 Minutes 22 Seconds
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 Widescreen / 2160 Progressive / HEVC / H.265 / Dolby Vision HDR10
Rating: NR
Sound: Dolby Atmos English, DTS-HD 5.1 English, DTS-HD Mono English, DTS-HD Mono Italian
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish, English for Italian language track
Region Coding: Region Free
Retail Price: $49.95

"A young family moves from their cramped New York City apartment to a spacious new home in New England. But this is no ordinary house in the country: the previous owner was the deranged Dr. Freudstein, whose monstrous human experiments have left a legacy of bloody mayhem. Now, someone - or something - is alive in the basement, and home sweet home is about to become a horrific hell on earth." - synopsis provided by the distributor

Video: 5/5

The House by the Cemetery comes on a 66 GB dual layer 4K UHD

Disc Size: 61 GB

Feature: 54.1 GB

This release was sourced from Blue Underground’s 2019 restoration that they used for their 2020 Blu-ray release. And as phenomenal as that transfer looked, this UHD release looks even better. Throughout, image clarity, shadow detail, color saturation, and compression are all excellent.

Audio: 5/5 (Dolby Atmos English)

This release comes with four audio options, a Dolby Atmos mix in English, a DTS-HD 5.1 mix in English, and a DTS-HD mono mix in Italian. The Dolby Atmos mix is new to this release, while the other three audio tracks are the same tracks from Blue Underground’s 2020 Blu-ray release. The Dolby Atmos mix is a solid track that takes full advantage of the sound spectrum. This release comes with four subtitle options: English SDH, French, Spanish, and English for the Italian language track.

Extras:

Extras on disc one include poster & still gallery #1 (71 images), poster & still gallery # 2 (2 minutes 21 seconds, music from the film playing in the background), a T.V. spot  (32 seconds, DTS-HD mono English, no subtitles), U.S. theatrical trailer (1 minute 47 seconds, Dolby Digital mono English, no subtitles), International trailer (3 minutes 22 seconds, Dolby Digital mono English, no subtitles), a deleted scene: Bat Attack Aftermath (1 minute, no sound), and an audio commentary with Troy Howarth, author of Splintered Visions: Lucio Fulci and His Films.

Extras on the Blu-ray disc include an archival interview with actress Catriona MacColl and actor Paolo Malco titled Meet the Boyles (14 minutes 17 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English and Italian with removable English subtitles), an archival interview with actor Giovanni Frezza and actress Silvia Collatina titled Children of the Night (12 minutes 18 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), an archival interview with actress Dagmar Lassander titled Tales of Laura Gittleson (8 minutes 56 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), an archival interview with actor Carlo De Mejo titled My Time With Terror (9 minutes 21 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), an archival interview with screenwriters Dardano Sacchetti and Elisa Briganti titled A Haunted House Story (14 minutes 7 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo Italian with removable English subtitles), an archival interview with cinematographer Sergio Salvati, special make-up effects artist Maurizio Trani, special effects artist Gino De Rossi and actor Giovanni De Nava titled To Build a Better Death Trap (21 minutes 32 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo Italian with removable English subtitles), an interview with screenwriter Giorgio Mariuzzo titled House Quake (14 minutes 46 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo Italian with removable English subtitles), a Q&A with Catriona MacColl from the 2014 Spaghetti Cinema Festival (29 minutes 37 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English with non-removable English subtitles), and an interview with Stephen Thrower, Author of Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci titled Calling Dr. Freudstein (19 minutes 34 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles).

Extras not carried over from Blue Underground’s 2020 Blu-ray release include, a lenticular slipcover, reversible cover art, a CD that contains the score for the film and a 20-page booklet. This new release comes with a slipcover

Summary:

"No one will ever know whether the children are monsters or the monsters are children."

The House by the Cemetery is the third film in a trilogy of films known as Lucio Fulci’s Death Trilogy. The other two films are City of the Living Dead and The Beyond.

Though The House by the Cemetery has a simple setup, it is greatly aided by atmospheric visuals. And nowhere is this more clear than when it comes to the murder set pieces. which are meticulously laid out with the utmost brutality and are all always sufficiently gory. A knife through the head with the tip pointing out of the victim's mouth, a real estate agent being repeatedly impaled, and a young child's head being held to a door while an axe crashes through the door and narrowly misses his head are some of the more memorable moments. 

The one area of The House by the Cemetery that seems to divide most viewers are the performances of the cast, most notably that of the voice actor’s performance for the character Bob Boyle, who’s portrayed by Giovanni Frezza (Manhattan Baby). 

Besides this performance, there are no other major complaints about the cast's performances. With the standout performance coming from Catriona MacColl in the role of Bob’s mother. The House by the Cemetery would mark her third and last collaboration. She is also the only actor to have appeared in all three films that comprise Lucio Fulci's Death Trilogy. 

Other notable cast members include Ania Pieroni (Inferno, Tenebre) in the role of Ann, the babysitter, and The House by the Cemetery’s other child actor, Silvia Collatina, in the role of Mae Freudstein.

Though The House by the Cemetery is not held in as high of regard as the other two films that make up Lucio Fulci’s Death Trilogy, I have always had a fondness for The House by the Cemetery because of the way it puts its adolescent characters in peril and the film’s haunting coda, which is arguably one of Lucio Fulci’s finest moments as a filmmaker.

The House by the Cemetery gets an exceptional release from Blue Underground, who once again show why they are one of cult cinema’s premier boutique labels. Highly recommended.

Note about the 4K screenshots: It is not possible to make Dolby Vision or HDR10 screenshots that faithfully match the experience of watching a film in motion on a TV. Instead of not having any screenshots, all of the 4K screenshots are m2ts taken with a VLC player and lossless PNGs.

Written by Michael Den Boer