Dr. Norman Boyle (Paolo Malco) is a researcher who works for the New York Historical Society. Norman has been tasked with picking up Dr. Peterson's (Pino Colizzi voice) research after his death. Peterson committed suicide after killing his mistress. Peterson had been working on a project for the Historical society. Norman takes his wife, Lucy (Catriona MacColl) and young son, Bob (Giovanni Frezza) and moves to Whitby, Boston, into the house that Peterson had been working out of before he killed himself.
Bob is left in the car while his parents are in the realtor’s office getting the key to the house. Bob sees a young girl across the road beckoning him to come to her. She tells him that her name is Mae Freudstein (Silvia Collatina) and that she has been expecting him, but he should not have come. Bob is the only one who can see Mae. She becomes his invisible friend.
When the family arrives at the house, they find that Dr. Peterson was not great at keeping the house in shape. Dust is everywhere and even the basement door is nailed shut. Since the house is in need of some deep cleaning and TLC, the real estate agent, Laura Gittleson (Dagmar Lassander), tells Lucy that she will send someone over to babysit Bob. Ann (Ania Pieroni) shows up telling Lucy that she is the babysitter. That night Norman finds Ann prying the nails from the basement door.
Norman begins taking up Peterson’s research. He learns from an assistant librarian, Daniel Douglas (Giampaolo Saccarola) that Peterson has been doing some private research at the house. He eventually learns that the research was on the house’s previous owner, Dr. Jacob Tess Freudstein. It seems that in 1878 Freudstein had been kicked out of the medical association for performing questionable experiments and banned from practicing medicine for life. Then Lucy finds the actual tomb of Dr. Freudstein in the house. Norman knows that in some older families people were entombed in the houses of the rich due to the ground freezing during the winter.
Bob’s friendship with the invisible Mae continues as people begin to disappear. Norman and Lucy become concerned that there is something strange going on in the house. Unbeknownst to them, something unworldly is in the basement, and it’s hungry.
“The House by the Cemetery” was released in 1981 and was directed by Lucio Fulci. It is an Italian horror splatter movie and was designated as a “video nasty” for a time. It is the third film in what is referred to as Fulci’s “Gates of Hell” trilogy. The other two films are “City of the Living Dead” 1980, and “The Beyond” 1981.
I found the movie to be slightly confusing at times, but nicely graphic. Fulci seems to like red herrings. Everybody in the movie looks suspicious in one way or another. Much time is spent on lingering close-ups of people’s eyes and veiled expressions. It reminded me of American soap opera cliffhangers.
Director Fulci has a small part as Professor Mueller, the professor that Norman has a conversation with on the streets of New York City.
The final line of the movie "No one will ever know whether the children are monsters or the monsters are children," is attributed to Henry James, however, the quote was made up by Fulci himself. The film itself was loosely inspired by James’ story “The Turn of the Screw”.