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While I definitely wouldn’t consider House By the Cemetery to be one of Lucio Fulci's best, it’s still a really fun, gory, and atmospheric slice of Italian horror cinema. Essentially, a family consisting of a cute kid named Bob, a seemingly unstable wife named Lucy, and a loving but busy father named Dr. Norman Boyle move into… well… a house by a cemetery! Dr. Boyle is staying at the home to continue a study of a certain Dr. Freudstein after a colleague kills himself, his wife, and his mistress. From there, strange supernatural occurrences and murders begin to take place in the house.

This edition of House by the Cemetery was released by EC Entertainment, a short lived label from the Netherlands that specialized in Italian horror cinema of the early 1980's (and despite being a European label, all their releases were in fact NTSC, not PAL!). All of EC Entertainment's titles were limited to 500 or 750 copies, and my copy of House is number 063 of 500!

As previously mentioned, E.C Entertainment was a Dutch company, but these discs were (at least to some extent) imported to the U.S. back in the day (the gentleman I purchased my copy from bought it in a video store in California), and the disc was even manufactured by Pioneer USA.

I've heard people refer to some of these obscure European NTSC horror releases (see: Dragon Film Entertainment, E.C Entertainment, Cult Epics) as 'gray market releases', and that seems to be a fair assessment to me. Releases like this are exactly why I love the format so god damn much, I can only describe this as an 'officially licensed *borderline* bootleg put together by people who were incredibly passionate about these sorts of films, and fortunate enough to acquire and distribute them with the treatment they truly deserved'.

One of my favorite things about EC Entertainment’s releases is their balls to the wall gatefolds, this one featuring a few great stills from the film, a HUGE money shot, and a write up about Lucio Fulci’s life, career, and his filmography. The incredibly vivid and graphic shot of Ranieri Ferrara with his skull cracked open exposing his brain gives you an idea of what you’re in for with this sick flick.

Lastly, I figured I should mention that City of the Living Dead is the first in an unofficial trilogy known as ‘Fulci’s Gates of Hell Trilogy’, three films linked due to the fact they all have horrifying supernatural elements, star Catriona MacColl as their leads (and share multiple other actors and behind the scenes crew such as screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti), and were all filmed back to back. All three of these films were released under EC’s ‘The Lucio Fulci Collection’, so do check out my write ups of ‘The Beyond’ and ‘The House by the Cemetery’ !!!

The House by the Cemetery: Limited Edition (EC1006-LD)