This was my third Lucio Fulci flick, I saw Zombie and The Beyond and thought they were well made, if not incompetent at times.
But where the hell do I even begin with this? I guess first things first...the plot. It was one big mess, if you ask me. A family of three (which includes the most annoying kid in movie history, you really really will hate him) move into some house, where a girl was killed in the opening of the movie. Now for the first act of the movie nothing much happens as there is no character development for this family, for the most part its just a bunch of boring dialog. Some subplot with the annoying loser kid getting visits from some ghost girl is also brought up, but so poorly written that you will be scratching your head in wonder as to what the hell is the point? The ghost girl warns the boy, but he is so pathetic that nothing comes of it. The family live in the house for a bit, strange things happen, bats on strings attack, and the wife freaks out all the time and screams (like in a terrible scene where the kitchen i dunno, flips out on her), and the little boy still just hangs out with the ghost girl, who he starts to refer her as his "new girlfriend" Out of the blue appears some babysitter chick, and something that Demoni did four years later is done here too. you might recall that in Demoni...there was a Usherette who worked at the theater that was possessed and for the first half of the movie it really tries to empathizes that she is evil, but then when the demons attack..SHE IS JUST A VICTIM like everyone else. No point in her character what so ever..well the same could be said about our babysitter, as the camera always does extreme close ups of her eyes as if to make us think "Oh shes up to something", it even has a scene where she is cleaning up blood from a murder scene and the housewife calmly asks her what shes doing and TAKES NO NOTICE THAT There's BLOOD TO BEGIN WITH! After all of this though, the babysitter is just another victim and everything she brought to the story is never once explained.
Elaborate Lucio Fulci deaths are here yes, and some are quite good, but they seem like thats all that Lucio knew how to do, as the story seems more just like a bulletin board where all the deaths were posted on various parts. Many people on this site have praised the movie as "suspensful", well please don't listen. I'm telling you now, that there was ZERO suspense all the way through, once the killer that lives in the basement of the house is revealed, it looks like a cheap zombie recycled badly from ZOMBIE and is a huge letdown for all that time wasted.
So far I've noticed my review is all over the place and really hasn't explained much, because that's the way this movie is. You spend more time on the plot then the filmmakers obviously did, only to have to he movie end and realize you've been making theories and assumptions all for nothing, because the movie tries to be a mystery, but completely abandons it's audience with the ending.
The ending is ambiguous and lame. Why have the gimmick ending of what some people call symbolism. The ending didn't seem like symbolism to me, it felt more like a easy way out of a ludicrous story to begin with.
Not only is this movie horribly dated, has that awful kid, makes no sense, has no nudity, and plods along like it had all the time in the world, but it also really likes to repeat the scenes over and over...like when the mother and son kept taking turns and going down the basement. The writers can't think of anything better for them to do? The movie asks way too many questions that never even tries to hint at the answers, the family is also very underdeveloped..why didn't anyone realize the son was always hanging in a graveyard? as far as I could see they didn't even notice. After many violent accidents and such, the family still calmly gos about their business, just waiting for the screenplays next death, which are all over the top I'm assuming to make us scared. The movie also doesn't take advantage of what could be cool scenes...like the one scene where the killer is holding the kids head against the door while his dad pounds away at the other side with an Axe, I was so happy for brief seconds as I though the Axe would chop into the annoying kids head, but nope..nadda, and the part where they stab the killer in the stomach and worms fall out but nothing comes of it? I tried my best to describe to you this movie, I think it would be best to avoid it, unless you just need to see all of Lucio's work. It has too many plot holes, where it gets to the point of utter madness on screen as you see nothing makes sense. What was the deal with all of the close ups of the characters eyes, trying to communicate with each other, it was done a lot but never given a clear purpose, just confusion.
I give this movie *1/2 out ****.
But where the hell do I even begin with this? I guess first things first...the plot. It was one big mess, if you ask me. A family of three (which includes the most annoying kid in movie history, you really really will hate him) move into some house, where a girl was killed in the opening of the movie. Now for the first act of the movie nothing much happens as there is no character development for this family, for the most part its just a bunch of boring dialog. Some subplot with the annoying loser kid getting visits from some ghost girl is also brought up, but so poorly written that you will be scratching your head in wonder as to what the hell is the point? The ghost girl warns the boy, but he is so pathetic that nothing comes of it. The family live in the house for a bit, strange things happen, bats on strings attack, and the wife freaks out all the time and screams (like in a terrible scene where the kitchen i dunno, flips out on her), and the little boy still just hangs out with the ghost girl, who he starts to refer her as his "new girlfriend" Out of the blue appears some babysitter chick, and something that Demoni did four years later is done here too. you might recall that in Demoni...there was a Usherette who worked at the theater that was possessed and for the first half of the movie it really tries to empathizes that she is evil, but then when the demons attack..SHE IS JUST A VICTIM like everyone else. No point in her character what so ever..well the same could be said about our babysitter, as the camera always does extreme close ups of her eyes as if to make us think "Oh shes up to something", it even has a scene where she is cleaning up blood from a murder scene and the housewife calmly asks her what shes doing and TAKES NO NOTICE THAT There's BLOOD TO BEGIN WITH! After all of this though, the babysitter is just another victim and everything she brought to the story is never once explained.
Elaborate Lucio Fulci deaths are here yes, and some are quite good, but they seem like thats all that Lucio knew how to do, as the story seems more just like a bulletin board where all the deaths were posted on various parts. Many people on this site have praised the movie as "suspensful", well please don't listen. I'm telling you now, that there was ZERO suspense all the way through, once the killer that lives in the basement of the house is revealed, it looks like a cheap zombie recycled badly from ZOMBIE and is a huge letdown for all that time wasted.
So far I've noticed my review is all over the place and really hasn't explained much, because that's the way this movie is. You spend more time on the plot then the filmmakers obviously did, only to have to he movie end and realize you've been making theories and assumptions all for nothing, because the movie tries to be a mystery, but completely abandons it's audience with the ending.
The ending is ambiguous and lame. Why have the gimmick ending of what some people call symbolism. The ending didn't seem like symbolism to me, it felt more like a easy way out of a ludicrous story to begin with.
Not only is this movie horribly dated, has that awful kid, makes no sense, has no nudity, and plods along like it had all the time in the world, but it also really likes to repeat the scenes over and over...like when the mother and son kept taking turns and going down the basement. The writers can't think of anything better for them to do? The movie asks way too many questions that never even tries to hint at the answers, the family is also very underdeveloped..why didn't anyone realize the son was always hanging in a graveyard? as far as I could see they didn't even notice. After many violent accidents and such, the family still calmly gos about their business, just waiting for the screenplays next death, which are all over the top I'm assuming to make us scared. The movie also doesn't take advantage of what could be cool scenes...like the one scene where the killer is holding the kids head against the door while his dad pounds away at the other side with an Axe, I was so happy for brief seconds as I though the Axe would chop into the annoying kids head, but nope..nadda, and the part where they stab the killer in the stomach and worms fall out but nothing comes of it? I tried my best to describe to you this movie, I think it would be best to avoid it, unless you just need to see all of Lucio's work. It has too many plot holes, where it gets to the point of utter madness on screen as you see nothing makes sense. What was the deal with all of the close ups of the characters eyes, trying to communicate with each other, it was done a lot but never given a clear purpose, just confusion.
I give this movie *1/2 out ****.