MovieChat Forums > Quella villa accanto al cimitero (1984) Discussion > Nobody behaves like a human being (SPOIL...

Nobody behaves like a human being (SPOILERS)


One of the strangest things about Fulci's movies is how the characters don't react to certain situations like a normal human being would, especially their survival instincts. In "Zombi 2", people just stand there while zombies walk slowly towards them and they are eventually bitten and killed (or their eyeballs are poked out). In "House By The Cemetery", the real estate lady doesn't even try and fight back or grab the fire poker or deflect it with her hands. You'd think after the first puncture, she wouldn't want the second one to happen at all, but no, she just sort of...lays there with her arms stiffly at her sides and makes noises? Later, Dr. Freudstein is just standing there doing nothing and the family doesn't even try and run past him to escape.

Also, Bob hears Ann screaming bloody murder in the cellar and instead of reacting, he just sort of wanders around collecting toys before going down to "help" her. Then later Bob is in the cellar screaming (poetic justice!) and his mother is also screaming and trying to open the cellar door, and the father wanders onto this scene and starts slowwwwwwwwwwwly walking toward the sounds. Can you imagine hearing your wife and child screaming and instead of rushing in to see what was wrong, instead you creep slowly through the living room like that?

I know the films aren't supposed to be realistic, but it's hard to relate to the victims because of this. I can overlook it in "Zombi 2", but for some reason "House By The Cemetery" is so full of it that it annoys me.

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Agree completely. Not sure if it was bad acting or just really poor staging by the director.

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Both

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yep, felt the same way about many of the scenes you mentioned. no one tries to defend themselves from freudstein in any realistic way at all. he's injured and shuffling verrrry slowwwwllly up the stairs and the mom just keeps trying to open the lid of the tomb instead of just kicking freudstein back down the stairs. or when the bat is on dude's hand he just runs around the house with it on his hand instead of naturally swinging your arm out wildly and/or trying to smash it against the wall.

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I think people not acting like normal people is a staple of bad to okay horror movies. Or even bad movies in general.

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I agree completely. I just posted the same thing before reading your post. Total dumbness from the director.

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I agree I just saw this movie for the first time ever today and it was just idiotic.

I liked the suspense buildup and I really enjoyed the actress that played the mom because she did a really good job.

However that being said this was atrociously written and I normally like Fulchi movies as well as Argento movies.

It also didn't help that the babysitter was extremely weird and they never really explained why .

The actor that played Bob and the dubbing behind it was also one of the worst acting I've ever heard he sounded unnatural and incredibly irritating .

That ending also ? Phew it made absolutely no sense whatsoever and the kid acted like what happened to his parents didn't matter anymore.

That little girl was also atrocious especially the parts where she would keep saying don't go in the house ....in a tiny little voice ...when Bob the knob was far away at that point.

Fulchi was a genius when it came to horror but unfortunately despite some good acting and genuine suspense this movie simply was not one of his better creations.

The way the parents reacted near the end of the movie was indeed ridiculous instead of running up the stairs one chose to stab the killer and just stand there getting himself killed in the process.

The other instead of running up the stairs with her son chose to climb up some ladder and attempt to break a cement structure above her head so they could crawl out of it.


Then to top off this utter stupidity instead of kicking the slow moving killer she allows the killer to grab her legs and drag her down the ladder not even making an effort to get loose being killed in the killer doing so .

This movie was more like a comedy then a horror movie half the time .

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Ugh! I'm tired of people calling Fulci a genius. Most of the fk ups in his films is directly attributed to him.





My Vote history: http://www.imdb.com/user/ur1914996/ratings

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I think Fulci, like Argento, was big on 'dream' logic. Instead of a logical progression of events, naturalistic reactions etc, all his films are just 'stuff happens'. Even the actors seem to have trouble describing what's going on and why at any given moment, if you can bring yourself to listen to the dvd commentaries. I've found 2 or 3 beers help no end when watching movies like this.

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