I am a big fan of campy "so bad, it's good" films, but this is just bad. The basic plot is a couple and their son named Bob (who calls a kid Bob?) move in to a house and the house has a killer/monster in the basement.
The film is filled with plot holes and parts that just don't make any sense. It has no suspense at all and frustrated me with its idiotic characters.
The movie begins with a couple being murdered in the house for no reason and it never comes up again. Some months later, the family move to the house. Norman's (the father) now deceased colleague lived there, but he had to move out when he murdered his mistress and then killed himself. Norman has the unenviable task of finding out what drove his old work mate to commit such actions, why living in the house will help, i do not know. The house was once owned by the Freudstein family, i like to think that they were a family of psychiatrists by day and mad scientists by night. Well Bob begins to see and speak with Mae Freudstein, a young girl around the same age as Bob, the only problem is that Mae is dead and Bob seems to be speaking to a ghost. Dr. Freudstein is the monster in the basement. I'm not sure what he is supposed to be, a zombie of some sort....maybe.
So nothing happens for a while, they move in and a woman appears from nowhere and introduces herself as the babysitter. The family just accept this with no questions, not even a CRB check.
In the basement a really cheap looking bat attacks Norman and his wife Lucy by sitting on the head of Lucy and resting on the hand of Noman, this makes them go crazy, screaming and shouting. Norman runs up the basement stairs and in to the kitchen, he runs past his son who asks what is wrong? He has just been stood at the top of the stairs, he could clearly hear his parents screaming and shouting, yet he seemed shocked to see his dad run past him.
So all of this scares them and they want to move out. While at the hospital, a woman from the estate agents arrives at the house with news. Nobody is home, so she just walks in to the house and has a look round. She walks over a tombstone on the floor and it breaks. That is one cheap tombstone to completely split open because a person walked over it. Her legs gets stuck in the gap and in walks zombie Freudstein to kill her with a fire poker.
The next day, the baby sitter is cleaning up all the blood from the floor. Lucy walks in and speaks with her about a whole load of nothing and then leaves, not before a very odd close up camera shot of each actors eyes. I don't know why.
Lucy never asks why the floor is covered in blood. Totally normal apparently.
Norman informs Lucy that he found out that Freudstein was a surgeon. He then tells her that he will be traveling back to New York for more research on Dr. Freudstein, leaving his wife and child in the creepy house they all desperately wanted to leave 5 minutes ago.
Anne, the baby sitter, goes in to the basement to look for Bob, big surprise, Bob isn't in the basement. In the creepy dark basement, Anne slowly walks down the stairs, repeatedly asking the odd looking figure lurking in the dark if he is Bob. I would assume, even with the bad lighting, you could see that a zombie the size of a grown man, was not a small child. So Anne gets her head cut off for her trouble. My main problem with this scene was that the film had kind of established that Anne was somehow working with the zombie Freudstein as she was trying to cover up the blood he had left and she repeatedly gave evil stares to people with the help of close up shots of her eyes. No, she just gets killed for no real reason and all the previous build was pointless.
My other issue with this scene is the kid. He is an awful actor, really awful. He also looks like a mutilated cod. Anne is almost knocking down the basement door, screaming for help, what does little Bob do? He walks as slow as possible, taking time to get his toy gun. You could argue that he was just being a kid and turning it in to a game, but she was screaming for her life, i think even a kid could tell she was genuinely in danger.
Adding to the bad acting and his weird face is the fact the his voice was dubbed by an adult, not a child. So his voice is extra awful, as it's an adult trying to sound like a child.
Bob finally gets to Anne but it's too late and he is mentally scarred when he is witness to her head falling down the stairs. His mother comes home and Bob informs her of his afternoon fun. She doesn't believe him and decides to take him in to the basement to prove it didn't happen, Bob then shouts "Anne, mom says you aren't really dead?! Is that true!??!". You just saw her head roll down the stairs, either your baby sitter has a very twisted sense of humour or yes, she's dead.
Anyway, i really want to wrap this up because my head is hurting thinking about this film for so long.
Bob gets locked in the basement and zombie guy starts to walk towards him. He starts pounding on the door and screaming for his mother. She, just like Bob, walks as slow as she can, to the basement door. I would safely bet on the fact, that if most mothers heard their son screaming for help, they would run faster then they had ever ran before.
She can't open the door because she's an idiot. The father arrives and he can't open it either because he too, is an idiot. They eventually all end up in the basement. Norman stabs zombie Freudstein and a ton of spaghetti spews out, although i think it's supposed to be maggots. Norman decides to stand and watch, doing nothing, and then he gets his throat torn out. Again, idiot.
Lucy spots a crack in the ceiling and takes Bob up a conveniently placed staircase. It is revealed that the crack is infact the crack in the floor tombstone made earlier in the film. Lucy tried to push the stone up, or apart, i'm not sure. She fails and is killed. Then little ghost girl shows up and pulls the stone back, lifting Bob through the gap. A grown woman couldn't push it apart, but a little girl could?! I know she's a ghost, but she isn't the ghost of Hercules. Also, before the girl rescues Bob, he manages to get his whole head through the crack, yet the woman earlier couldn't pull her leg out.
Bob then walks off with ghost girl and becomes a ghost or some shit.
As i said before, i love cheap and cheesy horror, but this is just bad. Nothing makes any sense, the acting is below average and the characters are complete idiots.
I'm aware that Lucio Fulci has a cult fan base and that some people enjoy the crappiness of his work. I even hear that some of his other films are actually rather good. I'm sure at some point in the future, when i have recieved counselling, i will check out his other films, but this, well i thought it was terrible.
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