"Read the fine print, you may have just mortgaged… your life!" when you buy Blue Underground's limited edition three-disc Blu-ray of Lucio Fulci's HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY.

Norman Boyle (Paolo Malco, THE SCORPION WITH TWO TAILS), along with his psychologically fragile wife Lucy (Catriona MacColl, CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD) and imaginative son Bob (Giovanni Frezza, A BLADE IN THE DARK), leaves New York for the sleepy New England town of New Whitby to continue the research of a colleague who murdered his mistress and then hanged himself. They have rented the creaky Oaks Mansion, with its mysterious locked basement, a tombstone in the middle of the living room floor, and a slinky babysitter Anne (Ania Pieroni, INFERNO) who job description also includes mopping up puddles of blood and making coffee. Norman discovers his late colleague's research took a tangential turn into the life of the house's previous resident, one Dr. Jacob Tess Freudstein who was expelled from the medical community for his experiments in cell regeneration. Hmm, could this have anything to do with the tendency of visitors to the house to mysterious disappear? Lucy is hearing noises and little Bob has a seemingly imaginary friend in Mae (Silvia Collatina, MURDER ROCK) who keeps warning him that he and his parents should leave the house.

The final entry in Lucio Fulci's trio of gothic gore horror films following CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD and THE BEYOND, HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY is the most eerily poetic of the films, citing Henry James in a phony end quote (Fulci did the same thing with Nathaniel Hawthorne for THE HOUSE OF CLOCKS) even though the menace here is much more corporeal than that of "The Turn of the Screw" and there is certainly no ambiguity as to whether it is all in the mother's mind (even though she may be taking hallucination-inducing pills prescribed by her "baker" according to the English dubbing). While there seems to the little to nothing to do in New Whitby, the adults manage not to be around when characters are gorily skewered in their living room, decapitated in their kitchen, and the like, but there is a strange ambiguity to the plotting that one is not sure is intended or just rushed scripting as to the motives of Anne and whether Norman has been to the town before or may even be a reincarnation of a previous victim (while THE SHINING may have had an influence on the film, the scenes between Bob and Mae bring more to mind Disney's made-for-TV kiddie horror film CHILD OF GLASS). The cinematography of Sergio Salvati (WAX MASK) takes its cue from THE BEYOND and smooths over the abrupt cutting of Vincenzo Tomassi (DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING) and the disjointed narrative with sinuous camera moves and crane shots. The score, on the other hand, goes against the grain with some eerily melodic takes by Walter Rizzati (1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS) and some more bombastic cues by Alexander Blonksteiner (CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE). Even if all the pieces do not fit together in the end, HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY has the most satisfying ending of Fulci's trilogy (and possibly his entire oeuvre). Dagmar Lassander (BLACK EMANUELLE 2) is the estate agent, and CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD's Carlo de Mejo and Daniela Doria (gorily mistreated as usual for her Fulci work) also pop up again. A few years later, fellow Italian horror director Umberto Lenzi and Joe D'Amato's Filmirage crew hoofed it to New England to shoot GHOSTHOUSE in the same striking haunted house location (and utilized more of the real interiors).

Released theatrically in the United States by Almi Pictures in a version that ran seventy-eight minutes, retaining the unrated gore but shuffling around some scenes and trimming for pacing – in addition to replacing the title music with a string and bass library track – HOUSE BY THE CEMETRY was released to VHS by Vestron Video in the format in a panned-and-scanned transfer while the widescreen uncut version was available to determined viewers from Japan as a Daiei VHS and laserdisc (with a gore-geous gatefold sleeve). In 1998, Dutch company EC Entertainment put out an NTSC widescreen laserdisc marketed for export without any Dutch subtitles, and that became the source for various bootleg DVD editions like Diamond Entertainment's widely-available edition (and various Brentwood multi-film sets). An anamorphic widescreen disc followed quickly from Anchor Bay in 2001 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 surround track that spread the sound design and music to the rear channels (this disc was directly ported by Blue Underground for their 2007 DVD). That track was ported over to Blue Underground's 2011 Blu-ray which featured one of the better transfers from the "scanner noise" period with only a slight yellow cast over the entire image. Arrow Video utilized the same master for their 2012 Blu-ray which featured a different set of extras from the ones ported over to this new edition.

Blue Underground's new 4K-mastered 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray amazes in detail but there are some changes that will garner (not undeserved) controversy. Several of the night exteriors and interiors now have a more pronounced blue tinge that was not evident in previous video and digital transfers and seems revisionary, noticeable immediately on the opening close-up of a tombstone and now dotting the highlights in the interior lighting, but looking most unnatural in the more subtle cast of daylight through window shots. This may not bother those new to the film but it may make or break the release for fans for whom the earlier editions are more than serviceable. The 2.0 track has been replaced with an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that once again spreads the music and effects but never goes to the gimmicky extremes of the 5.1 track for THE BEYOND. DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 tracks are available in English and Italian, and there are optional English subtitles for the Italian track, English SDH subtitles for the English track, as well as French and Spanish subtitles.

The new edition includes an audio commentary by film historian Troy Howarth in which he muses on the film's tendency to spill over from the poetic into the gruesome, the differences between the original story and the finished film (drawing on the research of Roberto Curti and his indispensable three-volume ITALIAN GOTHIC HORROR FILMS), the film's nods to THE SHINING and literary sources, production anecdotes drawing from the earlier extras produced for the film's previous DVD/Blu-ray editions as well as his own interviews with some of the surviving Fulci cast and crew, suggestions that Fulci cut back on some of the onscreen gore, comparisons to Fulci's other Italian gothics of the period, as well as pointing out that once sight gag shot may not simply be facetious but a nod to his origins as a director of comedies. Disc one also includes the film's international theatrical trailer (3:22), U.S. theatrical trailer (1:48) and TV Spot (0:32) both narrated by Brother Theodore, and the "Bat Attack Aftermath" deleted scene (1:01) previously included as an Easter Egg on the Anchor Bay disc. The preface text states that no audio is available for the bit found on the negative, but it has been pointed out online that the missing dialogue is present in the international theatrical trailer. While it may not have been right to "restore" the scene to the feature presentation, it might have been nice to have the dialogue restored to the deleted scene. The disc also includes a new step-through poster and still gallery as well as the earlier Blu-ray's gallery.

Disc two includes all of the interviews from the earlier Blue Underground disc including "Meet the Boyles" (14:17), an interview with actors MacColl and Malco. Both reflect on Fulci's temperament, charges of misogyny, and working with the child actors. MacColl also recalls the bat scene while Malco discusses his death scene. In "Children of the Night" (12:18), former child actors Frezza and Collatina also recall their experiences. Frezza is well aware of the jokes about his English-dubbed performance and hanging around the effects workshop during the shoot while Collatina recalls doubling for Freudstein's hand during the murders and being fascinated with the shooting of the death scenes as a child. In "Tales of Laura Gittleson" (8:56), actress Lassander reflects on both of her Fulci appearances, recalling that she got stopped by customs while traveling to England for THE BLACK CAT location shoot because the production asked her to carry a mummified cat prop in her luggage. In "My Time With Terror" (9:21), actor De Mejo recalls studying acting in New York before going to Italy where he made his debut in Pier Paolo Pasolini's TEOREMA before the start of his horror career with Armando Crispino's THE ETRUSCAN KILLS AGAIN, discussing CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD in which he had a larger role as well as his Bruno Mattei/Claudio Fragassso credits.

"A Haunted House Story" (14:07) is an interview with co-writers Dardano Sacchetti (DEMONS) and Elisa Briganti (HANDS OF STEEL). Briganti recalls coming up with the story and its childlike perspective from her interest in child psychology, starting with the primal fears of cellars and dark places, while Sacchetti notes the influence of childhood ghost stories and a "courage test" requiring him to walk in a graveyard at night as a child (possibly also an influence on his screenplay for Lamberto Bava's A BLADE IN THE DARK which opens with a courage test for Frezza involving a dark cellar). "House Quake" (14:46) is a new interview with co-writer Giorgio Mariuzzo (AENIGMA) in which he notes that he focused on plot and character development while Sacchetti developed the horror and action scenes, with Fulci going to Mariuzzo to rework Sacchetti material he found dissatisfactory (Fulci and Sacchetti fell out shortly after this film). In "To Build a Better Death Trap" (21:32), cinematographer Sergio, special make-up effects artist Maurizio Trani (DR. BUTCHER M.D.), special effects artist Gino De Rossi (THE GREAT ALLIGATOR), and actor Giovanni De Nava (MURDER-ROCK) focus specifically on the shooting of the effects set-pieces including all of the wasted film trying to work out which angles to shoot the scene of a knife going through Daniela Doria's head (with de Rossi demonstrating the effects rig), and Trani recalling the development of Freudstein's look as an ongoing work throughout the shoot and De Nava recalling tearing off the make-up to make his curtain call in the evenings. They also note that some of Lassander's death was indeed cut from film including an eye impalement (the aftermath of which is seen).