It's a Creep-Off! Bob vs. Mae (The House by the Cemetery)

The House by the Cemetery is a crazy, gory Lucio Fulci flick that features two of the creepiest kids from the 80's Horror Scene: Giovanni Frezza and Silvia Collatina. Neither of their characters are particularly evil in the movie, and neither of them kill anybody or anything, but that doesn't make either of them any less unsettling.

It is really odd though to have more than one creepy kid in a Horror movie, because that doesn't usually happen unless they're killing people together or something.

So which one is creepier? Let's find out!

*Spoilers for The House by the Cemetery follow, but seeing that it's been 30+ years since the movie came out, spoilers be damned!

Mae (Silvia Collatina) is a ginger ghost who spends the entire movie trying to warn a clueless kid about the dangers of the house that he and his family are moving into, as well as trying to save his life whenever she can. Also, her father is the thing in the basement who wants to kill them all.

Sure she's unsettling to look at, and if we ever saw her skulking around a graveyard, staring at us, we'd probably shit ourselves or have a stroke, but all she was really trying to do was help Bob and his family stay alive. Right? It doesn't really help matters that she's followed around throughout the movie by a creepy older woman who calls her name in a slow, unsettling way, telling her "Mae, it's time to go home!" over and over again.

• Is a ginger.
• Is a ghost.
• Is the daughter of Dr. Freudstein.
• Tries to warn Bob to stay away from Oak Manor, because she knows he and his family will die if they come to live there.
• Lures Bob into an eternal after-life of un-death and sadness.

Bob (Giovanni Frezza) is a gormless little whiner that not only ignores all of Mae's warnings, but spends the entire movie off in some sort of delusional playland, oblivious to anything that's going on around him. I know he's a kid and all, and kids are supposed to be clueless about a lot of things, but aren't they also supposed to be naturally scared of things like dark basements, graveyards, ghosts, and bats that are trying to rip their father's hand to shreds?

At one point, when Bob hears his mother screaming bloody murder for him to come and help her, he looks around, talks to his doll, grabs a toy gun, and then slowly saunters his little ass to where she is... making us wonder if maybe he didn't really want to get there in time to help his mom escape the clutches of the evil thing that lives in the basement.

And his voice. Don't even get us started on how hearing his voice made us want to eat a bullet. Or five.

• Plays with dolls.
• Whines in his sleep.
• Has the worst kid voice ever.
• Is gormless.
• Might be retarded. 
• Talks to pictures.

Mae.

Even though Bob is completely terrifying in his own way, Mae edges him out as far as overall creepiness goes. She's dead, she's got a creepier gaze, and even though she did it for his own good, she still lured him into a limbo between life and death, which is almost like killing him herself.

No matter who won this little Creep-Off though, both of these creepy kids are nightmare-worthy, so we all lose. 

Read our review of The House by the Cemetery HERE.

YES, BOB, YOU PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE WON.

31 Days of Creepy Kids, Day 15... it's a Creep-Off!

To mark the half way point in our 31 Days of Creepy Kids, we're having us a good old fashioned Creep-Off! Think of it as a cage match between two creepy kids, only no one really wins... especially not us.

Nicoletta Elmi vs. Giovanni Frezza

It was impossible to be a fan of Italian Horror movies of the 70's and 80's without seeing both of these little whelps all over the place. (For the record they're not both girls; the blonde kid is a boy, who just happens to be pretty enough to be a girl. Oddly enough, that came into play in one of his movies...)

The ginger is Nicoletta Elmi. This cute kid with a creepy demeanor was all over the Giallo world in the 70's; if you haven't seen the Argento classic, Deep Red (1975), or the Lamberto Bava gem, Demons (1985), then you really need to question yourself as a Horror fan. You're also missing 2 of Nicoletta's best roles.

Shoulda killed her when you had your chance, dummy.

Whether being murdered, possessed by Ghosts and Demons, or just flat out stabbing someone to death, Nicoletta Elmi has always had an eerie presence about her. She even made drinking Tang look creepy. Even in movies where she died horribly, we're convinced that she was the killer, and managed to kill herself off just to mess with our minds. It's too bad she stopped acting in the 80's (Demons was her last film) to become a Doctor. It's got to be unnerving to be sitting in an exam room, and have the chick from Demons come in and poke you with needles. I'm just sayin'.

Even though she grew up to be a hottie, we could never trust her with needles. Not ever!

The blonde kid, the one pretty enough to be a girl, is Giovanni Frezza. The little tyke made his mark on Italian Horror in the 80's, and just like Nicoletta Elmi, his last movie was Demons as well. Coincidence? I don't know. Methinks there's something odd about 2 of the creepiest and most iconic kids in Italian Horror Cinema history both ending their careers in the same movie, which just so happened to be about Demons...

Looks like they're both mad at Dad...

Anywho, Lil' Gio (that was his street name) was the go-to kid in Fulci and Bava (Lamberto) films in the 80's. Much like Nicoletta Elmi, he had a way of just creeping people out by being in the room... and staring at them... and smiling... or sitting in an empty field with a partially dismembered doll... or dressing like a girl... or killing... or letting scorpions run around in his hair... Seriously though, what in the hell is he doing with that doll?!?

Scream all ya want kid, we're not falling for your clever ruse!

 

There's a reason that the likes of Bava (both of them), Fulci, and Argento made use of these kids in their films, over and over again; they were damned good at creeping audiences out. Nicoletta and Giovanni came, creeped, and went, both moving on to normal jobs that didn't involve children and murder.

So who wins the Creep-Off? Not to sound indecisive or anything, but it's a tie. You try to pick which one you'd rather be stuck in an abandoned old mansion with... you can't, can you? I'd honestly rather be trapped in a car by Cujo, than have to deal with either of these little bastards one on one.