FF2011: 'The House by the Cemetery'

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The House by the Cemetery: Special Mondo print for Fantastic Fest 2011

You never know who you might bump into at Fantastic Fest, but there was a full-blown holy schnikes moment at last night's screening of Lucio Fulci's 1981 gorefest The House by the Cemetery: An unexpected appearance by William Lustig.

To the FF2011 crowd, he is best known as the director of the Maniac Cop series and the wholly unrelated psycho-classic Maniac (the soundtrack for which, coincidentally, will be the first release through poster masters Mondo's new record label.) However, these days he is busy releasing cult classics on Blu-Ray through his Blue Underground imprint. That was why the Alamo Drafthouse had access to Fulci's legendary entry into the "there's something nasty in the cellar" genre, and how they will be showing a pristine transfer of the Iatalian auteur's 1979 undead versus shark epic Zombie tonight.

How did Lustig get the new 2K digital transfers looking so lush? He actually used the original negatives. "It is the primo element that you can transfer from," he said. Not only did Lustig's busy, bloody elves repair all the scratches and imperfections, but they went so far as to track down Sergio Salvati, Fulci's long-time cinematographer. Lustig said, "We brought him in to a lab in Rome and he supervised the color correction. So this movie probably looks better than when they first made the film."

The House by the Cemetery will be shown as part of Fantastic Fest on Sept. 26. Zombie screens Sept. 23 and 28. All screenings 11.59pm at the Alamo South Lamar. Both films are also getting limited edition poster runs through the maniacs at Mondo (click on the image above to see the full gallery.)