Purely Joyful Movie!

Fantastic!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Let me establish my credits. I am by no means anti-Fulci. I adore the man, and I love his films. Even his lesser trash like House of Clocks and Aenigma appeal to me. I sorely regret his premature death from diabetes.That said, there is truth in the statement that "In Fulci's movies, the scenes that are unwatchable for being too gory are separated by scenes that are unwatchable for being too artsy." The problem with the awesomely named "Sweet House of Horror" is that it includes Fulci's "artsy" bent (though without his usual skill) but leaves entirely off his "gory" tendencies (admittedly, in a TV movie he was probably shackled to some extent).M. R. James once explained that for a ghost story to be good, it had to include three things. First, the story had to take place somewhere reasonable, so the reader could imagine himself present. Second, the story should not use the psychic jargon of the moment, which spoils horror and turns it into technical chat. Third, the ghost should be malign - a friendly ghost doesn't frighten.Sweet House of Horrors fails on all three counts. First, the tale is in a huge old mansion inhabited by two of those cute Italian blond children hampered only by a congenital inability to act. What is it with Italian directors? Can they not tell when a kid can't act? And why are they almost always blondies? I know for a fact that Italy has some brunettes. The kids' evil aunt and uncle plot to murder them to seize the family inheritance for their own. The plot makes no real sense, because the aunt and uncle are the kids' guardians, so presumably they have access to the money already. Plus, as guardians, how hard would it be to pull off a boat accident or whatever? But no other Italian film-maker worth his salt cared about logic, so let's move on.The second topic - don't mess with psychic jargon, is violated again and again. We get all sorts of "rules" and "vibrations" and scenes of the parents appearing. But here the Italian tendency to ignore logic serves the movie well, since the jargon conflicts with itself and is impossible to make heads or tails of, so it really doesn't violate James' rule all that strongly.The third topic is where the movie really falls down. The ghosts are the kids' parents, whose only goal is to protect them from the evil relatives. We learn this very early in the movie, and from then on we are completely without any terror at any moment. When the ghosts appear, we know it is only to pick on the evil aunt and uncle, whom we hate already. The only moments of tension are when auntie (or uncle) try to harm the kids, in a normal, physical fashion (like poisoning them). But these moments aren't too bad, because we know the ghosts will save the kids, and the move has no gore or strong scenes anyway.This last is especially appalling given Fulci's previous track record in being perfectly willing to endanger or even kill kids - this added a lot of suspense, shock, and horror to his previous movies. Remember the zombie girl in The Beyond? Or the threatened little boys in House by the Cemetery or City of the Walking Dead? Hell, Fulci wiped out a whole passel of kids in Don't Torture A Duckling. Those films were solid, scary, masterworks. But the limpwristed Hollywood sensibility in Sweet House of Horror keeps us from being scared, just as we know in any Hollywood movie that no kid is ever going to be harmed, we know it here.The movie is also not saved by Fulci's normal knack for scene-setting. His skill in putting together an image displayed in Massacre Time or Zombi is just completely absent. The movie has a pallid washed-out fuzzy look that just enervates every single moment. It is tedious to get through.I literally would recommend EVERY other Fulci movie above this one. Even such turds as Demonia and Conquest. At least those movies had a couple of good moments. Sweet House of Horror has none.

A couple, Charles and Marcia, adopt two tragically orphaned children. The new family moves into the dead parents' beautiful old home and is haunted by strange sounds. Soon, the couple is forced to sell the place and take the kids away, but the house is dead against letting them leave. Learn the blood-curdling truth about the parents' deaths and the shocking secret behind the possessed "Sweet House of Horrors". Direct by horror maestro Lucio Fulci, this one is really not good one, but you can check it out if you are a true Fulci's fun. About a two children which after they're parents are brutally murder have to go to fosters parents. Story is really not bad but somehow it doesn't work this time for Mr. Fulci.

Normally, I wouldn't expect anything from a made for TV Italian horror flick; but this one was directed by the great Lucio Fulci, and his first entry in the House tetralogy (a collaboration with Umberto Lenzi), House of Clocks, was a nice little film and so my expectations went up for this one. However, it has to be said that The Sweet House of Horrors is one of Fulci's very worst efforts, as the only really striking thing about it is a pair of irritating kids who, combined, rival the awful Giovanni Frezza in Fulci's House by the Cemetery for sheer irritation. The plot focuses on a house where a couple were murdered. However, it's not the end of the line for them as the dead people return to get revenge for their murder, protect their kids who are still living in the house, and to prevent the house from being sold. The way that the film plods out is almost completely devoid of interesting scenes, and strangely Fulci puts the focus on the kids and it makes the film seems almost childlike. The gore that Fulci is famous for only really appears in one sequence, and it's not even that good as it just feels out of place in the context of the film. Fulci made some brilliant horror films over his vast career; but this isn't one of them. Not recommended.

A couple is killed in an extremely sadistic way, but their souls return to their two orphaned children to caress them, to take revenge on the killer and to mock the relatives who want to sell the house and the one who wants to buy it respectively. Sounds odd for a Fulci movie, doesn't it?And it really is kind of odd. It starts like a typical Fulci-gorefest with the murder scene which has to be seen to be believed, especially when one considers this one was made for TV. But after this unbelievably violent prologue, the whole thing turns into a fairy tale. There are even scenes that could come right out of a typical Italian slapstick comedy! So, "La Dolce Casa degli Orrori" is an extremely strange mix of genres, and most of the special effects are very cheesy, although the murder scene is outrageously disgusting.It's not bad, but by far inferior to Fulci's other film in the four part TV-series Houses of Doom, "La Casa nel Tempo", which is terrific (the other two are by Umberto Lenzi and called "La Casa delle Anime Erranti" and "La Casa dei Sortilegi").