Four of the Apocalypse (1975)

As promised, I am finally getting around to reviewing this movie...

Four  of the Apocalypse, a spaghetti western by Lucio Fulci and based on two short stories by Bret Harte, The Luck of Roaring Camp and The Outcasts of Poker Flat. who would later go on to make The Beyond, City of the Living Dead, and The House by the Cemetary. Most of his movies very violent, and this one is no exception. If you decide to watch this movie, it's less a movie with a plot, than a movie about a series of depraved things happening to bad people.
 
Stubby Preston, a gambler finds himself tossed in local jail soon after arriving in town. There he meet up with the pregnant prostitute Bunny O'Neil, town drunk Clem and madman Bud. They don't remain in jail long, as vigilantes descend on the town and kill everyone but them. The four of them escape into the Utah wilderness where they run into the gun toting bandit Chaco. Despite the fact that he apparently shoots everything he sees, they welcome him into their band at first.

They have such a "fun" time with Chaco... he shoots a huge pile of small game for them to eat, he saves them from other marauding bandits, forces them to watch as he tortures aforementioned marauding bandits, forces them to take hallucinogens, rapes Bunny while the others are forced to watch, shoots, Clem in the leg, and steals Stubby's razor before leaving them in the desert without any supplies. If the other four are metaphorically the four horsemen of the apocalypse, then Chaco must be Satan himself.

Never trust a homicidal madman, kiddies.

The Utah desert is such a small place when forced to share it with Chaco. Fortunately Chaco is apparently easily distracted and looses interest in them when he stumbles across a band of Mormons to shoot. Not since Yosemite Sam, has the wild west seen a villain so evil. While cradling the corpse of a child randomly murdered by Chaco, Stubby swears that he will kill Chaco. The story has given us no indication thus far, however that he can actually pull that off...

During a torrential rainstorm, they take refuge in an abandoned mining town and wonder aloud why it was abandoned. I know why it was abandoned, it's because it never stops raining there! Seriously did nobody Fulci that it rainstorms out in the desert last for something like five minutes? Despite being rained in, the four of them are happy there, Stubby and Bunny are happy because they get to lay around naked, Clem is happy because he dies and no longer has to be in this movie, and Bud is really happy because he gets to run around the cemetery talking to the dead people and because he gets to feed Clem's left butt-cheek to Stubby and Bunny... Wait, what?!

So it's time for Stubby and Bunny to leave Bud behind with his dead people and move on. They soon run into a traveling minister, who happens to be an old friend of Stubby. Now, we all know that some sort of misfortune will befall the minister just because of his association with him. But what sort of misfortune will that be, exactly?

They end up in the snowy town of Alderville. It's located high in the mountains and is populated solely by men for some reason. It is here that Bunny goes into labor. The whole town gather around while Bunny gives birth and promptly dies, (thus returning Alderville to it's previous all male population). The men of Alderville get together and decide to name the boy "Lucky".

So Stubby leaves Lucky, the minister, and the men of Alderville behind and returns to the road armed with a bottle of whiskey and a gun given to him as a going away present. He rides off into the desert with the soundtrack playing a 70s folk rock tune when he stumbles onto Chaco and his gang sleeping in a barn. Stubby shoots them all, taking his sweet time with Chaco. And he got his lucky razor back.

The House by the Cemetery (1981)

A New Yorker, Norman moves his wife and son, Bob into a creepy, run down New England mansion in order to continue his research into the 19th century surgeon Dr Freudstein who's experiments led to him losing his medical license and being banned from the medical profession for life.

Dr Freudstein in his later years.

...And now would be a good time to mention that the creepy run down New England mansion the family moves into is the former home of Doctor Freudstein. And that Norman is actually continuing the research of a colleague of his Dr. Peterson who committed suicide while researching Dr Freudstein experiments. And that there is a history of deaths and disappearances in this house. And that Bob has an "imaginary" friend who tells him to leave the house. And that the basement door is strangely sealed shut. And that Dr. Boyle discovers that Dr Freudstein was never actually buried in the cemetery records say he was...  needless to say, if you're familiar at all with the horror genre you should be able to pretty much piece the whole movie together from that. Still this is a really fun and creepy movie.

Bob will save his family from the evil thing in the basement.

This is movie number three in legendary Italian horror director, Lucio Fulci's unofficial Gates of Hell trilogy. Consisting of this movie as well as The City of the Living Dead (1980) and The Beyond (1980). They're not a trilogy in the sense that they share a common continuity, but they are a trilogy in the thematic sense, each of them revolve around a gateway to Hell (these aren't figurative gateways either). And all three of them are super creepy.

If you call yourself a horror fan at all, this one is a must see (as well as much of the rest of Fulci's work, but that's probably a subject for another article).

The House by the Cemetery (Imdb)