Starring:Christopher George, Catriona MacColl, Carlo De Mejo, Antonella Interlenghi, Giovanni Lombardo Radice.
Director: Lucio Fulci.
I've decided that it's Lucio Fulci day! Woo! There's nothing quite like watching movies with no real functional narrative or plot to speak of, just weird gonzo effects and gore. That said, I've always had a soft spot for Italian horror(for the most part, anyway) and figured it was about time I rocked these.
When I die, someone make sure to carve "THE SOUL THAT PINES FOR ETERNITY SHALL OUTSPAN DEATH. YOU DWELLER OF THE TWILIGHT VOICE COME DUNWICH" on my tombstone. Well, not just someone: whoever is the survivor of the final six who compete for my horror collection and the two hundred bucks in my bank account ala The Legacy. It's on you. Unfortunately, whoever actually reads the tombstone will likely just think I'm talking about Twilight.
I have no idea how I'm going to keep up or write an actual structured write-up of this film. How does one describe what you see in a Fulci film? Also, there's so much...random. I mean, two minutes in and there's a Priest committing suicide while being watched by a Psychic who then dies of shock...actually, the close-up of the Psychic with the hanging Priest in her eye was actually a neat visual...and then a Zombie comes out.
Fulci definitely seems to like eyes. It's a big motif. The older psychic has had, like, six close-ups of her eyes in five minutes. It's certainly not bad-I always do enjoy seeing style choices with film-makes...she stares directly at the camera, says "horrendous things are happening" and then we cut to a dude with a blow-up sex doll. His fun is spoiled by a worm-covered corpse. I don't think that dude is ever going to have an erection again. I think that probably does cover "horrendous things."
I don't think I really know what's happening in this movie. There's evil winds and breaking mirrors, then the dead psychic turns out to be not so dead but still in her coffin and a reporter is snooping around for no real reason...luckily for the poor psychic, the reporter is there to rescue her...by nearly killing her again by throwing a pick-axe into the coffin near her head. Dude, you suck at rescuing.
Jesus, that was a mouthful. The gates of hell are open in Dunwich and on Monday it's Al Saints Day and the night of the dead will start there and if the gates are still open the dead will be unable to rest and we must get those gates shut! Spoken directly to the camera. She should have added "did you get all that?"
The sex doll dude is a coward who leaves a Woman to die. This isn't shocking. Then the now Undead Priest rubs worms in her face. Lots of worms in this movie.
Fulci knows how to craft some really fun sequences. Lots of goop and fluids. A couple is having the most stereotypical horror scene ever-in the car, making out, she's freaked out by the location and he's like "hey, baby, there ain't no spooky stuff"-and then the Priest shows up and stares her down. Suddenly there's blood coming from her eyes, and spittle followed by goop followed by organs just spilling out of her mouth. It's actually pretty gross and unsettling, and I'm really not squeamish. Then the boyfriend gets scalped.
All plot points are delivered directly into the camera. It's kind of awesome.
Series of weird disappearances and murders...must be the town pervert. Obviously Bob is not a great guy-the casual(?!) references to his attempted rapes and molestations prove that-but they're still very different crimes. But yeah, Bob is giving us perverts a bad name.
Horror movie universes are so frequently filled with really shitty people. They exist in the real world, obviously, but...there's just a frightening regularity to their proliferation in the movie world. The Mortician is swiping jewelry from the dead, there's Bob...these movies just have a lot of not-so-nice guys everywhere. It's like the Child's Play universe, where everyone is bizarrely hateful towards dolls.
The music in Fulci films is just so cool and catchy. I could groove out to this all day.
This movie literally requires no establishment of characters or motivations at all. That girl that Bob left behind to die had no real introduction, but she's arguably become the most important character by dying. She's like Laura Palmer all of a sudden. Then they introduce a Woman painting a Rhino who hears a noise, calls the Doctor, shrieks about going crazy and says her name is Sandra and now she's apparently an important character. Or maybe she isn't. She might die in six minutes, I have no idea. It's a Fulci movie.
Wow, Doc, way to be sexist: "You're suffering from a serious neurosis, just like 70% of the Females in this country." He does follow with "At times like this a stiff drunk is the only medicine" while pouring a bourbon next to a handgun. What's Up, Doc, indeed.
That guy straight up forced Bobs head onto a power drill...it went through his skull. That's crazy.
Hey, two sets of characters have met and discussed teaming up to deal with the plot. We've made progress. Then they're pelted by maggots. Gotta hand it to the actors: to be covered in that shit-nay, to have it fired at them with fans or whatever-takes some dedication.
Things are not going well for that poor kid. Dead Sister comes back from the dead and murders his Parents splatter-kill style. I'm surprised Fulci didn't show the massacre, but the dripping of blood into a glass of milk and the massive blood stain on the ceiling paints a pretty good picture.
A Reporter, A Medium and a Doctor walk into a funeral parlor...I don't have a good punchline for that set-up, but it's apparently how you get to a Fulci climax.
Yeah, this kid is gonna need a ton of therapy. He just watched Sandra get scalped...that's this movies second scalping. Seems to be a thing. The zombie effects are pretty good in these movies...they look really weird and scabby. My favorite technique being utilized, though, is simple edits. One minute nothing is there, there's a quick cut and then something is there.
The bar has Schlitz on tap. Obviously a classy place. I wonder if a veritable army of the undead was really a necessary force for the bartender and his two barflies. Seems kind of overkill.
Our heroes really kind of seemed surprised when it's clear they're kinda screwed. Honestly, faced with the kind of odds they were facing, is failure that terribly surprising? Dude, The Doc just rammed a giant piece of wood into the Priests crotch and the dude caught on fire. I'm typing some of my favorite sentences ever in this write-up.
I scream like that when little kids run happily up to me, too...
Final Thoughts: Well, that was interesting. As a collection of weird stuff it's kind of excellent, really. It's hard to judge Fulci films on any scale relating to pretty much anything else. There's almost no central narrative or scene cohesion, characters are simple and not given any real development...they're almost like anti-films. For what it is...well, it works well enough.
Final Rating: Three Stars.
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