Starring: Catriona MacColl, Paolo Malco, Ania Pieroni, Giovanni Frezza, Silvia Collatina.
Director: Lucio Fulci.
So this will be a first for me. I had seen City Of The Living Dead before as well as The Beyond but I haven't seen this one, which is apparently the second (I think? I'm fuzzy on whether or not this came before The Beyond) film in Fulcis "Gates of Hell" trilogy or whatever. I'm generally assuming that, based on Fulci and his habit for ignoring traditional narrative devices, it really doesn't matter what order they're watched in. So, let's do the one I haven't seen and go from there.
Huh. Boob shot right out of the gate. The girl is sitting alone in a decaying old house-which is by a cemetery, but I don't know if it's THE cemetery(and now that I have that out of my system we can proceed)-covered in cobwebs and the like. She tells this "Steve" that she's searching for that she'll "never come here with you again" and I find myself wondering: why the hell did you come here in the first place? There's gotta be better places to enjoy coitus.
Steve has looked better. I think, anyway: never saw him before he showed up as a zombie. Bam! Knife threw the head and opening credits. Nice opener.
Fulci does some interesting transitions between still photographs and film. It's pretty fascinating looking.
Holy crap, the manikins head falls off and...blood comes out?! The little girl is freaked...shit, I would be. That sequence is pretty creepy, but not nearly as creepy as the ugly little blond kid.
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| Yikes. |
I dunno, Bob: May is probably not your friend. I mean, sure, she gave a warning to "not come" but...she can read your friggin' thoughts and seems to know a lot more than a little girl should. I'm surprised that Bob's parents really seem pretty unconcerned with his insistence that a little girl who is occasionally visible in a photograph is talking to him and then shows up with a random doll. I'd be on the phone with a shrink in no time, personally. And burn the doll.
Well, Mom seems pretty upset about the doll. "Bob is always bringing home this trash!" Then her Husband tells her to take her pills. It's like every conversation I've ever had with a Woman.
Creepy babysitter. Now we're talking. The jump cuts keep telling me she either looks like the manikin whose head fell off or IS the manikin whose head fell off. I'm not really sure what to take away from that except that the babysitter is clearly up to no good.
Dr.Freudstein? I assume he made a monster with a gigantic penis who wanted to sleep with his Mother?
...I'm sorry about that joke.
Norman seems pretty pissed that his Wife is having a hard time. Of course, he's the prototypical supernatural-proof Father while Lucy is totally getting messed with by whatever evil forces exist within this house. I'm hoping we get to some wacky stuff soon, because this is actually a little too dull at the moment. We opened hard but not much else has been going on. At least Lucy is getting concerned about the fact that her Son keeps mentioning some mysterious girl.
Lucy is being attacked by a bat, and Norman stands there staring at her for what seems like forty minutes. Then the bat attaches itself to his hand (now we're getting somewhere) and he drags it out of the basement...his Kid actually says "Daddy, what's wrong" as if he's blind or something...and then Norman stabs the crap out of the bat. Blood everywhere. Hey, ask and ye shall recieve. Finally some action. Very gory action.
I kind of miss the old-school blood effects of the late seventies/early eighties. I mean, it's absolutely everywhere. Spurting out of bodies and being dragged along the floor in streaks.
Does Lucy NOT see the horrible bloody floor that Anne is cleaning up? I guess she doesn't. Anne is probably one of my favorite things in this movie: her pretty green eyes dulled by the general drugged out look on her face..she's generally weird, and creepy, and pretty rad.
Man, Fulci really does like to jump around, doesn't he? One minute we've got Normal talking to his weirdo co-worker or whatever, he spots some books that are apparently suspicious looking (?) and then we got Bob running from the camera, he trips and it turns out he's just playing tag with May...who then re-iterates her statement that Bob really shouldn't be in the house, then we're back to Norman listening to a recording of his predecessor talking about how he's going crazy in the house...a bit flamboyantly, really. Kind of has a nice Lovecraft feel to it, though:the guy is rambling and raving about blood and voices and madness and the like.
Actually, the recording being played over a roaming, creeping camera arc showing bloody corpses and bleeding walls is one of the better things I've seen in these Fulci flicks. It was a pretty good sequence.
Wait, I'm now confused: isn't Anne in on it? Now she's concerned for Bob? Being led into the basement by crying sounds? Well, it now looks like she's the next victim...even though she cleaned up after the last victim? That...just doesn't make sense. That said, it was a good death scene: Fulci does great with these, really: blood gushing neck wounds. Even though it's very graphic it never seems exploitive.
Not enough severed heads bouncing down stairs in movies anymore. That seems like a tragedy. Movies are a lot nicer to children these days, too: I don't think you'd see a kid witness a severed head bouncing down the stairs much anymore, either. Once again, I find myself writing sentences I never thought I'd write.
Bob, too, is going to need a considerable amount of therapy, assuming he makes it out of all this alive. I'm assuming we're in the climax now.
Yeah, stabbing this undead monstrosity wasn't necessarily a bad idea but you probably should have run for it, Norman. Once again we see some good gore effects: hellbeast leaks this disgusting looking beef stew stuff, then he tears open Norman's throat in a really squicky looking latex effect. Dr.Freudstein just dragged Lucy down the stairs and she bounced her head off of each stair. It was kinda awesome.
The soundtrack keeps utilizing the sound of children crying over musical selections...it's rather unsettling.
Final Thoughts: Not sure I understand what the hell happened throughout this movie, but it was interesting enough. So, does Bob become a ghost and hang with May forever? She was the Daughter of...the undead villain, I guess? Plot really doesn't matter whatsoever to Fulci. Hey, the gore effects were pretty good, even if the whole thing was kind of a confusing mess.
Final Rating: Three Stars...?
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