#2,831. Manhattan Baby (1982)

 

Lucio Fulci’s Manhattan Baby gets off to a great start. Shot on-location in Egypt, we follow American archaeologist George Hacker (Christopher Connelly) as he explores a recently unearthed ancient tomb. While there, he is inexplicably stricken blind.

At the same time this is happening, George’s wife Emily (Martha Taylor) and their 9-year-old daughter Susie (Brigitta Boccoli), who accompanied George to Egypt, are sightseeing. When Emily wanders off to take pictures of the Pyramids and Sphinx, Susie is approached by a mysterious old woman, who hands her an amulet that has been cursed.

With these Egyptian sequences, Fulci, aided by the music of Fabio Frizzi, establishes an ominous tone, and he shoots this opening in such a way that even something as seemingly innocent as a handful of sand becomes the harbinger of doom. It is a stylish, engaging start, and it’s unfortunate that the rest of Manhattan Baby isn’t nearly as intriguing.

The curse surrounding young Susie’s new amulet swings into full effect once the Hackers return home to New York City. Reunited with her younger brother Tommy (Giovanni Frezza) and their nanny Jamie Lee (Cinzie De Ponti), Susie begins to experience frightening hallucinations, which grow in intensity with each passing day. In an effort to find out what’s happening to their daughter, George - who by this point has regained his sight - asks his colleague, Professor Wiler (Enzo Marino Bellanich) if he can decipher the unusual markings on Susie’s amulet.

But it isn’t until the concerned parents meet the mysterious Mercato (Cosimo Cinieri) that they understand the danger young Susie is in, and how little time they have to save their daughter from the terrible curse that has taken hold of her.

When interviewed by Anchor Bay in 2001 for the DVD release of Manhattan Baby, Dardano Sacchetti, who along with co-writing this 1982 film had also worked with Fulci on Zombie and the Gates of Hell trilogy (City of the Living Dead, The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery), said that, with Manhattan Baby, he wanted to “disconnect” himself from those previous films, which were more traditionally gothic, and take horror in a new direction. Unfortunately, the film’s budget was slashed, leaving little money for special effects, most of which are of the electronic variety, i.e. flashing lights and glowing doorways, as opposed to Fulci’s standard blood and gore (save one scene towards the end, when a character has a violent encounter with some re-animated stuffed birds).

Sacchetti also informs us that the opening in Egypt and an exorcism scene late in the film were added by the producer, who feared he would have a hard time selling the movie without them (the Egyptian scenes were to give Manhattan Baby an international feel, while the exorcism was an obvious attempt to cash in on the success of The Exorcist). While I will admit the exorcism is wholly ineffective, the Egyptian sequences are the movie’s strongest, and most of what transpires during the rest of Manhattan Baby ranges from slightly odd to “where the hell did that come from”?

At one point, Emily brings a co-worker, Luke (Carlo De Mejo), home with her, in the hopes he might be able to calm the children. Trying to show Susie and Tommy that there’s nothing to fear, Luke walks upstairs and opens the door to their bedroom, only to vanish into thin air when he’s enveloped by a strange light (along with whisking Luke away, this light leaves behind some Egyptian sand, now covering most of the bedroom floor). Even stranger is what happens to Professor Wiler as he’s studying a polaroid picture of Susie’s amulet. Sitting in his office at home, he’s attacked by a cobra that appears out of nowhere. Fulci adds some flair to the scene by shooting a portion of it from the approaching cobra’s perspective, but it’s such an “out-of-left-field” moment that you’ll be scratching your head, trying to make sense of it all.

Story has never been one of Fulci’s strongest suits; even The Beyond, one of my favorite movies of all-time, features scenes that don’t make a lick of sense (i.e. – the tarantulas). What The Beyond has that Manhattan Baby does not, however, is a hell of a lot of style coupled with that always-enticing Fulci gore, an area in which the great filmmaker excelled (the blood and guts usually proved enough to take our minds off any questionable plot developments). Manhattan Baby features a few violent scenes; along with the stuffed bird attack already mentioned, a guide who accompanies George into the Egyptian tomb at the outset falls through a trap door onto some pretty gnarly spikes. But the horror in this film is more of the supernatural variety, with a dash of the psychological mixed in, making it an atypical Lucio Fulci movie as well as a disappointment.

The problem with Manhattan Baby may have been, as Sacchetti suggests, that they tried to make a “million dollar movie with a budget of $300 thousand dollars”, but I think the film’s fractured, confusing narrative had more to do with Fulci being a little out of his element. As he did with Zombie and the Gates of Hell movies, Fulci does manage to sneak a few flashes of brilliance into Manhattan Baby, but there simply aren’t enough of them to cover up its shortcomings.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10

#2,825. Murder-Rock (1984)

 

Lucio Fulci’s Murder-Rock is a well-shot murder mystery that features several interesting twists. Unfortunately, a few sub-par dance routines are also thrown into the mix, making this 1984 giallo something of a dated oddity.

Candice Norman (Olga Karlatos) runs the Arts for the Living Center, a prestigious dance academy in the heart of New York City. With the help of her choreographer Margie (Geretta Marie Fields), Candice pushes her dancers to succeed at all costs, and her quest for perfection pays off when several talent scouts decide to pay the academy a visit.

Unfortunately, it’s around this same time that some of the studio’s best dancers turn up dead, all stabbed through the heart with a long hairpin needle. Police Lt. Borgas (Cosimo Cinieri) launches an investigation into these killings, and believes the murderer is someone closely associated with the dance studio.

Candice, however, thinks the killer might be someone else entirely: a man who has been haunting her dreams. To her surprise, she sees this same man on a billboard and manages to track him down. His name is George Webb (Ray Lovelock), and despite her initial fears, Candice soon finds herself falling in love with this mysterious model. But is George the killer, or is it someone else entirely?

As a giallo, Murder-Rock is more "hit" than "miss". The first victim, Susan (Angela Lemerman), is killed in the locker room late one night, and while the murder isn’t particularly violent by Fulci’s standards, it’s disturbing nonetheless. Murder-Rock also features some great cinematography; the film was shot on-location in New York, showing the city in the dead of winter and giving it a life of its own, and the scene where the police are wheeling Susan’s body out of the studio is particularly memorable (cinematographer Guiseppe Pinoni attached the camera to the gurney, so that we can see the faces of all of the victim’s friends and associates, who are crying as her body passes them).

Like most giallos, Fulci fills Murder-Rock with potential killers, and shifts the focus from one to the other as the story progresses, with Lovelock’s George as the central suspect. As for the film’s ultimate reveal, it proved not only intriguing but also managed to catch me completely off-guard!

Alas, Murder-Rock also features some dance routines, which have a decent energy (some of them anyway), but more often than not slow down the pace of the film. And with many of these numbers clearly influenced by Flashdance (right down to the music written by Keith Emerson and performed by Doreen Chanter), they also date the movie badly.

My recommendation: watch Murder-Rock for the giallo, and fast forward through the dancing.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10

#2,698. Four of the Apocalypse (1975) - Spotlight on Italy

 

Director Lucio Fulci had his share of trouble with the censors. Several of his movies, including The Beyond, The House by the Cemetery, and Zombie, were targeted for their violence, and ended up on the UK’s Video Nasties list, while 1982’s The New York Ripper so enraged the BBFC (The British Board of Film Classification) that they not only banned it outright, but ordered all prints to be immediately flown out of the country!

The blood and carnage in Fulci’s spaghetti western Four of the Apocalypse also raised a few eyebrows, and during its initial run in 1975 the movie never once screened in the United States. While the violence is, indeed, graphic, Four of the Apocalypse is a fascinating entry in the subgenre, and it deserved a much better fate than that.

Salt Flats, Utah, 1873. Four strangers: professional gambler Stubby Preston (Fabio Testi); pregnant prostitute Bunny O’Neill (Lynne Frederick); town drunk Clem (Michael J. Pollard); and cemetery worker Bud (Harry Baird) - who claims he can communicate with the dead – spend an evening spending time in the same jail cell. Fortunately for them, the same night they are locked up, a group of vigilantes rides into Salt Flats, shooting everyone in their path.

His town destroyed, the Sheriff of the now-deserted Salt Flats (played by Donal O’Brien) releases the quartet the next morning, and together the four ride into the untamed west, happy to have escaped with their lives. But a chance encounter with a vicious outlaw named Chaco (Tomas Milian) reminds them just how dangerous the frontier can be, and sets them on a course that will forever change the nature of their friendship.

Four of the Apocalypse features a handful of shocking scenes, most of which center on Tomas Milian’s Chaco. At one point, the bandit guns down two men and tortures a third - a sheriff - by skinning his abdomen (he eventually finishes the poor guy off with his own badge, plunging it straight into his heart). In addition, there’s a scene in which Chaco rapes Bunny, forcing Stubby, who has fallen in love with her, to watch the entire assault (though not graphic, this sequence is still very disturbing).

Yet thanks to the fine performances delivered by its cast, coupled with moments as engaging as they are unique, Four of the Apocalypse is a lot more than just another violent Italian western. Testi and Frederick have great chemistry together (aided, rumor has it, by a real-life romance between the two that started while this movie was in production), and both Pollard and Baird bring a genuine likability to their characters, despite their faults (Clem is a drunk and Bud is more than a little flaky). In fact, part of what makes Chaco’s reign of terror so upsetting is that it comes crashing down on characters we have grown to admire.

Along with the performances, Fulci and screenwriter Ennio De Concini concoct a number of very memorable scenes, chief among them a late sequence set in an all-male mining community, which bands together and does what it can to help Bunny when she goes into labor.

A well-acted (Tomas Milian is also superb as the villainous Chaco), smartly structured motion picture, Four of the Apocalypse is not only one of Lucio Fulci’s best films, but ranks right up there with Django, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, and Once Upon a Time in the West as one of my favorite spaghetti westerns of all-time.
Rating: 9.5 out of 10

#2,693. The House of Clocks (1989) - Spotlight on Italy

 

A Made for Television film that was originally produced as part of a series (which, alas, never aired on Italian TV), The House of Clocks is a far cry from what Fulci was turning out in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, but that doesn’t make it a total loss.

A trio of thieves (Karina Huff, Keith Van Hoven and Peter Hintz) break into an estate owned by Victor (Paolo Paoloni) and Sarah (Bettine Milne), a rich elderly couple with a large collection of clocks. Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned, and when the smoke clears Victor, Sarah, and their groundskeeper (played by Al Cliver) are dead.

But as the would-be crooks will learn soon enough, time passes much differently in… the House of Clocks!

For a TV movie, The House of Clocks features some pretty gnarly kill scenes (not that I expected anything less from Fulci, mind you), and the story itself, bizarre as it is, has its charms.

Of course, it rarely makes a lick of sense (again, this is Fulci we’re talking about here, so no big surprise), and I disliked the ending (which made even less sense than what came before it), but if you’re a Fulci completest my guess is you’ve seen worse.
Rating: 5 out of 10

#2,592. The New Gladiators (1983)

 

With The New Gladiators, Lucio Fulci took a stab at a futuristic sci-fi / action film (a la Escape from New York), with a premise similar to that of Schwarzenegger’s The Running Man.

Rome, 2072: two rival networks, each specializing in real-life violence, are locked in a ratings battle. To win over a global audience, the World Broadcasting Service has devised a new program that harkens back to ancient times: an all-out, gladiator-style fight to the death starring death-row inmates, including Drake (Jared Martin), a proven champion who has been accused of brutally murdering his wife’s killers.

But as Drake will soon discover, the network executives have already determined the final outcome of this new "show".

With cheesy but awesome set pieces (the opening shot of a futuristic Rome gets things off to a fun start) and the always entertaining Fred Williamson in a supporting role (playing one of Drake’s fellow combatants), The New Gladiators showed a lot of promise early on, some of which was realized (the clip from the long-running series “Death Bike” was a blast, as was another program that featured a pendulum).

Unfortunately, the behind-the-scenes intrigue (network execs vying for power, Drake trying to find out if his new show will be on the level, etc) takes up a large chunk of the movie’s midsection, and these moments aren’t nearly as interesting as the violence-fueled sequences.

But the opening is strong, as is the finale (both bolstered by Fulci’s special brand of blood and gore), and the futuristic setting, even when it isn’t convincing, is always appealing.
Rating: 6 out of 10

#2,212. The New York Ripper (1982)

Directed By: Lucio Fulci

Starring: Jack Hedley, Almanta Suska, Howard Ross


Tag line: "New York City: It's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to die there!"

Trivia: After many years of being banned in Britain the rights were purchased by UK company Vipco who issued the film originally as an export-only VHS version under close censor & police supervision








The Video Nasties craze that hit Britain in the early to-mid-1980s wasn’t particularly kind to Lucio Fulci. The “official” list of 72 films released by the Director of Public Prosecutions - which identified movies on video that, due to their violence and sexual content, could be subject to prosecution - featured three of the director’s titles: Zombie, The House by the Cemetery, and The Beyond.

One Fulci film that did not appear on the list was 1982’s The New York Ripper, and for good reason: it had been banned from public exhibition! 

James Ferman, the Director of the British Board of Classification from 1975 to 1999, supposedly found The New York Ripper so reprehensible that, once the review screening was over, he had police escort the prints to Heathrow Airport so they could immediately be flown out of the country (while some sources claim the airport story never happened, the fact remains that the movie was banned in the UK until 2002).

Like most horror fans (or, for that matter, movie fans in general), words like “banned” and “video nasty” get my blood boiling. But after watching The New York Ripper, a film chock full of blood, guts, and naked flesh, I can’t shake the feeling that Fulci and company got off easy!

A serial killer is loose in New York City, and detective Frank Williams (Jack Hedley) has been assigned to track him down. With several pretty young ladies already in the morgue, Williams knows it’s only a matter of time before the killer strikes again. So he enlists the help of psychologist Dr. Paul Davis (Paolo Malco) to try and determine who this maniac might be, and where he will strike again. 

Yet, despite their best efforts, Williams and Davis are frustrated at every turn, and to add insult to injury, the killer, who disguises his voice to sound like a duck, has started calling Williams himself, taunting the detective and promising that he will soon kill again. 

The break Williams has been waiting for comes when an intended victim, Fay Majors (Almanta Suska), survives her encounter with the killer. She describes him as having two fingers missing from one of his hands, leading the police to Mikis Scellenda (Howard Ross), a petty criminal and known pervert. 

But is he truly the man they’re looking for?

Taking a page from the slasher films that were prominent in the early ‘80s, The New York Ripper features a number of kill scenes, some of which are downright grisly. One poor girl is cornered on the Staten Island Ferry and stabbed repeatedly (we even see some entrails popping out of her wounds), and a sequence in which a prostitute is slowly tortured is tough to watch (I have to admit that I looked away at one point). 

Along with its graphic violence, The New York Ripper is jam-packed with nudity and sex. A side story, involving a doctor’s wife (Alexandra Delli Colli) who secretly makes audio recordings of her sexual trysts so that her husband (Cosimo Cinieri) can listen to them later, is risqué enough (especially a scene set in a pool hall, where the wife has a very unusual encounter with a perfect stranger), but Fulci ups the ante by also giving us a live sex show, a sequence that ends with yet another gruesome murder. 

Its seedier elements aside, The New York Ripper is an often-effective horror film (we even get a few of those POV shots that were all the rage in the ‘80s) as well as a perplexing mystery (On two separate occasions, I thought I'd figured out who the killer was, only to discover I was wrong both times). In addition, the movie also makes great use of its New York setting, with many scenes shot in neighborhoods you wouldn’t want to visit once the sun goes down.

Thanks to its over-reliance on nudity and gore, The New York Ripper is definitely not for the squeamish, and is brutal even by Fulci’s standards. But if you have the stomach for it, I recommend giving this movie a chance.

#2,006. Conquest (1983)

Directed By: Lucio Fulci

Starring: Jorge Rivero, Andrea Occhipinti, Conrado San Martín



Tag line: "In a place beyond time, comes a terrifying challenge beyond imagination!"

Trivia: The working title of this film was Mace the Outcast







In an effort to give their 1983 movie Conquest a dreamlike quality, director Lucio Fulci and his cinematographer Alejandro Ulloa tried everything from soft focus to fog machines to shooting through gauze. Unfortunately, the desired effect backfired, and instead of a surreal fantasy / adventure, Conquest is a muddied, blurry mess.

After receiving an enchanted bow from his ghostly ancestors (or maybe they were Gods? Who knows), one that harnesses the power of the sun, the warrior Mace (Jorge Rivero) sets off to defeat the evil (and always topless) Queen Ocron (Sabrina Sellers, who wears a golden mask, and little else, the entire time). With the help of her Wolfman army, the Queen attacks local tribes, killing its citizens before drinking their brains (to gain their knowledge… I think). Along the way, Mace meets up with Ilias (Andrea Occhipinti), a fellow warrior who joins him on his quest.

That’s about it, really. Yes, I know: the plot is paper-thin. What’s more, Conquest is, at times, downright silly (the arrows that shoot from the magic bow are almost like lasers, which split off and fly in a number of directions whenever its fired). But, then, what ‘80s fantasy isn’t a little goofy (Yor, the Hunter from the Future, The Sword and the Sorcerer, even Conan the Barbarian had moments of unintentional hilarity)? No, the real problem with Conquest is the look of the film. The opening sequence, where Mace receives his bow, was shot in double exposure, yet it didn’t bother me because I figured this scene required an otherworldly feel. Alas, things never get any better; the battles are often confusing because we can’t make out who’s fighting who, and even when characters are sitting around talking, they’re surrounded by what seems to be an eternal haze (in a few scenes, it’s obvious the sun is shining brightly, and there’s not a cloud in the sky, yet on the ground, there’s fog as far as you can see).

Fulci does try to liven things up with his patented flair, meaning plenty of gore (during an attack, a tribal leader’s head is split open with an axe, exposing his brain; and a woman is torn in half when two Wolf men pull her legs in opposite directions) as well as a little sex (at one point, Ocron masturbates with a snake). There’s even a sequence with what appear to be zombies, which crawl out of a lake and attack Mace unexpectedly (they aren’t as gooey as they were in Fulci’s Zombie, but these undead creatures are definitely in an advanced state of decomposition).

With Fulci at the helm, and elements that were more adult-oriented than your typical Sword and Sorcery ‘80s fare, Conquest had the potential to be a bit of cheesy fun. It’s too bad that, more often than not, I couldn't see what the hell was happening.

#1,231. Massacre Time (1966)

Directed By: Lucio Fulci

Starring: Franco Nero, George Hilton, Linda Sini




Tag line: "THE MASSACRE MEN - They carry their hate in their holsters and a name on every bullet in their belts..."

Trivia: This film was also released as The Brute and the Beast






I’m always on the lookout for a good Spaghetti Western, and at first glance, 1966’s Massacre Time (aka The Brute and the Beast) had all the makings of a great one. Starring Franco Nero, fresh off his success in Sergio Corbucci’s Django, Massacre Time was also directed by Mr. Lucio Fulci, who, in later years, would leave his mark on the horror genre with classics like Zombie and The Beyond.

Nero stars as Tom Corbett, a gold prospector who receives a message from his old friend, Carradine (John Bartha), to return home at once. It seems Tom’s alcoholic brother, Jeff (George Hilton), who took control of the family farm after the death of their mother, sold the property to a man named Scott (Giuseppe Addobbati), who then proceeded to take over the entire town. What’s more, Scott’s son, Junior (Nino Castelnuovo), is a psychotic who enjoys bullying the locals, for no other reason than it tickles his fancy. While Tom is searching for answers, trying to figure out who the Scotts are, Jeff is busy getting into bar fights and drinking tequila by the gallon. But when the Corbett’s longtime maid, Mercedes (Rina Franchetti) is gunned down in cold blood, Jeff finally puts the bottle aside and helps his brother in his standoff against the Scotts.

Written by Fernando Di Leo (director of The Italian Connection), Massacre Time is a gritty, violent western, and we get an idea of just how violent its going to be in the opening scene, where Junior is hosting a hunt with one of the townsfolk as the prey (the poor victim is eventually mauled by a pack of dogs). Shortly after, we’re treated to a raucous barroom brawl, with Jeff facing off against some of Scott’s men. As bar fights go, this one gets pretty nasty, and plenty of blood is spilled (Jeff is nearly beaten to death before Tom finally steps in to help). Nero does a fine job as Tom, infusing the character with a quiet strength, but of the two Corbetts, its brother Jeff (boisterously portrayed by Hilton) who’s most handy with a gun (in full gallop, he takes out six of Scott’s men).

Quality-wise, I wouldn’t go so far as to rank Massacre Time alongside Django or Leone’s “Man with No Name” trilogy, but it’s definitely an entertaining western, with tons of action and even a bit of mystery thrown in (why are the Scotts so interested in Tom?) And while it’s not nearly as gory as some of Fulci’s later work, the movie has a high enough body count to keep the director’s fans happy.

#1,122. The House by the Cemetery (1981)

Directed By: Lucio Fulci

Starring: Catriona MacColl, Paolo Malco, Ania Pieronin




Tag line: "Past and present collide in a vortex of fear!"

Trivia: This movie was shot on the Ellis Estate in Scituate, MA, where another Italian horror film, Ghosthouse, was filmed






The House by the Cemetery closes out Lucio Fulci’s Gates of Hell trilogy, and while it’s not as strong as either City of the Living Dead or The Beyond, it does capture the foreboding atmosphere of those movies, while also giving us plenty of that "Fulci gore" to keep our stomachs churning.

Professor Norman Boyle (Paolo Malco) is moving his family to New England, where he’ll continue the research started by a colleague of his, who inexplicably went mad, killing his mistress before taking his own life. In fact, Dr. Boyle, along with his wife Lucy (Katherine MacColl) and son Bob (Giovanni Frezza), is moving into the very house where the murder / suicide took place! This might not bother the adult members of the Boyle family, but Bob has been having visions of a young girl (Silvia Collatina), who warns him to steer clear of the place. Once the family settles in, a woman named Ann (Ania Pieronin) suddenly turns up, claiming she was hired by the real estate agent, Mrs. Gittelson (Dagmar Lassander) to look after Bob. As if this wasn’t strange enough, Lucy also finds a headstone hidden under the carpet in the front room, which marks the grave of a Dr. Freudstien. As a result of this discovery, Norman heads down into the basement to check things out, and in so doing awakens an evil force that threatens not only his life, but his family’s as well.

A more appropriate title for this film would have been "The House In the Cemetery", because the headstones from the nearby graveyard surround the entire area, with some only a few feet from the house’s front porch. This alone adds a level of creepiness that works in the movie’s favor. The House by the Cemetery also has a great pre-title sequence, where a teenage girl (Daniela Doria), sitting in the front room of the abandoned house, calls out to her boyfriend, Steve (Ranieri Ferrara), who doesn’t answer her. While searching for him, she comes across his bloodied corpse hanging from a door. The girl screams, but is quickly silenced by a knife to the back of the head, which penetrates all the way through to her mouth. As opening scenes go, this one is pretty grisly. Fulci even adds some mystery to the film in the form of the young girl, named Mae, who warns Bob not to go near the house. Clearly, there’s more to this little girl than meets the eye, and Fulci takes his time in revealing her story.

Where The House by the Cemetery falters is in its structure, which has never been one of Fulci’s strong points to begin with. As awesome as the opening sequence is, it doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the movie, and a later scene involving storefront mannequins is way, way out there, as is Fulci’s attempt to tie it in with everything else (in fact, it’s almost laughable). Even the babysitter, Ann, seems more like an afterthought than an integral part of the movie. This aside, though, The House by the Cemetery is definitely an eerie film, and an entertaining final chapter to Fulci’s Gates of Hell trilogy.

#584. City of the Living Dead (1980)

Directed By: Lucio Fulci

Starring: Christopher George, Catriona MacColl, Carlo De Mejo




Tag line: "The Dead Shall Rise And Walk The Earth"

Trivia:  Future director Michele Soavi was originally up for the role of Bob

Fresh off the success of 1979's Zombie, director Lucio Fulci returns to the genre with 1980's City of the Living Dead, and while this entry isn't quite the classic the earlier film was, it's a solid effort nonetheless. 

The small town of Dunwich is situated above one of the Gates of Hell, and when a parish priest (Fabrizio Jovine) hangs himself in the church cemetery, he inadvertently opens the Gate, causing the recently deceased to rise and attack the living. Having experienced visions of the impending chaos, psychic Mary Woodhouse (Catriona MacColl) teams with investigative reporter Peter Bell (Christopher George) to try and close the Gate before midnight on All Souls Day. Failure to do so will result in the total destruction of mankind. 

This is a rather simplistic synopsis for City of the Living Dead, and much more happens than what I've described above. Far too much, actually. In fact, I'd say things get downright confusing. We see the priest's suicide through Mary's eyes, the vision of which comes to her as she's conducting a séance. Along with the priest's death, Mary can clearly see one of the tombstones in the graveyard, which reads “The soul that pines for eternity shall outspan death. You dweller of the twilight void come, Dunwich” (whoever carved this inscription was just asking for trouble). These images prove too shocking for Mary to bear. She stands, cries out “City of the Dead!”, then falls to the floor. She's pronounced dead (prematurely, I might add), and shortly after the police show up to investigate, a fireball leaps from the corner of the room, disappearing almost as quickly as it came. If this all sounds puzzling to you, join the club; I didn't have a clue what was going on in these early scenes. But then, Fulci himself stated that, at this point in his career, he favored imagery over story, and in that particular area, City of the Living Dead doesn't disappoint. 

There are a handful of genuinely creepy sequences in City of the Living Dead (the scene where Mary wakes up in her coffin is positively chilling), but as you might expect from a Lucio Fulci film, the gore is second to none. As Tommy (Michele Soavi) and Rose (Daniela Doria) are making out in Tommy's truck, the spirit of the priest appears to them, and begins wreaking havoc. Rose starts bleeding from her eyes, then proceeds to cough up all of her vital organs (and I mean all of them). She then turns to Tommy, grabs him by the back of his head, and crushes the brains right out of his skull. 

An ominous mood takes hold of you as you watch this movie, a sense of doom which will soon have you forgetting the story makes little sense.  City of the Living Dead is a prime example of style over substance, but oh...what style it has!

#483. Zombie 3 (1988)

Directed By: Lucio Fulci, Bruno Mattei

Starring: Deran Sarafian, Beatrice Ring, Ottaviano Dell'Acqua





Trivia:  Second Director Bruno Mattei and writer Claudio Fragasso have brief cameos as soldiers in the crematorium scene

Director Lucio Fulci once made the rather bold statement that “Violence is Italian Art”. Well, if that's the case, then his 1988 movie, Zombie 3, is a very artistic film. 

When a terrorist swipes an experimental virus from a research facility in the Philippines, he inadvertently kicks off a deadly epidemic, one that causes the local population to mutate into carnivorous monsters. A small band of survivors, including three American army personnel and a group of friends on vacation, barricade themselves inside an abandoned hotel, but as they soon learn, there's no place to hide from the onslaught of bloodthirsty zombies.

Zombie 3, Fulci's follow-up to his 1979 classic, Zombie (which was released as Zombi 2 in his native Italy), has its share of problems, most caused by the legendary director himself. When Fulci wrapped production on Zombie 3, it was discovered he'd tossed out a large portion of the script, resulting in a finished film that clocked in at a mere 50-minutes long. Fulci then became ill, leaving the producers with no alternative but to bring back the writer (Claudio Fragasso) and hire another director (Bruno Mattei) to salvage their movie. Working with a different set of actors (the original ones had moved on to other projects), 40 additional minutes were shot, which, when spliced together with Fulci's scenes, resulted in a film that ultimately worked, yet suffered a distinctive shift in style from one moment to the next. This aside, Zombie 3 is still a fine (not to mention gory) horror film. For one, the “infected” are pretty damn gross, covered in festering sores that occasionally spew green liquid. Along with its disgusting side effects, the virus spreads very quickly. Early on, the terrorist who started it all checks into a hotel to avoid capture. Once there, he infects a waiter by way of a broken glass, then mauls the poor maid when she tries to fix up his room. But my favorite scene (and one Fulci was undoubtedly behind) involves a young lady named Carole (Marina Loi), who, while investigating a dilapidated building, is pushed (by a zombie) into a man-made lake. A mass of bubbles surrounds her, and she screams for help. Her companion, an American soldier (Massimo Vanni), leaps into the lake and drags her to safety, only to discover her legs have been gnawed off, and that she herself is now a zombie! 

Another famous quote with an artistic bent goes something like “I may not know much about art, but I know what I like”. Well, Zombie 3, even with its faults, is definitely a movie I like.

#398. Demonia (1990)

Directed By: Lucio Fulci

Starring: Brett Halsey, Meg Register, Lino Salemme





Tag line: "No Evil Deed Goes Undone!"

Trivia:  Shot entirely on location in Syracuse, Sicily

No stranger to the horror genre, director Lucio Fulci was also no stranger to thinly constructed narratives and convoluted plots. Yet where some of his films featured a visual energy to take your mind off their puzzling stories, Demonia's tale of ghostly nuns rising from the grave was simply too far gone to be salvaged. 

A young archaeologist named Liza (Meg Register) accompanies her mentor, Paul (Brett Halsey), to Sicily, where he's digging for artifacts that date back to ancient Greece. But Liza's attentions are drawn elsewhere, to the ruins of a 15th century convent where, over 500 years earlier, some nuns were crucified for allegedly conducting Satanic rituals. Warned not to pry into the past, Liza is nonetheless compelled to uncover the truth behind this strange, somewhat evil place. 

Not so much a horror film as it is a collection of scenes flimsily strung together, Demonia will have you scratching your head shortly after the opening titles. Following a flashback to 1486, where we witness the murder of five nuns (one of the best scenes in the film, actually), we're thrown forward five centuries to a séance in Toronto, where Liza has a vision of these killings, lets out a scream, and then passes out. She can't explain what she saw, nor does she know the reason why she's drawn to the old convent, despite being told by Paul and a slew of others to stay away from it. There are a handful of dream sequences that only add to the confusion, and characters come and go with no idea of how they fit into the story. One minute, Liza and Paul are sitting on the houseboat of a fellow archaeologist named Porter (Al Cliver), discussing how the locals react to outsiders, and the next, Porter, returning home from doing a little shopping, is murdered by a topless female ghost wielding a spear gun. What the hell? 

Demonia is undoubtedly a bad film, yet I can't say it's a dull one; I found myself paying close attention because I honestly expected, perhaps even hoped, it would all come together in the end. Of course, it never did, but at least it held my interest. So, no...Demonia is not boring.  But it is confusing, and oh so very frustrating.

#224. The Beyond (1981)

Directed By: Lucio Fulci

Starring: Catriona MacColl, David Warbeck, Cinzia Monreale



Tag line: "Behind this doorway lie the terrifying and unspeakable secrets of hell. No one who sees it lives to describe it. And you shall live in darkness for all eternity."

Trivia: The zombie rampage was done at the insistence of the film's German distributors, whose movie market was going through a zombie craze

Lucio Fulci's The Beyond is a horror fan's delight. Featuring ghosts, demons, zombies, and even a dozen or so carnivorous tarantulas, odds are you'll find something to your liking in this very creative, very potent horror film. 

New York native Liza (Katherine MacColl) has just inherited an old Louisiana hotel, which she plans to renovate and re-open to the public. But one of the workers she hires to fix the place up stumbles uipon an ancient secret: the basement of this hotel houses one of the seven gates of hell, which is inadvertently opened. 

With the help of the local doctor (David Warbeck) and a mysterious blind girl (Cinzia Monreale), Liza must find a way to close this gate before its evil can spread throughout the city, causing the dead to rise from their graves, 

The Beyond is a near-flawless marriage of several horror sub-genres. At times a creepy supernatural tale (the call button for room 36 constantly lights up at the hotel's front desk, despite the fact nobody has occupied that room for 60 years), The Beyond will also satisfy gore hounds, with blood and carnage aplenty. While working in the basement, a plumber (Fiovanni De Nava) accidentally breaks through the wrong wall, and before he can figure out what happened, a hand thrusts out of the freshly-made opening and grabs hold of his face, squeezing the life out of his body and one of his eyes out of its socket. 

There's a lot going on in The Beyond, and you never know from which direction the next scream is going to come. This is a film with very little “down time”; each scene holds the promise of a new scare, and damn near every one of them delivers. 

Released in 1981, The Beyond is the middle chapter in what's been deemed Fulci's “Gates of Hell” trilogy (starting with 1980's City of the Living Dead and concluding with 1981's The House By the Cemetery). Widely regarded as not only the best of these three movies, The Beyond is also one of its director's finest films.  

So if you should find yourself with nothing to do on a lazy weekend afternoon, might I suggest a “Fulci Double-Shot” of Zombie and The Beyond, two excellent horror flicks made by a filmmaker at the very top of his game.

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#208. Zombie (1979)

Directed By: Lucio Fulci

Starring: Tisa Farrow, Ian McCulloch, Richard Johnson



Tag line: "When the earth spits out the dead, they will rise to suck the blood of the living!"

Trivia: Scriptwriter Dardano Sacchetti chose to take his name off the credits due to his father's death during preproduction. As a result of his loss, Sacchetti felt uncomfortable about being connected with a movie about the dead returning to a semblance of life and then being destroyed

Repugnant.

Vile.

Disturbing.

All of these words adequately describe Lucio Fulci’s 1979 cult classic, Zombie, a film with individual scenes so graphically violent that they can turn even the heartiest of stomachs. 

Yet Zombie is more than a simple smorgasbord of mutilations and senseless violence; it also weaves a fascinating tale, told by a director at the top of his game. 

One afternoon, a seemingly abandoned boat - belonging to a famous scientist - drifts into New York harbor with only a large, carnivorous monster on board. 

The scientist’s daughter, Anne (Tisa Farrow), is worried about her father and the ship’s crew, who, three months earlier, set sail for the remote island of Matosi. With the help of a reporter (Ian McCulloch), a guide (Brian Hull) and the guide’s girlfriend (Auretta Gay), Anne sets out on a search and rescue mission. 

But when she and the others arrive at Matosi, they find the island has been overrun by the living dead. To escape the danger, they seek refuge in a small hospital run by Dr. David Menard (Richard Johnson), who has spent the last few months working on a cure for the ‘disease’ that brings the dead back to life.  

A constant flow of brutality can grow tiresome after a while, yet the violence in Zombie remains effective throughout because it is supported by a well-paced story. The opening sequence, where the boat floats into New York Harbor, plays out quietly at first, with images from aboard the ramshackled ship interspersed with those of the New York Harbor Patrol, which has arrived on the scene to investigate. So, when this peaceful inspection is interrupted by the appearance of a huge zombie, we're as horrified as the patrolmen. What follows - the severed hand, the shooting blood, the decayed skin pulled from the creature’s carcass - successfully drags us to the edge of our seat. In short, Zombie takes the time to build the horror, and in so doing generates more terror than mindless gore ever could. 

One doesn't go into a film like Zombie without expecting plenty of blood. Even still, it is a shockingly violent movie. The loose flesh, the attacks of the walking dead (including the now-infamous "eye" scene), even the creatures themselves threw me for a loop (these are easily the most disgusting zombies I’ve ever seen). 

Yet thanks to director Fulci's patient, deliberate pacing, Zombie gives its audience a whole lot more than just a queasy stomach.