The Beyond

"The Beyond" (1981, Lucio Fulci, Fulvia Film) is a supernatural horror.

Liza ( Catriona MacColl) inherits the defunct Seven Doors Hotel in Louisiana and plans to reopen it. Unbeknownst to her. an angry mob had killed a suspected warlock in the hotel in the 1920s as he completed a disturbing painting which they believed would open a doorway to death.

Liza is determined to push on with her renovation of the hotel and dismisses any warnings telling her to stop; be they from the creepy blind chick, Emily (Cinzia Monreale), or the sudden, gruesome death of her plumber, Joe (Giovanni De Nava) during maintenance work in the hotel's basement. As things begin to get weird, Liza seeks help from Dr. McCabe (David Warbeck) who believes that there must be a logical explanation for all the weirdness. Much to their disappointment, they are soon proved wrong...

A fun, juicy Fulci classic that brings a lot of beautiful, dark imagery punctuated with a lot of gore and an equal amount of weird dialogue and somewhat meandering plot. We are also treated to the longest, most intense scene about a man's face being devoured by a mixture of real and puppet tarantulas ever. Complete with odd, chirpy sound effects!

The plot can be fairly incoherent and our characters are prone to bad decision making... The dead are coming back to life? Let's hide in the hospital morgue! But any fan of Lucio Fulci in general will probably find this film entertaining and worthy of  a watch. If you're feeling really keen you could enjoy the full Gates of Hell Trilogy and team this film up with its 1980 forerunner "City of the Living Dead" and its classy little sister (and personal favourite of mine) "The House by the Cemetery" (1981).

[Image: Fulvia Films]

Hani

Manhattan Baby

"Manhattan Baby" aka "L'Occhio del male" (1982, Lucio Fulci, Fulvia Film) is an Italian giallo horror film from 'godfather of gore', Lucio Fulci. That makes it sound good. Don't get your hopes up too much...

The film serves as one of Fulci's weakest in my book, and certainly a far cry from his masterpiece, and a personal favourite of mine; "The House by the Cemetery".

We follow young Susie (Brigitta Boccoli) who, whilst in Egypt with her parents, Professor George Hacker (Christopher Connelly) and Emily Hacker (Laura Lenzi), is given a mysterious amulet by a strange, blind woman. Upon Susie receiving this unusual treasure, her father is struck blind whilst in an unexplored tomb and the family have to return immediately home to New York city.

While her parents fret over George's temporary blindness, Susie shows her new shiny thing to her younger brother, Tommy (Giovanni Frezza), and both siblings begin to fall under the amulet's power. This includes the ability to pop off on adventures to Egypt whenever they like, bring back poisonous creatures, ship off people who annoy them to the desert and summon the shambling undead.... Kids stuff, really.

As well as suffering from being very slow and somewhat dull, the plot jumps randomly from scene to scene making everything hard to follow and becoming a chore to watch. The characters also don't behave quite human enough: no one seems to notice all the missing people for starters!

One thing I did enjoy was watching George walk around with his glasses on over his massive eye bandages. Truly weird.

The film just lacks atmosphere and coherence and not even a zombie bird attack scene can save it from that!

I do love the DVD cover art, though

[Image: Fulvia Film]

 

Hani

The New York Ripper

"The New York Ripper" (aka "Lo squartatore di New York", 1982, Lucio Fulci, Fulvia Film) is an Italian giallo film based in New York. It was also the subject of much censorship and banning.

I'm visiting NYC soon for my first trip there, so naturally, my first line of research into the city is to watch an Italian made slasher film. I'm sure it's very representative... Ok, no. At least I hope not!

So this film is chalk full of prostitutes, burnt out detectives, scantily clad young ladies, mental old ladies and mysterious slasher killers speaking like Donald Duck, only more psychotic. There's not much in the way of plot and pretty much every second scene is NSFW due to nudity, sexual acts... etc...

A strange film which is all about the (hopefully exaggerated) older, sleazier side of New York's culture. Fulci shows unflinching scenes of attacks on women by his deranged killer with some truly gross effects. Usually, this would not phase me, but the film is possibly just a little too sleazy for me. It's not an enjoyable gross-out-fest, it's just a bit uncomfortable to watch.

The cartoony voice does serve its purpose, that of making this film memorable, but on the whole it kind of negates any threat the killer had. Essentially, we are just lurching from kill to kill at a slow, drunken pace whilst our detective goes down all the wrong paths on his investigation.

Not the best example of Fulci's work.

[Image: Fulvia Film]

Hani

The Black Cat

"The Black Cat" aka "Gatto Nero" (1981, Lucio Fulci, Shameless Screen Entertainment) is a film loosely based on the Edgar Allen Poe story.

A black cat stalks an English town, killing under the orders of its master, Psychic Medium Professor Miles (Patrick Magee). However, it would seem that the murderous moggy has turned upon its master, and is now killing at its own will!

It's not on the level of "House by the Cemetery" and its gore cannot compare to many of Fulci's other works, but "The Black Cat" is a moody piece with some very good scenes.

Whilst it's not likely to give you many nightmares, and it does suffer from long dull scenes between kills, it has the same wonderful charm of many Fulci pieces added to some nicely selected scenery.

Underrated, but admittedly completely batshit insane with a thin, shaky plot.

 

 

[Image: Shameless Screen Entertainment]

Hani

The Wax Mask

"The Wax Mask" (1997, Sergio Stivaletti, Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Cine 2000, Mediaset, France Film International, Italian International Film) is a wax museum film.

Fulci died making this film and so I'm not 100% sure how true the end result is to his script, but it is indeed a lot of fun to watch.

With a kind of incidental Steampunk style (incidental because, as far as I'm aware, there was no such genre as 'Steampunk' in 1997), The Wax Mask tells a tale set in 1900s Paris. We see a couple brutally (and hilariously) butchered by a man with a clawed metal hand. We also see a young girl, their daughter, cowering under the bed.

Years pass and said young girl is now a costume maker working at a wax museum. The museum has gained some disrepute due to its gory collection of sculptures and, after the death of a young man who was dared to stay the night, the museum becomes more and more creepy.

It's fun, gothic and a little gory. The effects are nice and the props are awesome. The story is a little average as far as wax museum films go, but there's a nice added Frankenstein element which is fun. 

I'm not a huge fan of the ending, however, which seemed a little diverted from the rest of the film's styling, and I think I prefer the Italian version with the subtitles to the dubbed English, which can make the acting seem a little odd.

All in all, worth your while, but not a great representation of Argento, Fulci or Stivaletti.

[Image: Cine 2000]

 

Hani

The House by The Cemetery

"The House by The Cemetery" (1981, Lucio Fulci, Fulvia Film, Arrowdrome) is an infamous Italian Splatter film from the cult hero of late 70s - 80s low budget Italian gore, Fulci - who also brought us "The Beyond" and "City of The Living Dead". This flick is a favourite of mine because it's not your average haunted house story or your average zombie film! Also it was banned here in Britain for quite a long time and this is the first time I've managed to catch the full unedited version!

Not too a complicated plot, and with very little twists, turns or much in the way of story telling, this film isn't about the story, it's about the ride through slow motion gore soaked scenes and tense, if badly dubbed, creepy children scenes.

When a colleague of Dr. Norman Boyle (Paolo Malco) named Dr. Peterson is found dead in his large, old house in Boston in a cemetery, Boyle is asked to reside there for a short while to continue the man's research. He relocates from New York to the country house with his wife, Lucy (cult Italian gore actress, Catriona MacColl) and their young, floppy haired son, Bob (Giovanni Frezzi) - Yes, Bob.

Before setting off, Bob is anxious, and believes that a little girl in a photograph is warning him to stay away. But this is a horror film, so Bob's fears are dismissed instantly and the family move in. It isn't long, though, before they begin to regret their decision and Bob makes a new friend, Mae (Silvia Collatina).

I really enjoy this film. It's creepy in places, and although badly dubbed, and generally not the most exciting characters, the children in this film are damn creepy. There are hefty amounts of gore done with good old fashioned special effects, make up and props! Excellent!

Fulci loved his slow motion gore. It's like he wanted to make the audience slowly suffer through the death of the character as much as the character does! That, or he just really loved blood splatters in slow motion! There are quite a lot of violent and inventive deaths in this film.

They also reveal the 'creature'. While this can often be a mistake in film, this film carries it off spectacularly, creating a grotesque and nightmarish villain of the piece. They also don't reveal too much too early, however, and while the plot is not exactly complex or even very clever, the slow, nail biting chase scenes are effective because you don't quite know what's going on.

A real cult favourite with famous fans including Wednesday 13, this film is an excellent example of early 80s low budget Italian Splatters. Filmed entirely in English primarily by non-native speakers, it has an oddly dreamlike hue to it, a quality which creates a good playing field for the gore.

Another level of creep is added by an odd sub-story running in the background with a childish friendship, and the history of the house. Although not fully explored, and kind of clumsily done, some of these scenes are the most interesting non-gory scenes in the film.

Fulci has been condemned in the past for being misogynistic, and while his female characters are generally nothing but screaming gore fodder, he's not exactly alone in the genre in this, and I don't tend to dwell much on it. Many horror ladies spend most of their scream...sorry, screen time panicking and getting hacked up - a trend which is rapidly changing in the genre, but will always be there.

A good, gory 'what lurks in the basement?' kind of film.

 

[Image: Fulvia Film]

Hani