Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci

316 Pages·87.2 MB·English

by  Stephen Thrower

ILADRI
I RAGAZZI DEL JUKE BOX
URLATORI ALLA SBARRA
COLPO GOBBO ALL'ITALIANA
I DUE DELLA LEGIONE
LE MASSAGGIATRICI
UNO STRANO TIPO
GLI IMBROGLIONI
I MANIACI
I DUE EVASI Dl SING SING
002 AGENTI SEGRETISSIMI
I DUE PERICOLI PUBBLICI
COME INGUAIAMMO L'ESERCITO
002 OPERAZIONE LUNA
I DUE PARA
COME SVALIGIAMMO LA BANCA D'ITALIA
MASSACRE TIME
COME RUBAMMO LA BOMBA ATOMICA
IL LUNGO, IL CORTO, IL GATTO
OPERATION SAINT PETER'S
ONE ON TOP OF THE OTHER
BEATRICE CENCI
A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN
THE EROTICIST
DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING
WHITE FANG
THE CHALLENGE TO WHITE FANG
THE FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE
YOUNG DRACULA
LAPRETORA
THE PSYCHIC
SILVER SADDLE
ZOMBIE FLESH-EATERS
THE NAPLES CONNECTION
CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD
THE BLACK CAT
THE BEYOND
THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY
THE NEW YORK RIPPER
MANHATTAN BABY
CONQUEST
ROME 2033 -THE FIGHTER CENTURIONS
MURDER-ROCK DANCING DEATH
THE DEVIL'S HONEY
~NIGMA
a
ZOMBI
THE TOUCH OF DEATH
THE GHOSTS OF SODOM
THE SWEET HOUSE OF HORRORS
THE HOUSE OF CLOCKS
DEMONIA
NIGHTMARE CONCERT
VOICES FROM BEYOND
DOOR TO SILENCE

BEYOND TERROR
THE FILMS OF LUCIO FULCI
First edition published by FAB Press, May 1999
This second edition published by FAB Press, December 2002
FAB Press
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Text copyright <C> Stephen Thrower
Designed and Typeset by Harvey Fenton and Stephen Thrower,
with thanks to CoCo for production assistance.
This Volume copyright <C> FAB Press 2002
World Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without the prior written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0 9529260 6 7
FAB
PRE~
BEYOND
TE~~Olt
THE FILMS OF LUCIO FULCI
STEPHEN THR.OWER.
acknowledgements
Special acknowledgement goes to Julian Grainger for his valuable proof-reading of the manuscript, for tracking down
obscure titles and for permission to reproduce credits from his personal database of European actors and actresses.
His assistance in compiling and annotating the filmography was also essential.
The author wishes to thank the following for their help and encouragement during the preparation, wrtting and editing of this
book: Luca Palmerini (for the Dardano Sacchetti material), Pete Tombs (for good advice on the first draft), Barrie Dwyer
(for the essential summer retreat), Marc Morris (for help in tracing many of these fllms over the years and for providing the
Zombie Flesh-Eaters DVD frame-grabs), Martin Coxhead (for elusive titles and some visual material), Krls Gavin (for assistance
to Julian Grainger), Deborah Bacci (for translation assistance), Mark Ashworth (for his advice on obscure Italiana), Patrizia
Milazzo (for help in translation), Trevor Barley and Paul Brown (for bringing Lucio Fulci over here in 1994 to present his films),
Marcelle Perks (for a chat about The New York Ripper), Adrian Luther-Smith (for proof-reading the final final version and
additional research), Scott Grantham (for clearing up some confusion in the credits for The New York Ripper) and Ruth Bayer
(for the author's photograph), Simon Norris (for drawing the Eibon glyph).
Stills and illustrations are from the author's collection and from: Bill Bennett, Francis Brewster, Nigel Burrell, Mitch Davis,
Max Decharne, Kenneth Eriksen, Harvey Fenton, Antonella Fulci, Alan Jones, Adrian Luther-Smith, Bob Murawski,
Gary Needham, Kim Newman and Salvatore Pazzi (Thriller, Torino).
Frontispiece: French artwork for City of the Living Dead.
Copyright of illustrations is the property of the production or distribution companies concerned. These illustrations are reproduced
here in the spirit of publicity, and whilst every effort has been made to trace the copyright owners, the author and publishers
apologize for any omissions and will undertake to make any approprtate changes in future editions of this book if necessary.
For their kind participation in interviews, thanks to: Dardano Sacchetti, Catriona MacColl and Antonella Fulci.
For rescuing this project from cryogenic suspension at its first intended publisher, and for sheer hard work and focus, thanks to
Harvey Fenton.
For taking me to my first 'horror' movie (David Lynch's The Elephant Man) and for her valued encouragement of my wrtting,
special thanks to Diane Newby.
For communicating his enthusiasm so strongly in those early Starburst reviews, thanks to Alan Jones, the first wrtter to
recognize the power of Fulci's Gothic horrors.
Dedicated to Simon Norris who weathered my manias and depressions (not to mention a period when I was speaking Italian in
my sleep) during the long haul to publication. At last it's done!
This book has taken a long time to reach publication, for reasons largely beyond my control. Maintaining some kind of
momentum has not been easy but the people mentioned above have helped me to retain a sense that the project was worthwhile.
Thanks to all of you.
In memory of Lucio Fulci, whose films taught me to love the Italian cinema,
and David Warbeck, the handsomest devil in the Beyond.
contents
Foreword by Antonella Fulci 6
A Personal Introduction 7
Introduction to the films of Lucio Fulci I I
Zombie! I5
The Comedies 41
Build My Giallos High! 63
The Ghoul Can't Help It 105
Gothic Hells, Gruesome Visions 141
Fulvia Film Proudly Goes Too Far. .. 213
Adrift on Perversion 241
Craft, Pain & Inspiration 265
The films of Lucio Fulci: complete credits 272
Fulci's other work 282
Actor and Actress filmographies 284
Synopses for unreviewed Fulci films 303
Bibliography 304
Index of names 307
Index of film titles 309
• Films are dated by the year of their release. Dates are only listed in the text for the first reference to each title per
chapter, or when pertinent.
• Lucio Fulci's films are referred to first under their original language release titles followed by the most common
English-language variant, e.g. Una suU'altra/One on Top of tbe Other ( 1969). Thereafter only the English·language
variant is used.
• Where several different English-language titles have proliferated, the author has tried to select the most common
British one, except where personal prejudice forbids! (e.g. Fulci's Manhattan Baby was released in both Italy and
America as such, but appeared on video in the UK blandly retitled as Possessed.). Common American titles stand
in for films released in the States but not in Great Britain.
• In the absence of any English·language release, the films are referred to under their original language titles only.
• Films by other directors are referred to by their most common English-language title, except where they were
either undistributed in Britain/America or distributed under their Italian names (as is the case with sundry art
cinema releases). Even then, inconsistencies occur. For Instance, Federico Fellini's La dolce vita is usually referred
to as such in English-speaking countries, but Luchino Visconti's The Damned is rarely listed as La caduta degli
Del, its actual Italian title. Where such contradictions occur, I've opted for the more immediately recognisable
choice. Basically, the use of titles reflects my wish to make the now of this book as smooth as possible. Therefore
I've opted not to list Italian + English titles, as some critics prefer. Purists may object, but If the pattern is to be
consistent one ends up with absurdities like ZOmbi holocaust/ZOmbie Holocaust, Diabolik/Danger: Diabollk.
and great traffic pile-ups like Perche' quelle strane goc:ce di sangue sui corpo di Jennifer?/Wby Those Strange
Drops of Blood on tbe Body of Jennifer?
foreword by antonella fulci
Daddy kept an old issue of Variety in his writing he used to say: 'She's queer. but she really drives me
table drawer. He really loved its obituary page and often crazy/'
talked about how it showed chance is more revealing I'd rather tell you about our wonderful summer
than pure facts: the page was dedicated to Louis B. vacations than about death and the casualties of time; if
Mayer. the Leo. you wanted to see Lucio's very best you should have seen
The divine Orson used to call him the biggest him on the ocean. Our departures were worthy of
clown in America. Bad Billy Wilder told him bitterly to Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, but daddy's commander's
fuck off when Louis accused him of ungratefulness to the instinct made it great fun. Every year we sailed from port
hand that feeds. after the premiere of Sunset Boulevard, to port for a month, met friends and had late night
but this wasn't reported in the celebration article. parties on the open sea. It was fun to see daddy flirt \vlth
Everybody was there to glorify the legend and daddy was every girl, making jokes. Once I saw him reading a girl's
sincerely touched until he saw a very short paragraph. at fortune in the palm of her hand, like a real gypsy. He was
the bottom of the page: so serious that I laughed nearly to death. Later when we
'The wife and the daughter of Edgar G. Ulmer fondly recalled the story he said, grinning:
remember their husband andf ather; on the anniversary of 'When you want someone and you've exhausted any
his death'. other chance you only have two ways to reach your goal:
Once again the movie that always obsessed him Play her a song on the guitar; and I'm unable to: so I was
for its perfection was talking to his heart. using the second sure:fire way'.
Fate was the thread of Ulmer's masterpiece 'Pretend you can read her fortune?'
Detour (1945), with its five days of shooting and Tom 'Sure/'
Anton ella Fulci's film-related web-site Neal's death from drugs abuse shortly after it, and fate 'What did you teU her?'
http://cinextreme.hypermart.net too was uniting the King of Hollywood and the genius of 'Everything she wanted to hear. .. but now please .fuck off
features further material on her no-budgeted movies. I suggested that daddy was like the cause you're making me screw up my marine knot/'.
father's films. hitchhiker of the movie, but he laughed behind his tiny 'It was ok', he added with a much bigger grin. then paid
glasses. as always. all his attention to the knot.
Printed paper and celluloid preserve a man from Daddy hated the jerk-nauts and their motor boats.
death in other people's hearts. and sometimes a tiny The three of us went where the wind blew. stopping at
little film can change your life. Daddy could turn any times by the little islands around the Argentario promon
movie conversation into a praise for Ann Savage's cheap tory and proceeding in random directions. It was
skirt waving in the dust. at the gas station. He said she beautiful and a sort of miracle potion for our moods. The
could have been the second Bette Davis, and I think he beauty of the places we discovered day by day healed
was right. He loved to remember his only experience on every neurosis. me and Camilla cooked fantastic meals
the set with his true mentor. Ulmer was directing the aboard while daddy read his books and wrote his things.
third unit crew of Siodmak's The Crimson Pirate (1952) He said he loved the southeast wind because it made him
and daddy was the substitute for ·an athletic assistant', think better.
Antonella Fulci on her grandmother,
in his own words. Krzysztof Kieslowski had an unpronounceable
Lucio's mother:
They became friends. I can bet daddy did every name and entitled most of his movies like the ten
"Your question about her ever thing to make it so anyway, and Edgar told him about commandments. The eleventh commandment was his
working in the film industry puts a the many Yiddish movies he directed and some amusing last triad: Three Colours: Blue, White and Red. The
smile on my face, because Lucia stories about his friends Carl (Jung) and Isaac (Singer). I three colours of France; the country he moved to from
always hated it. She thought every never discovered what he said about Detour, if I think his native Poland. He was constantly hailed as a genius.
film-maker was a crazy bugger who about it. Well, that was dadl In his films Miss Binoche merged with the dominating
should go and find a real job. She I think for the film maker in Lucio, Detour meant color, delighting the eyes of a large audience of aesthetes
wanted dad to become a lawyer five days of hard sweaty work on the road. twenty four and intellectuals. The young director (45 years old)
instead/In this picture she's about 20
hours a day; he always wondered how such a movie, passed away on March 13 1996, the same day as my
and still living in Sicily. Now that you
almost totally shot in open spaces. could give him such dad. I wasn't in the best mood to appreciate the irony of
mention it. she could have become a
movie star with her natural beauty. claustrophobia. That was probably what made him fall in fate when I saw the macabre 'double feature· on newspa
But if she were here and heard me love forever. Norma Desmond and her magnificence were pers the next day, a sort of 'Fulci vs. Kieslowskf (full of
say that she'd question my sanity and miles away from the gas station but her spirit was there, crocodile tears for the artisan and literary orgasms for
grumble: 'Me among all those dirty clear in Lucio's young mind. I'm talking about cinema, he the Polish aesthete). but I'm sure that daddy was
crazy people? No way/' had it in his blood! laughing loud. wherever he was.
Once he was being questioned about The Beyond. That was the day I pulled out Variety from the
He compared the movie to a poem by Antonln Artaud drawer. ..
just to provoke the interviewer, but the guy seemed to ... One of those God-blessed summers, we saw
take it seriously because I'm reading about The Tony Curtis standing still on a dock in Porto Ercole.
Beyond's 'Artaudian' atmosphere over and over. It's Daddy started blessing him out loud:
touching how people keep searching for a common 'Look at that man! Remember that he kissed Marilyn!
thread in daddy's frequent genre-mutations. Take a What a man!'.
breath folks. if there's a thread in daddy's career. it's a Who knows what Tony Curtis was doing there, but I
small b-movie from the past. guess he wasn't thinking about Miss Monroe in the cool
In One On Top of the Other, for example, and breeze that cleared the most wonderful of sunsets, as he
just to praise my favorite thriller once more. the weak didn't even turn his white head to look at the bearded
George D. enjoys a more positive twist of fate than the man who was praising him so loud.
pessimistic Tom Neal. with the help of a favorable time In my mind's eye, a merciful fate re-united Louis B.
zone and a big stroke of luck. (no spoilers here!). Daddy Mayer and Edgar G. Ulmer in the same place, and they
said he'd been inspired by his dream girl Susan were looking at the same sunset. It was magic ... I looked
Hayward as Barbara Graham (I want to live, Robert around for Madame Desmond but she wasn't there \vlth
Wise, 1959) for the gas chamber sequence. About Susan them at all. and I felt wonderfully good.
"voices from beyond"
6 Beyond Terror
a personal introduction
Like many British horror fans who grew up in cabals had done when they slammed Todd
the seventies, I spent the decade reading about films Browning's Freaks. Even some admirers of the
it was impossible to see. My fascination for the genre Hammer films, those who not so long ago had been
was fuelled entirely by books about cinema, and considered utterly depraved for championing Terence
horror fiction. Thankfully, there was a supply of Poe Fisher, scorned the more recent films, whose titles -
and Lovecraft at my local library, along with the The Last House on the Left, The Texas Chain Saw
standards like Bram Stoker's Dracula. Anthologies of Massacre, Night of the Living Dead, Twitch of the
ghost stories (M.R. James, Sheridan Le Fanu and Death Nerve, Shivers -were mentioned with high
many others) provided some traditionally crafted handed deprecations and dark hints of declin1ng
scares; and there was always the BBC's Dr Who - moral standards. The same phrases were rotating in
going through a particularly nerve-jangling Gothic turn, without irony, into the mouths of each succes
spell -to cement my attraction to the vicarious sive generation of commentators. Needless to say, all
sensations of terror. Lovecraft in particular mutated this was grist for the mill of adolescent infatuation!
my childhood with his dank and cosmically distorted Suddenly, the horror pantheon's more elderly
world-view. My taste for the fantastic and grotesque denizens seemed too pale, and not just because of
was well established, thanks to the inhabitants of the sepulchral murk of their habitat.
Dunwich, Boston and Innsmouth ... When the seventies segued into the eighties, I
If these dark pleasures were barely tolerated in was living near Wakefield; a small, unremarkable
literary circles, it hardly seemed to matter. As would West Yorkshire town. Wakefield's only cinema was an
become apparent later, the genre often seems to have 'ABC' three-screener, which I'd begun to visit after above:
thrived in a marginal position. But the contributors leaving school at sixteen. It was here that I first David Warbeck, star of The Beyond
to another prominent influence on these pages were encountered one of the key ftlms discussed in this
considered -if at all -beneath contempt. I refer book, on a double bill that was to Influence my
lovingly to The Pan Books of Horror Stories -collec viewing habits for years to come. It offered two Italian
tions of mind-bogglingly perverse and gruesome horror ftlms; Shock by Mario Bava, supporting The
trifles -whose tone, imagery and disreputability sent Beyond by Lucio Fulcl. 1 had the cineaste's formative
even this morbid teen into paroxysms of nausea. A experience that week; returning three times, dragging
delighted nausea, I would queasily have admitted, friends along the third time, then catching it again
after sitting alone with Flame/ by Norman Kaufman, twelve miles away in Leeds, where It played for a
or Ashes to Ashes by Alan Hillary. The earlier further fortnight. I treasure recollections of this
volumes interspersed these stomach-churning efforts period, when Eagle Films - the UK distributors of
with work of a more reputable pedigree. But whilst many great Italian horrors -were in the ascendant on
Patricia Highsmith and David Case may have shown provincial cinema screens. Other Fulci films such as
greater prose abilities, it was usually the likes of City of the Living Dead, The House By the
Kaufman whose work ended up being quoted on the Cemetery and a re-released Zombie Flesh-Eaters
covers, covers that shrieked with choice giblets of the turned up in quick succession, along with work by
extravagant nastiness inside: "Great chunks of bone Italian directors like Ruggero Deodato. Umberto Lenzi
kept bouncing up from where the hammer was splin and Bruno Mattei.
tering his skull". Suddenly It was urgent that I find out what
Easily available in high street booksellers like was playing across the whole sprawling county of
below:
Woolworths or W.H. Smiths, these tales thrived, sold Yorkshire. I learned of the trend for horror film all Portrait of the artist as an old corpse:
by the cart-load, and to my knowledge escaped nighters, often in places I'd never been to before. and Schweik, warlock and painter of
without censure. 1 never saw a single tabloid scare have never returned to since. Harrogate, a relent- The Beyond.
about the content of these 'paperback-nasties'; and
as this was before postmodernism turned the 'quality
press' into a media-studies exercise in creative
slumming, they passed unscathed by trendy champi
oning too. What a world of difference there seemed to
be, between the Universal Pictures gallery -
Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Bela Lugosi's tacky
theatrics -and these tales! Could the cinema ever
match their explicit horror?
It soon would. Thanks to the likes of David
Pirie's book The Vampire Cinema which also turned
up providentially in the local library, I became aware
of the existence of a new horror cinema that was
sweeping the dusty, cobwebbed Gothics of the thirties
and sixties aside. Breathlessly anticipating the day
when 1 might see these shockingly violent, low-budget
films, I read about them avidly and gloated over the
stills that promised even worse in store. There was a
thrilling apprehension at the thought of what ninety
minutes of such unrelieved mayhem might be like.
Adding to the immediate pleasure these stills
offered was an awareness that they heralded the
passing of a critical order. Orthodox horror film
pundits, for whom James Whale and Val Lewton,
Nosferatu and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde constituted
the acceptable canon, were sneertngly disdainful
about the modern horror ftlm, expressing disapproval
and outright disgust at its new excesses. Never mind
that they were reacting just as previous critical
Introduction 7
lessly conservative old-lady of a town, played host to system. I would watch three or four films in a night
a Saturday night bill of Cronenb erg's Shivers and (with friends at their VCR-equipped houses) before
Rabid, Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Bob crashing into a brief hour or two's sleep. A line of
Clark's excellent Dead of Night. These films equalled speed, off to work, then out in the late afternoon to
the gory delights of the Pan horror stories yet added a catch the next screening of whatever horror movie
startling sophistication all their own. was being unspooled at the cinema. It was an
The British censor performed a King Canute exciting time to be a horror fan.
act throughout the seventies, banning certain movies I was seeing a lot of films; but that Italian
outright and reducing many more to splicy, bowdler double bill·was a key experience for me. Something I
ized travesties, before gracing them with that all hadn't yet the vocabulary or the background reading
important ·x· (a symbol now more redolent of a pair to define was apparently linking the films: not merely
above:
Fulci directing The House by the of scissors than a hallmark of the forbidden). But as their presence on a bill together, more like some
Cemetery: cinematographer the eighties began, all this was to change. For a brief, shared, arcane aspect of their style. But what was it?
Sergio Salvati is to the right glorious period -no more than four years, but as vital I hadn't led the traditional cinephile's home life. My
of Fulci (pointing). to the horror genre as punk was to musical tastes - parents hated films, or indeed anything which
the tide was most definitely in. 1980/81 saw the start required sustained concentration. 1V was 'rationed',
of the video revolution, and high streets all over the (there for brief bursts of light entertainment);
country were inundated with video shops. anything which smacked of darkness, created a
Horror films enjoyed an immediate prominence palpable tension, or induced an air of contemplation
in these stores (the 'return of the repressed' theory was scorned and switched off. Nonetheless, I had
vindicated!) The shelves were full of low budget, enough sense of the prevailing cultural norms to find
splashily packaged horror items. Some that had been these two Italian films immediately wild and disorien
released in shamefully cut prints in British cinemas tating. Was it the music? The wonderful soundtracks
were now available in their brazen entirety; near to The Beyond and Shock made a major impression
legendary titles whose visibility had been limited to a on me. Was it the lavish photography. .. or the way in
few festival screenings were prominently displayed, which mundane events were transformed into the
and whole national cinematic identities were there to macabre by the camera's dwelling attention? Or was
be mapped through the surge of hitherto unsus it this -that the extraordinary violence and
pected foreign works. The popular cinemas of gruesomeness on show took such a cavalier attitude
America (of course), Spain and Italy were most promi to plausibility and taste that one sensed anything
nent, though films made in France, Greece, could happen? I have come to feel that all these
Switzerland, Sweden, Indonesia, Japan, Hong-Kong, things and more make the films of Lucio Fulci special
The Philippines and Mexico also turned up. Suddenly and exciting. His best work offers the viewer strange,
there were four video stores in Wakefield's town exotic pleasures that are available nowhere else.
centre alone ('mom and pop' stores, to use the Lucio Fulci became a key name in my personal
American term for small privately owned shops, and pantheon of greats. I hope that this book will commu
so much the better for it). Most small businesses nicate that initial excitement, as well as drawing
were eventually squeezed out of the market by upon the more considered evaluation I've tried to
American-owned chains like Blockbuster Video but develop in the years since that first contact with
for a while the film industry felt wonderfully open Italy's most outrageous and gruesome director!
below: and pluralistic.
David Warbeck and Lucio Fulci (centre)
This explosion of high gruesomeness, in a Stephen Thrower,
in Rome during the filming of
plethora of weird styles, was a welcome shock to the April 1999.
The Beyond in 1980.
8 Beyond Terror