Things open with a shot of cats hungrily devouring a gigantic human brain. We see a director devising the screenplay for his next horror yarn. "Chainsaw murders... evisceration... sadism..." he mutters to himself. The description could aptly describe the next eighty-eight minutes of this movie, which contain more severings, slashings, and body parts than most gore films put together.
Lucio Fulci's oddest movie is a real mixed bag. On one hand it has a really interesting premise in that Fulci is essentially playing himself, on set while directing his gory movies, so it's a movie-in-a-movie type plot like WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE (only this came first) that has the opportunity to explore the link between the violence in horror films and the violence in real life (and if movies have any effect), and what prolonged exposure to gory violence might do to a man! As well as this, it's a study of Fulci's supposed psychological state so gets a bit confusing as you can well imagine.
On the other hand, the movie is simply an excuse to string together a series of incredibly gory set-pieces from previous Fulci films and others, and then to "insert" Fulci's character into these scenes as if he is witnessing the murders first hand. The effect is an interesting, if muddled one, marred by some extreme technical faults (skies and backgrounds are different colours in film segments) which are par for the course for no-budget productions like this.
Fulci himself takes the leading role of the confused director, making this a must-see movie for his die-hard fans. Realising that he himself is not, and can never be, an actor, Fulci instead opts for a tongue-in-cheek performance which seems to be a case of either love it or hate it for horror fans. Personally, I think he copes admirably with the role and the comedy. Speaking of comedy, some of it is intentional but a lot of it is not, such as the cheesy dubbing and the over-the-top extravaganza of some of the set-pieces. Take for example David Thompson's turn as the crazed psychiatrist - this guy goes so over-the-top as the crazed slasher that his performance has to be seen to be disbelieved! The hilarious highlight in my mind is when Fulci repeatedly runs some poor fool who got in the path of his car - classic stuff, and for some reason extremely funny.
Gore hounds certainly get their money's worth with this movie, even if the majority (but not all...) of the effects and sequences are taken from previous films (thus Brett Halsey is billed in the cast as "the Monster" even though he never actually acted in this film - hmm, wonder how he feels about that?). Kicking off with a corpse being chainsawed, minced and fed to pigs, the film includes a Nazi sadist orgy, lots of eyeballs, beheadings, behandings, a melting head in a microwave, maggotty corpses, bloody stabbings, a PSYCHO-derived (but even more shocking) shower murder, chainsaw and trunk decapitations, a piano-wire throat garrotting, and oodles more. Of course, it's all pretty cheap and fake-looking but there's so much of it, it all becomes a bit overwhelming - especially to the BBFC who banned it outright when the film was subjected for video release in the UK.
Definitely a must-see for lovers of the bizarre or those looking for something a bit different from Fulci, although it's a lot different to the zombie films he is most widely known for. Although there is lots to hate about it, I think there is even more to like and find interesting, which is why I recommend this as a "at least see it once" kind of movie.
Lucio Fulci's oddest movie is a real mixed bag. On one hand it has a really interesting premise in that Fulci is essentially playing himself, on set while directing his gory movies, so it's a movie-in-a-movie type plot like WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE (only this came first) that has the opportunity to explore the link between the violence in horror films and the violence in real life (and if movies have any effect), and what prolonged exposure to gory violence might do to a man! As well as this, it's a study of Fulci's supposed psychological state so gets a bit confusing as you can well imagine.
On the other hand, the movie is simply an excuse to string together a series of incredibly gory set-pieces from previous Fulci films and others, and then to "insert" Fulci's character into these scenes as if he is witnessing the murders first hand. The effect is an interesting, if muddled one, marred by some extreme technical faults (skies and backgrounds are different colours in film segments) which are par for the course for no-budget productions like this.
Fulci himself takes the leading role of the confused director, making this a must-see movie for his die-hard fans. Realising that he himself is not, and can never be, an actor, Fulci instead opts for a tongue-in-cheek performance which seems to be a case of either love it or hate it for horror fans. Personally, I think he copes admirably with the role and the comedy. Speaking of comedy, some of it is intentional but a lot of it is not, such as the cheesy dubbing and the over-the-top extravaganza of some of the set-pieces. Take for example David Thompson's turn as the crazed psychiatrist - this guy goes so over-the-top as the crazed slasher that his performance has to be seen to be disbelieved! The hilarious highlight in my mind is when Fulci repeatedly runs some poor fool who got in the path of his car - classic stuff, and for some reason extremely funny.
Gore hounds certainly get their money's worth with this movie, even if the majority (but not all...) of the effects and sequences are taken from previous films (thus Brett Halsey is billed in the cast as "the Monster" even though he never actually acted in this film - hmm, wonder how he feels about that?). Kicking off with a corpse being chainsawed, minced and fed to pigs, the film includes a Nazi sadist orgy, lots of eyeballs, beheadings, behandings, a melting head in a microwave, maggotty corpses, bloody stabbings, a PSYCHO-derived (but even more shocking) shower murder, chainsaw and trunk decapitations, a piano-wire throat garrotting, and oodles more. Of course, it's all pretty cheap and fake-looking but there's so much of it, it all becomes a bit overwhelming - especially to the BBFC who banned it outright when the film was subjected for video release in the UK.
Definitely a must-see for lovers of the bizarre or those looking for something a bit different from Fulci, although it's a lot different to the zombie films he is most widely known for. Although there is lots to hate about it, I think there is even more to like and find interesting, which is why I recommend this as a "at least see it once" kind of movie.