The Beyond - Lucio Fulci - 1981

★★★-Gateway to hell in the basement of a hotel movie. “Southern Gothic” as it takes place in New Orleans, though it is directed by an Italian with actors from fucking everywhere. 

Directed by the infamous Lucio Fulci, who was known for treating everyone on set, especially women, like shit. He worked in various genres in a career that spanned nearly five decades. You know, comedy, Spaghetti Westerns, action, so forth. But he garnered a cult following for his giallo and horror flicks, mainly remembered for his “Gates of Hell” trilogy, of which this film is the second. The other two are City of the Living Dead (1980) and The House by the Cemetery (1981). 

The film doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Dream logic flick. Voiceover makes it make even less sense. 

It's a pretty brutal movie. A child sees her mother killed by acid when going to identify the body of her father. There is a crucifixion, eye trauma (hes known for eye trauma), multiple deaths by acid, a woman whose seeing eye dog saves her from a zombie attack then turns into a zombie and rips out her throat, and a child, the one who watched her mom die, who gets her head blown off in graphic detail. Fulci apparently hated the child, accused her of being a drug addict, and maybe abused her. Harsh. The guy who does the deed had absolutely no hesitation in shooting her in the face, which I applaud. “She was a zombie?”

This male lead, played by one David Warbeck, is a good looking dude. Kind of a cross between Jack Nicholson and Sean Connery. British stage-trained actress Catriona MacColl stars. She is mostly remembered for this trilogy. The actress Cinzia Monreale plays the blind woman. She's remember for her work with Fulci and fellow Italian Joe D'Amato, notably in the film Beyond the Darkness. Her and Fulci famously did not get along. She is a really pretty lady. 

After treading on being a somewhat cerebral movie for the first three/fourths, the movie ends with a full on zombie attack out of nowhere. They go to the hospital which is overrun with zombies from the morgue or these are all patients, it does matter. Then they open a door, descend a staircase, and are back in the basement of the hotel. “Impossible,” they say. Dream logic. 

The end comes when the couple walk into Hell. What did they think would happen? Not great, but I was intrigued. It's grown on me since watching the other night, for sure. Still, not something I'd recommend to anyone off the street. 

Zombie - Lucio Fulci - 1979

★★★★-Imagine The Island of Dr. Moreau except with zombies. That's this movie (released as Zombi 2), which served as a loose sequel to George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead in Italy (released under the title Zombi). Interestingly, there Dawn of the Dead was Dario Argento with a new score by Goblin, who did the truly awesome music for other Argento movies like Deep Red.

Watched this as part of the Lucio Fulci Night on The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs on Shudder. They had composer Fabio Frizzi to play with the house band and tell Fulci stories and give insights to his work on this and the second film in the double feature, The Beyond. They also had the male lead of the film, Ian McCulloch, on to talk about working with Fulci, the director. McCulloch was sort of an embarrassment, not knowing what kind of program he was on and taking himself too seriously. Fulci, from the stories they tell, seemed like a real piece of work. Semi-abusive to the actors and crew, he didn't think you were earning your money unless you getting beat up physically as an actor. But Frizzi had nothing but kind things to say, so there is that. 

The gist of it is that the boat of a scientist thought to be working on a Caribbean island shows up in New York Harbor empty save for a giant, bloated flesh eating zombie. A reporter and the scientist's daughter head down to figure out what is going on. Once there, they find the island plagued by a voodoo curse, which causes the deceased inhabitants to rise as zombies and prey upon the living. You know the drill. 

The movie stars Tisa Farrow (sister of Mia Farrow) plays the daughter, McCulloch the reporter, and Richard Johnson is the Moreau type figure. Didn't know any of them before watching this flick.

Remembered for a couple of things, the film was notorious put on the “video nasty” list in the United Kingdom for one scene in particular involving an actress getting her eye slowly forced into a wood shard. It's pretty brutal. There are several deaths by zombie that are pretty hard to watch, actually. Also a zombie wrestles a real, very large shark, which is just nuts. You can read more about that here.

While low budget with not the best acting, there is a lot of shock that kept me and my female companion on our toes. We squealed with schlocky delight on multiple occasions while watching this flick. Makes it pretty good in my book.