The Red Circle

The Long Good Friday 005: Fulci’s Downward Spiral

By Ryan Brlecic

1.) The Beyond, 1980 dir. Lucio Fulci

Usually as an avid film watcher one comes to know Lucio Fulci in the following way: “There is this movie where a zombie fights a shark, you really need to see it” (Zombi 2). So you do. Then after you realize Zack Synder’s end credits sequence from Dawn of the Dead was able to remake that movie in under five minutes, the effect wears off. Fulci’s work however can linger and the urge to explore it further might resurface; this is when most find The Beyond. This film represents both a highpoint of his later career and the starting point of his cinematic downward spiral.

Good horror can be debated, but true horror should have an almost metaphysical linger on it’s intended audience. Zombi 2 never reached past the sights of tearing flesh and shock of gore, it stayed comfortable in being simple suspense. With The Beyond, Fulci uses everything at his disposal to envelop you in madness and present you with no easy answer, no good, or solution once Hell begins to slowly encroach on Earth. He leaves nowhere safe, so much so that by the end the only place you have to run is into Hell itself.

This is part where I could entice you with lines about scenes from this film, but this film is too good to be boiled down like that. Fulci sets about destroying the flesh – slowly boiling it away in the process – in effort to leave nothing but the soul of true horror. Watch this film now and when you meet avid film watchers, ask them if they know Fulci.

2.) The City of the Living Dead, 1981 dir. Lucio Fulci

It should be pointed out that all three of these films share another connection past the slow retreat in Fulci’s abilities. They all follow a theme of awakening horror that will unleash hell on our plane of existence and are known as “The Death Trilogy”. The City of The Living Dead (COTLD), follows a reporter and a psychic race to close the gates of hell after the suicide of a clergyman caused them to open, allowing the dead to rise from the grave.

Inspired most likely by Dario Argento’s “Mothers Trilogy”, Fulci set out to document our descent into madness in his own connected series of films. With this film he shot high and came in somewhere between his previous ventures. COTLD has more then just brief moments of the brand of terror that made The Beyond an horror essential, but it falls back on Fulci’s bad habits and the lackadaisical film-making of Zombi 2.

The film tries to give you more informed madness and often this causes the film to be slow at times. The plot however still represents that of trying to piece together a broken mirror with only a few of the big chunks in hand. Fulci seemed to be resting on his laurels with this entry. This however was and is a Fulci film and memorable for a scene in which a young woman proceeds to vomit up her insides while crying blood (Editor’s note: her boyfriend in the scene is none other than Cemetery Man director Michele Soavi). In the end however the film is more memorable then most Fulci fare, but lacks the lasting power of The Beyond.

3.) The House by the Cemetery, 1982 dir. Lucio Fulci

All of the above leads to The House by the Cemetery, for those that enjoy Fulci (warts and all) this film represent an end of the road for the filmmaker. It was the last time his work seemed to gel in that vaguely familar Fulci style of horror. Lucio made films till his death in 1996, but The House by the Cemetery (THBTC) was the last good film he made.

The Beyond’s horror affected the world it inhabited. COTLD’s horror affected the town it resided in. THBTC affected the house and more importantly the family that it lived in. It is unsure if Fulci meant to explore unfathomable events and death in almost a russian doll like fashion, but it seems to have unfolded that way. There is not much to say for THBTC besides that is it worth  watching to round out the death trilogy and more than likely geared for avid fans of Lucio Fulci. By this film Fulci’s layers had peeled away, boiled down to nothing but his cliches, and leaving nothing but the lingering essence of his brand of horror on film.

What watching Fulci Leads to

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