Lucio Fulci is Rated X: The Beyond (on 35mm!)

This was the original pick for our October Tape Freaks screening, but we didn't want to compete with our friends! But the fact remains; in a genre known for mixing avant garde themes with unflinching horror, this is truly one of our favorites. The settings are unnerving, the soundtrack is haunting, the gore is fantastically creative, the ending is faux esoteric, and during every transition in the movie's climax, our heroes forget how they successfully killed the zombies in the previous scenes.

The plot unfolds something like this: After inheriting a decaying hotel in Louisiana, Liza decides to head south from her home in New York to renovate and reopen the hotel. Unfortunately, the renovations disturb one of the Seven Doors of Death and things sort of go to hell from there.

The setting: Who makes a horror movie set in Louisiana? Italians. Who puts a basement in a building in Louisiana? Those same Italians.


The gore: This movie's gore is simple, but effective and memorable. A vile of acid washes a woman's face off while creating a frothing bloody mess that threatens to dissolve the victim's daughter. A man is consume by flesh eating tarantulas. We are treated to the reverse of the splinter through the eye kill featured in Zombie. And there's another fatal dog attack.

The soundtrack: Fabio Frizzi's inarguably epic score looms dread over the entire film.

The over whelming dreamlike state of it: When I've read people's feelings on this film they often include something about the movie's persistent dreamlike feel. There is something to be said for a film that successfully uses it's unintentional disjointedness to invoke evocative atmosphere. 

Final thoughts: Of all the Fulci movies in this series, this is the one not to miss flickering over the big screen.

Lucio Fulci is Rated X:

The Beyond (on 35mm)

Mon, Oct 26, 7:00 & 9:00
Tue, Oct 27, 7:00 & 9:00
@ Trylon microcinema, tickets $8 (or snag a discount card at $25 for 5 movies!)

Also, this may be your last chance to pick up a screen printed poster!

Cat in the Brain

When Nicollet Village Video shut it's doors forever, Tim and I begrudgingly picked over the corpse of an old friend at their close out sale. We grabbed things that were harder to find, things we'd rented in the past, and some stuff we'd never seen just to keep some memory of that place. One of the “unknowns” we grabbed was Fulci's Cat in the Brain, how could we go wrong? Italian horror with “cat” in the title...

The plot unfolds something like this: Lucio Fulci is directing a movie when he starts unraveling. He's seeing seeing murderous visions and has begun acting them out. How far will his delusions take him?

Yeah, he broke a cardinal rule: There's a rule in writing where you don't put yourself into your work. Some people brake this rule with great success (Kurt Vonnegut, Charlie Kaufman, R. Crumb, come to mind) but if you're not at the top of your game, it's not wise to break cardinal rules. And since Fulci was long past his prime (as he was no longer pairing with Dardano Sacchetti, the writer that gave him his best screenplays), he likely should have made this film about someone else in some other field.

The kills: Mostly footage from his other films.

Reasons to watch: If you're trying to see all the Fulci movies, this is one of them. It's not totally unbearable, but it's like watching a clip episode of your favorite TV show, with a Fabio Frizzi score. This is also an early iteration of the meta-horror genre.