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.
There is something to be said for this movie, the soundtrack is phenomenal.
Usually when I write movies up I try to stay on the positive side. I'll include “things to look a way for” if there's gross spots in otherwise redeemable movies, I'll even write from the perspective of the people who enjoyed the movie if I straight up hate something. But there is a certain sub-set of movies that I can't do that for: the glorified-misogyny genre. If we lived in a world where women on film were as varied and nuanced as the men [specifically the white men], maybe I'd feel differently about these kinds of movies.
But that is not the world we live in.
Though, as we've learned here at Tape Freaks, even the worst movies have something redeeming to offer and New York Ripper's offering of redemption lies in the soundtrack. But I'll try my best to tell you why this movie gets a flat zero from me before I get into that...
The plot unfolds something like this: In a version of New York City where women are hyper-sexual and are routinely brutalized, a serial killer is on the loose. He's hunting down women and killing them in the most violent ways imaginable, all while talking like Donald Duck.
No really: The killer talks like Donald Duck through the whole movie.
Reasons to watch: The soundtrack is amazing, and that Donald Duck thing is pretty weird...
Best description I found of this film: “...essentially a ‘greatest hits’ of sexist splatter effects with Donald Duck quacking away in the background.” - Mondozilla for Horrorpedia
Reasons to find the soundtrack: Francessco De Masi's score to this film was in my heavy play rotation long before I saw the movie. The jazzy 80's percussion and brass punctuated by orchestral swells made for excellent bike commute music. When I imagined the movie this music accompanied, I could see hard-boiled detectives, smoke filled precincts, moody cityscapes, and very likely murder. I certainly did not imagine a straight-up slasher movie, which is all New York Ripper turned out to be. (Though, imagining a cop movie wasn't too out of line as scoring those types of projects was Masi's bread and butter at the time.) This soundtrack is densely textured instrumentation masterfully layered in every track and I could seriously go on about it all day long, I encourage you to give it a listen!
What to watch instead: A good slasher substitute would be Slumber Party Massacre. The women in that movie are pretty well rounded characters, but it was also written and directed by women. If you're looking for another Fulci movie, The Beyond is a far superior film with extreme gore content and better female characters. If you're more interested in nudity than gore, Hard Ticket to Hawaii is a good choice. It's more of an action flick featuring nude women, but they're more well rounded and empowered than most clothed women in cinema from the same time period.
Lucio Fulci is Rated X [THESE SCREENINGS ARE LONG IN THE PAST]:
This is a movie that features a house next to a cemetery, or more accurately a house with some graves next to it. But that's inconsequential because the cemetery never really come into play...
The plot unfolds something like this: Dr. Norman has taken his wife and son to live in a remote victorian house while he picks up documenting the history of the house where his colleague Dr. Peterson left off. Dr. Peterson's studies abruptly ended when he murdered his mistress and killed himself. Young Bob (the Dr. Norman's son) receives a series of ominous warnings to leave the house via his friend Mae, who only he can see. All of these warnings are ignored by Dr. Norman who's become obsessed with his research. Will he discover the secrets the house holds, or will the secrets tear their family limb from limb?
Creative kill: Carving knife stabbed through a victim’s head, entering the back of the skull and exiting through the mouth.
Things to watch for: A grave stone set into a living room floor. The greatest bat vs. human scene in horror. The best use of a basement in a menacing way. Some exceptionally strange make-up effects.
Worst named character: Dr. Freudstein (the original owner of the house).
What we learned: When you move into a house next to a “cemetery”, have the basement inspected for detention-shifting-zombie-doctors before moving your family in.
But, as this is a Fulci movie, that point of contention is made up for with rich atmosphere, a looming sense of other worldly dread, a fantastic score from Fabio Frizzi, and of course, horrifying gore.
There is so much gore.
And not just the standard Fulci effects and over the top zombifications, there's also a scene where a man dies from being drilled straight through the head, there are many tears of blood, there's even a room full of maggots! So full. And those aren't the only maggots in the film.
So many maggots.
This movie is also the first in the “unofficial” Gates of Hell trilogy. The second being The Beyond and the third would be The House by the Cemetery (though that might be why it's “unofficially” a trilogy as they never talk about "the gates of hell" in House). The thin (and at time straight up goofy) plot gives this film a handicap, but it pretty well lays the foundation for how amazing The Beyond turned out. It also gives The Beyond a run for it's money in the well-that-was-a-confusing-ending department...
So confusing.
But it truly, watching this movie fully prepared for it's flaws leaves you free to more thoroughly enjoy the great elements abundant throughout the film. (There's so much gore and grossness! So much!) And you can enjoy all the grossness in restored glory, so you'll see every single maggot!
With the release of Zombie, Lucio Fulci entered three visual touchstones into the zombie pop-culture lexicon: the image of the zombie that graces the poster art with an eye socket full of maggots, a zombie slowly pulling a victim’s eye through a splinter of a door, and the underwater fight between a zombie and a shark. As time fades on and you forget the details of this zombie classic, you'll likely start referring to this movie as “the one with the splinter though the eye” or more commonly “the one where the zombie fights a shark”, and this begs a question: Why didn't the idea of underwater zombie ever take off?
George A. Romero ran with the underwater zombie in Land of the Dead and Max Brooks addresses the idea (as does Shock Wave apparently, though I have not yet watched it), but it's strange more modern zombie movies aren't embracing the water-mobile zombie. Possibly the idea adds too much cost to production (I imagine makeup that holds up underwater isn't cheep, nor are underwater stunt people). But what if the underwaterness was used as premise to the story rather than mere sight gags. A deserted island could easily be over run by a water logged horde, a cargo ship could pick up what they thought was a man-overboard, a shipwrecked crew could see what could perhaps appear to be their saviors slowly lumbering from the depths of the ocean...
So, I guess what I'm driving at is this: while you're enjoying Zombie and all it's quintessential contributions to the zombie cannon, fantastic gore, and makeup effects, take notes and write a screenplay that dictates the next direction in zombie horror. Why not? What else are you going to do on a Wednesday afternoon?
We've finally got some time to get into the Halloween spirit! To start off the season right, we thought we'd make a list of some
of our favorite movies to carve pumpkins to:
Halloween
III: Season of the Witch:
We got around to watching this movie one year while carving
pumpkins and we've probably watched it every year since! It features
Tom Atkins is at his finest and the best song to sing during the
Halloween season. (If you haven't given this one a
chance, check it out on Oct 23rd on the big screen with a Q&A with Tom Atkins after the screening!!!)
The
Beyond:
One
of our favorite Lucio Fulci movies in partial thanks to Germano
Natali's amazing effects work (he also had a hand in such gems as
Deep Red, Suspiria, and Starcrash). Heads melt, dogs attack people,
eyes are gouged, spiders kill a guy, and the heroes keep forgetting
that head shots kill the zombies every time they change locations...
It's pretty much everything you could need in a horror film!
Friday
the 13th:
I
prefer the first in this series, but Tim always goes for five when we
have pumpkins in hand. The first Friday the 13th is probably my all
time favorite horror movie, it's fun while maintaing a sense of
realism, it portrays creepy in-the-middle-of-nowhere very accuratly,
and it has some of my favorite simple kills of all time. The fifth
Friday is basically a slaughter from start to finish, people are
introduced solely to be killed and we're A-OK with that! Plus it
features Miguel A. Nunez Jr. one of our favorite
b-movie actors to spot in a flick!
Evil
Dead:
We're suckers for the original with all it's
crazy make-up, well executed low budget effects, loads of cheese
and gore, and of course the indomitable Bruce Campbell.
Dawn
of the Dead: Our favorite of the Dead series; a mall filled
with zombies in bad make-up, drips with social commentary, features
non-zombie bad guys, and a spectacular soundtrack.
Trick 'r Treat: A seriously underrated modern horror anthology we've grown
to love. Creepy kids, re-imagined werewolves, crotchety old men, and
some pretty great twists on some old ideas. And then there's the
fantastic cast: Dylan Baker (Happiness), Anna Paquin (True Blood), Brian Cox (everything), Tahmoh Penikett (Supernatural), Brett Kelly and Britt McKillip (both from Dead Like Me).
