Lucio Fulci

Lucio Fulci
Born	June 17, 1927 (1927-06-17) Rome, Italy
Died	March 13, 1996 (1996-03-14) (aged 68) Rome, Italy
Occupation	Film Director, Screenwriter, Actor

Lucio Fulci (June 17, 1927 – March 13, 1996) was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is perhaps best known for his directorial work on gore films, including Zombi 2 (1979) and The Beyond (1981), although he made films in genres as diverse as giallo, western, and comedy.^[1] Fulci is known as the "Godfather of Gore"^[2]a title also given to Herschell Gordon Lewis.^[3]

Biography

Fulci was born in Rome. He had a Catholic background and has referred to himself as Catholic.^[4] Despite this Fulci is thought to have been Marxist and parts of his movies have been viewed as anti-Catholic.^[5]

After studying medicine and being employed as an art critic^[6] he opted for a film career, working in a wide variety of genres in Italy. In the early 1970s he moved into the thriller arena, directing giallo films that were both commercially successful and controversial in their depiction of violence and religion. The first film to gain him notoriety in his native country, Non si sevizia un paperino (Don't Torture a Duckling) mixed scathing social commentary with the director's soon-to-be-trademark graphic violence to stunning, hallucinatory effect.

In 1979, he achieved his international breakthrough with Zombi II, a violent zombie film that was marketed in European territories as a sequel to George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978). He followed it up with several tales of horror and the supernatural, many also featuring zombies. His features during this time were described by some critics as being among the most violent and gory films ever made. City of the Living Dead (1980), The Beyond (1981), The House by the Cemetery (1981), The Black Cat (1981), and The New York Ripper (1982) were some of his biggest hits, all of which featured extreme levels of on-screen blood and cruelty. Several of Fulci's movies were censored by the film distributor to ensure an R rating (such as The Beyond, which was originally released in edited form as Seven Doors of Death) or were released unrated in order to avoid an X-rating (as with Zombi II and The House by the Cemetery), which would have greatly restricted the films' target audience to adults only. The unrated films often played worldwide in drive-ins and grindhouses to hordes of delighted teenagers and horror fanatics.

Many of Fulci's movies were banned in Europe or released in heavily cut versions. Of the original 74 films on the infamous video nasty list in the United Kingdom, 3 belonged to Fulci: Zombi 2 (1979), The Beyond (1981), and The House by the Cemetery (1981).^[7] After viewing Fulci's New York Ripper, the British Board of Film classification not only refused the film a certificate but also ordered that all copies of the offending film be removed from the country.^[8]

German gore director Andreas Schnaas (left) and the late Lucio Fulci (right) at the 1994 Eurofest, London, England.

Some of Fulci's fans have retroactively argued that at his peak, Fulci's fame and popularity were on a par with that of Dario Argento, another famous Italian horror film director that Fulci had avoided working with and openly badmouthed. The two finally agreed to collaborate, but Fulci died before the project was finished and the film, M.D.C. - Maschera di Cera (The Wax Mask, 1997), was eventually directed by Sergio Stivaletti.^[9]

Fulci's films remained generally ignored and/or dismissed by the mainstream critical establishment, who regarded his work as pure exploitation. However, genre fans appreciated his films as being stylish exercises in extreme grue, and at least one of his splatter films, The Beyond, has "amassed a large and dedicated following".^[10] His earlier, lesser-known giallo Don't Torture a Duckling (1972), starring Barbara Bouchet, received some critical acclaim.^[11]

After the mid-1980s, Fulci was far less successful. In 1988 he directed only part of Zombie 3, which was later finished by an uncredited Bruno Mattei.^[12] He moved onto TV production horror movies, some of which never aired due to the high amount of gore and violence. Soon after he began to suffer from personal and health problems, somewhat due to a marked decline in the quality of his work. He died in Rome on March 13, 1996.

In 1998, Fulci's The Beyond was re-released to theaters by Quentin Tarantino,^[13] who has often cited the film, and Fulci himself, as a major source of inspiration.^[14][15]

Fulci vs. Sacchetti

Fulci and screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti share many screen credits from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. Their relationship deteriorated over the 1987 film The Changeling 2. Luca M. Palmerini and Gaetano Mistretta's book Spaghetti Nightmares, publishes two full interviews, one with Fulci and one with Sacchetti, explaining the reasons for the fallout.

Fulci's version is as follows: "One day I told him the story of Evil Comes Back (later retitled The Changeling 2), a sequel on a fantastic note to The Postman Always Rings Twice and he proposed it several times over with my name on it as director and then, one day, he registered it with his name on it (laughs). I later found out that he'd sold it to a friend of mine - Martino, but, in view of our past friendship, I decided not to sue him, I just broke off all relations with him. He is, indeed, a very good scriptwriter."

Sacchetti's version differs: "When I proposed him the treatment, which was nothing more than a sequel in fantasy style to The Postman Always Rings Twice, in which a dead man returns, he became really enthusiastic and had it read by a producer, who then commissioned me to write the script. Then, for various reasons, problems arose and the film wasn't made. Four years later, Bava used the script to make Per Sempre and Fulci, who wasn't working at the time got angry with me and started hurling these accusations. It's one thing to say that we were supposed to make this film together, but to claim that the story was his and that I stole it from him is pure science-fiction".

Filmography (as director)

• I ladri/ The Thieves (1959)
• I ragazzi del juke box/ Juke Box Girls (1959)
• Urlatori alla sbarra (1960)
• Colpo gobbo all'italiana (1962)
• I due della legione (1962)
• Le massaggiatrici (1962)
• Uno strano tipo (1963)
• Gli imbroglioni (1963)
• I maniaci / The Maniacs (1964)
• I due evasi di Sing Sing (1964)
• I due pericoli pubblici (1964)
• 002 agenti segretissimi (1964)
• Come inguaiammo l'esercito (1965)
• 002 operazione Luna/ "002 Operation Moon" (1965)
• I due parà (1965)
• Come svaligiammo la Banca d'Italia/ How To Rob The Bank of Italy (1966)
• Le colte cantarono a morte e fu... tempo di massacro (aka Massacre Time, 1966)
• Come rubammo la bomba atomica (1967)
• Il lungo, il corto, il gatto (aka The Long, the Short, the Cat) (1967)
• Operazione San Pietro (1967)
• One on Top of the Other (1969) (aka Perversion Story)
• Beatrice Cenci (aka The Conspiracy of Torture, 1969)
• A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971) (aka "Schizoid")
• All'onorevole piacciono le donne (Nonostante le apparenze e purché la Nazione non lo sappia...) (1972)
• Don't Torture a Duckling (1972)
• White Fang (1973)
• The Challenge to White Fang (1974)
• Il cavaliere Costante Nicosia demoniaco... ovvero Dracula in Brianza (Young Dracula / Dracula in the Provinces (1975)
• The Four of the Apocalypse (1975)
• La pretora (1976)
• Seven Black Notes (The Psychic, 1977)
• Silver Saddle (1978)
• Zombi II (also known as Zombie Flesh Eaters or Zombie, 1979)
• Contraband (1980) (aka Luca The Smuggler)
• City of the Living Dead (1980) (aka The Gates of Hell)
• The Black Cat (1981)
• The Beyond (censored video version released as Seven Doors of Death, 1981)
• The House by the Cemetery (1981)
• The New York Ripper (1982)
• Manhattan Baby (1982) (aka Evil Eye or The Possessed)
• Conquest (1983) (aka "Conquest of the Lost Land")
• I guerrieri dell'anno 2072 (aka The New Gladiators / Rome 2033 - The Fighter Centurions, 1984)
• Murder-Rock (1984) (aka Murder Rock - Dancing Death)
• The Devil's Honey (1986)
• Aenigma (1987)
• Zombi III (1988)
• When Alice Broke the Mirror (1988)(aka Touch of Death)
• Sodoma's Ghost (1988)(akaThe Ghosts of Sodom)
• The Sweet House of Horrors (1989, made for Italian TV)
• The House of Clocks (1989, made for Italian TV)
• Demonia (1990) (aka "Liza")
• A Cat in the Brain (1990)(aka Nightmare Concert)
• Voices From Beyond (1991)
• The Door to Silence (1991)

Bibliography

• Il terrorista dei generi, tutto il cinema di Lucio Fulci by Giacomo Cacciatore, Un mondo a parte, Rome (2004)
• Beyond Terror, the films of Lucio Fulci By Stephen Thrower - Fab press (1999)
• Spaghetti Nightmares by Luca M. Palmerini and Gaetano Mistretta, Fantasma Books, Key West, Florida, 1996.

References

External links

• Lucio Fulci at the Internet Movie Database

• http://www.santoandfriends.com (Mexican horror film site)