What's the Deal With Lucio?

Among horror aficionados, Lucio Fulci is a legend. 

The question is why?  

So I went searching for answers.  He made many films and shows before and after the series of flicks that garnered him his status as horror film "genius".  Folks like Guillermo Del Toro and Eli Roth are huge Fulci geeks, so I figured there had to be something there. 

In 1990, I had seen Zombie, the notorious flick he is most famous for.  I don't recall being blown away by it at age 19.  Being that a friend at the time (dude was utter scum, I'd realize later) and I viewed it as the follow up to Dawn of the Dead during a Saturday of horror film viewing, that spot in our running order may have set it up for failure. 

When one factors in the tidbit that Fulci tagged the film with the moniker Zombie 2, so it could be thought a sequel to Romero's Dawn of the Dead, as George's film was called Zombi in Italy.  it was cheapened beyond its mere inferiority (not in Italy apparently, however.)

To begin my study of what is known as Fulci's Quadrilogy, I rewatched Zombie and couldn't explain what made it better 32 years later.  Another viewing would narrow the answer down. 

Using Joe Bob Briggs' Last Drive In series to guide me through The House By the Cemetery and The Beyond was very helpful. Helpful despite guest Eli Roth's rationalizing Briggs' very legitimate questions, (in the case of House).  He claims to be providing answers but they're more like excuses. The factoids from interviewees and opinion makers otherwise shed some interesting light on what are very confusing fucking films.  I then viewed Gates of Hell/City of the Living Dead on Tubi and completed the "Gates" quadrilogy. 

I still have no clue despite the guiding hand of these "experts" (some of whom worked with Fulci) through 3 of the 4 films.  (I rewatched Zombie a 3rd time with Joe Bob's assist once.)  Fulci doesn't write his own films, but it doesn't forgive the fact that they lazily make no sense individually or collectively beyond a few moments used to set up the very thin bones of a "story".  If you can call it that. 

1.) Zombie  So a ghost boat floats into New York Harbor.  A zombie is on it, who attacks a member of the coast guard.  (Or poorly costumed policeman). It turns out the craft belongs to the father of Mia Farrow's sister, Tisa.  She pairs up with a local journalist (Shakespearean actor Ian McCullough) and heads for an island in the Caribbean. (thin plot line shows that's where Farrow's old man is).  There, Richard Johnson is treating people who are sick and returning to life to eat people.  

These are cannibalistic voodoo zombies brought back by an off screen witch doctor (?).  Admittedly the constant drumming is an eerie effect, as you realize it's not part of the score, but coming from elsewhere on the island as part of this dead-raising ritual.  Farrow & McCullough pick up a couple as transport to the island, which gives us an opportunity for the most gratuitous scene of nudity I've ever encountered.  It also gives us a shark/zombie fight. 

ugh.  

They reach the island, where eventually a shard of wood punctures the eye (the victim chooses not to use her hands for some reason) thanks to the the aim of a member of the walking dead. There's zombies a flamin', gun shots a boomin', and conquistadors a risin'.  Eventually we end up back in NY, where that one bitten Coast Guard (or cop) officer apparently has set off an apocalyptic zombie outbreak.  I think pure mathematics would rule that out, but I'm not Lucio Fulci.  

This is the most narrative Fulci provides.  Ever.  However that final shot on the Brooklyn Bridge is a fuckin' banger. If that ain't sellin' the end of the order of things, I don't know what is. 

2. Gates of Hell (1980)   It seems a priest hangs himself in Dunwich, Connecticut (?).  In New York, a medium remote views it happening. The suicide has opened a gate to hell.  How?  (Fuck if I know). So early 80's horror icon Christopher George (journalist) picks up Christiana McColl (her first of 3 Fulci flicks.  This is a fact she long left off her resume), and heads to Dunwich (probably trying to reference Wheatley, but this is the only way Lucio does so) to close the gate.   They gather up some locals to accomplish this and the most non-sensical ending I've experienced occurs, after a massive ruckus.  There is no true plot here, just an opportunity for some seriously gratuitous gore.  And there's a lot of it. 

3. The Beyond (1981). In the 1920's a local artist is crucified.  Why?  (Fuck if I know).  60 years later, a woman buys a Louisiana hotel which is not only where the artist was butchered by locals, it's also one of 7 doorways to Hell.  A plumber opens it by smacking a basement wall.  With a hammer.  (Somehow it seems like something like that should be more difficult).  How does this connect to the death of the painter?  (Fuck if I know).  People become blind, zombies show up.  Why?  (Fuck if I know).  Also, there's no reference to where the other 6 doors to hell are.   This movie is a narrative mess, but Fulci freaks love it and I guess praise it as a viscerally raw art film. 

4. House by the Cemetery  A girl's face shows up, staring out the window of a house in a photograph of our family of protagonists.  That's pretty creepy as she appears terrfied.  Then our family moves to Massachussets. What is it with the NY/NE paradigm in these films?  The paradigm is to give the father the common employment of being a "researcher", the most vague job in cinema history. 

Weird shit begins to happen left and right.  In a completely inexplicable scene, the nanny (?) appears to be attempting to unlock the basement with a crowbar in middle of the night to which Pops screams "ANNE!!!".  

Then you have close ups of eyes back and forth about eight times.  Leone in the house here?

Then it's suddenly the next day (?).  (The Fuck, editor?). Murders of the grisliest variety begin to happen in the house, with victims dragged to the basement.  Dad has to drive to NY to get permission from his boss to change research directions (did you install a phone, dude?), and when he comes back, he has all the answers to the hideousness related to the killings and the mysteries related to the first owner of the house. (We do NOT see how he got this information).  

Then some shit happens at the end.  I'm exhausted. 

NOW!

Fulci has some filmmaking gifts.  He frames shots extremely well, his camera movement is superior, and he doesn't need day for night at all. Considering the budgets, his night time filming is excellent.  The practical effects are pretty solid for the time, some very good scores add to the atmospheres that grow throughout the films. 

However, these movies make absolutely no sense.  The stories are barely carrying narrative.  Fulci is obsessed with filming eyeballs.  It's almost comical, whether zooming in on them, or destroying them, or covering them with what had to be painful contact lenses. 

He does build suspense as well as anyone of the era, but only within the confines of a specific scene.  Not throughout the picture, as a movie has to make narrative sense to accomplish that goal.  He refreshingly doesn't rely on sexual violence. At least in the films I'm examining here.  This is kind of a surprise, especially for the era, as his alleged real life disdain for any woman that wasn't his daughter is legendary. 

So, in the end, his films look great, often even beautiful, whilst being frequently gruesome as shit (which he dwells on), so with that combination, my findings are Lucio Fulci creates car accidents.  

They're awful, but you can't look away.

Santa Project ‘24: All Through the House

In the 50s, a controversial comic book form that was known as EC comics, which influenced numerous writers and filmmakers in their wake, spit out stories that became almost an American Grimm’s fairytales. 

Most of these stories are morality plays, which shows terrible people suffering fates even worse than what they perpetrated on others. These comic book stories were, of course the inspiration for George Romero and Stephen King‘s Creepshow film, and numerous anthology series and films in the following decades. 

But one story that has inspired memes  came out of Vault of Horror circa 1951, was All Through the House. This was an absolute Christmas time nightmare about a woman who decides to murder her husband and suffers terrifying consequences as a result. 

The story was used as a segment for the 1973 Amicus film Tales from the Crypt starring Dynasty ingenue Joan Collins,  and then later the 90’s HBO series Tales from the Crypt directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring Mary Ellen Trainor and Larry Drake. 

Images from several of these comic book pages, and the film and TV episodes have lingered in the public memory to some degree for decades.  This results from the story being extremely disturbing for its source material, and its subject matter.

Amicus was a British film studio that operated much in the same vein as hammer studios. Predominantly Gothic films starring the lakes of Ralph Richardson and Peter Cushing were their mainstay. 

Tales from the crypt is a really good anthology film featuring some very dark material, drawn primarily from the comics I alluded to. Now,  the connecting tissue in between the segments is far weaker than the stories themselves. But there’s a lot here to like. 

The lead off is the Joan Collins take on all through the house, which is extremely unsettling as there is no actual score but Christmas music. She goes through the motions of murdering her husband, trying to cover it up and even thinks she’s safeguarded her house from an escaped lunatic in a Santa Claus outfit.  

She turns out to be wrong.

 This is 16 minutes of pure horror, and really does one of two things: primes the pump for whats to come, or offers a reason for you to think the rest of the film is a letdown. either way, the segment is terrific filmmaking and Freddy Francis (Dracula Has Risen From the Grave, and a list of cinematographer credits that would make most lighters jealous) is to be commended. 

In 1989 All Through the House made the second episode of the premier season of HBO's Tales From the Crypt anthology series.  This time its pedigree was as solid as it gets.  Produced by Joel Silver and Richard Donner, music by legendary Alan Silvestri, cinematography from Dean Cundey, the chap who did the early John Carpenter masterpieces and went on to light some Spielberg work including Jurassic Park, and it’s helmed by director of Back to the Future and Forrest Gump's Robert Zemeckis.  I mean holy shit. 

Oh, and by the way, scripted by my one of my favorites, the guy responsible for Night of the Creeps and Monster Squad,  Fred Dekker.  A guy short-changed by Hollywood for some reason, as his talent exceeds that of many still working frequently in the business. 

This take, in running with the series, contained a little more dark humor, more graphic violence, and a putridly intimidating Santa-murderer, played by Larry Drake (L.A. Law, Darkman).   Mary Ellen Trainor as the mom, matches Joan Collins blow for blow. 

So, my examination of this decades-long Christmas horror curio draws to a close.  

Do I have a favorite.  

I can't say.  One is distinctly British, and the other has big budget American flash, so it's up to you.  But the EC Comics tale still holds that morality tale punch, and final panel kick in the nuts that can't be exceeded.

 

Santa Project ‘24: Christmas with the Joker

One of the few great things Fox TV has ever had to offer was the 1990s fox kids Batman afternoon series. And one of the greatest things about the show is its writing. I mean for chrissake, Joe Lansdale has written episodes of this series.

You can’t do much better than the voice work either;  including the late great Kevin Conroy as Batman, and Mark Hamill, who is absolutely ecstatically terrific, as the Joker. 

And, I offer you one of the great animated adventures in Christmas television, Christmas with the Joker.  It’s A Wonderful 22 minute adventure where Batman and Robin are about ready to relax for the evening and watch “It’s a wonderful life”after a quick sweep of Gotham. They’re left only to find out that not only has the Joker escaped from Arkham, but he has abducted George and Barbara Gordon, as well as Harvey Bullock.  

The clown Prince of crime is now broadcasting on  live television how much he hates Batman, including several verses of Jingle Bells, Batman smells,  he blows up a bridge, and gives the Dark Knight and his sidekick Robin the boy wonder until midnight to save his three abductees. 

This is pure joy, not only is Hamill hilarious,  but Conroy inhabits Batman in a way that no one I think ever has, literally only with his voice. Batman, The Animated Series has so much to offer and wouldn’t you know that in only its first season, and its second episode, it ripped out a piece of holiday classic television. 

Once again, Fox television at least did one thing right. 

The Santa Project '24: Violent Night

Violent Night was an absolute blast. And a pretty interesting look at class warfare between the wealthy and even more wealthy. David Harbour, much like Mel Gibson in Fatman, is a fed up Santa Claus.  One who is tired of kids who don’t really want anything more than cash and video games and don’t appreciate the holidays anymore. He starts the film by getting drunk in a bar in England and throwing up on the bartender as she watches in awe as he flies away in his sleigh. 

Harbour is perfect in this part. Actually, he’s downright fantastic.  the viciousness that you saw in some of his early work, such as The Equalizer and A Walk Among the Tombstones is there, but balances out with the edgy softness he displays often as Hopper when it comes to children. 

This example of Santa Claus was once a warrior that’s over 1100 years old; a fascinating take that isn’t explored very deeply by director Tommy Wirkola, but nonetheless Santa brings that former part of his history's hammer, the aptly named Skull Crusher, into the fight with you got it, terrorists. 

But wait these aren’t exactly terrorists. These are thieves led by a hilarious John Leguizamo, who just happens to hate Christmas, and some turncoats that are stealing already stolen money from an extremely wealthy family on Christmas Eve during a holiday party in their palatial estate. Violence breaks out when Santa Claus, still rough and tumble, but has the vulnerability that comes with rustiness, decides to intervene in a very Die Hard like manner. This mansion may as well be Nakatomi Plaza.  

Hey! It's good to see Beverly D’Angelo return to the screen. 

The fight choreography as well as the humor is definitely in abundance here, as is the gore you need to be prepared for.  As a matter of fact Violent Night comes off as a nifty combination of Die Hard 2 and Home Alone, just caked in claret. 

Before you blow this off as another holiday film drenched in violence to reach out to a certain audience, explore the relationship between Harbour and the little girl, Trudy, stuck in the middle of all this. It’s legitimately touching and has enough weight to it to make this work as a Christmas film, despite the bloodshed.  

Especially when the little girl brings Home Alone into it against a couple of the punk thugs. In my opinion, that segment is far more entertaining than the Macaulay Culkin film that inspired the sequence.  Actually, early on, Trudy does her Culkin impression, showing a parents' reaction that most of us adults have to that particular piece of holiday cinema.  Irritation.

Fatman And Violent Night would make a great double feature, and I may consider doing that sometime soon. Move over Lethal Weapon and Die Hard. You got a pair of action flicks that are moving into your territory for the holidays. 

A Holiday Memory: Sports cards vs. Star Wars

 This piece is about sports cards again and if you are a reader and that bothers you, I am sorry,  but it is part of my history and DNA.   But this is about my early  childhood as well. 

 I had a friend, Gordon, who my friendship with at Somers elementary school went all the way back to kindergarten.  This  takes place in the third grade and it’s a very quaint story. 

Gordon seemed to be getting sarcastically picked on by some other classmates of ours, a couple of them even friends. The reason being, instead of sports cards, they (myself included) collected Star Wars cards, and like smoking, this was cool.

Gordon liked football, and hence collected football cards. 

Well, Gordon was a true friend, and I was gonna defend my friend to the end, so I lied to the others and told them that I was backing away from Star Wars cards to join Gordon in the football card parade. I remember this being my direct quote as the reason: 

“Because football gives you a lot of exercise.” 

As something I said in that moment should have been, it was stupid.  This elicited gales of laughter from the Star Wars crew of course, but Gordon was glad I had his back and for some reason he gave me a stack of Topps football cards.  I believe the bulk of which were from 1978. 

These were the first football cards I ever owned, and I believe they were Gordon’s doubles so that's why he was able to give them away so freely. I appreciated the effort, as a matter of fact I took them home and really enjoyed them. Now, 1978 is not the most exciting year of a football card design, but it was different than what I was dabbling in at the time. 

This happened in the dead of winter because I remember laying underneath the Christmas tree with the glow of the lights, an episode of PBS’ Siskel and Ebert’s “Sneak Previews” rolling in the background.  I was looking at a 1978 card of Vikings Wide Receiver Sammie White and thinking that the colors and the design were interesting, (maybe not as cool as Star Wars, and 1978 is not Topps Football’s best) but again, different from Star Wars. I kinda dug the little cartoons and factoids that joined the statistics on the back as well.   I have re-enacted that magic moment below, you can even see some "Sneak Previews" regalia in the background.

Why this is a memory that sticks with me to this very day I don’t really know. It’s kind of like another memory I have of holding a 1978 Steve Garvey, (also a Topps card) while sitting on the my bedroom floor, looking at it as the sun was starting to peek through the window. 

I once told a version of someone else’s joke that when you’re growing up in the suburbs in America in the 70s, you are issued a copy of Frampton Comes Alive, Boston’s first album on 8 track, a paperback copy of Jaws, a Mr. Microphone, a Pet Rock, and the 1978 Topps Steve Garvey. 

Anyways here’s to Gordon for being my real first introduction to the topps sports card.  Although I never did back away from the Star Wars cards.  I’d never let Gordon know that, and kept that collection to myself until I stupidly parted with it sometime in the early 80s. And To a friend who I have long lost touch with.  I was a Fool!  Those cards are cooler now than they were then, a true valuable. Like, big time. 

However, to cover my childish idiocy,  I now have a really cool hardcover picture book that actually covers the entire series of Topps‘ 1977 Star Wars cards.  That does just fine for me now; the memories the photos elicit are still there, still rich, and still sparked by the book.

my nostalgia is kind of eternal, And visually triggered.

And I’m Still holdin’ on to ol’ Sammie White too. 

Gobble Project '24 : a Garfield Thanksgiving

I vividly remember watching "Here Comes Garfield", the first Garfield special ever, while in elementary school in the YEAR OF OUR LORD 1982. 

What a year that was, man.  I'm going to go into 1982 in depth later, but if you're looking for an actual fucking documentary on that year, there's this damn thing, and I recommend it 100 percent.

                

Anyway, the special contained the slick animation of Jim Davis' character, some snappy voice work, including the sublime stuff from Lorenzo Semple as the big cat himself.  Being an owner of several of those oblong Garfield strip collection books you could get from scholastic and reader of the daily Davis pieces in the newspaper, I remember being fairly excited to see old Garfield in motion.  TV was a miracle, wasn't it?

By the time the Thanksgiving special came out, it was 1989.  I was in high school, and I wasn't really getting the warmth from new holiday specials anymore, let alone old ones.  This was thanks to the daily battles of trying to fit into a community I'd only lived in for about a year and a half, and prepping to move back into the old one I had lived in for 6 months, that I moved to after two years in Texas.  Got that?

So, I watched it on streaming last night.  It wasn't bad.  You still got Semple's voice, nifty songs by Lou Rawls and Garfield's abusive behaviors toward his owner Jon, and his life-mate Odie. Two things happen here, one is a trip to the vet (whom Jon is in love with, and his persistence probably needs a smackdown from the #MeToo movement. Fuck's sake) and Thanksgiving is the next day.   Jon successfully gets the vet to come over to his house for Thanksgiving dinner (weird that there's no family get together here) which he manages to destroy before he's even began, because he didn't do the research. 

So, our hero Garfield gets Jon to call his grandmother after practically having to use smoke signals to drive the point home to do such, and she comes over and creates a beautiful meal behind the scenes while Jon spews a history of Thanksgiving to Liz that puts her to sleep.  Seriously, this rundown of the holiday puts Linus' Miles Standish routine from Charlie Brown Thanksgiving to shame.  

Everyone is shocked by the gloriousness of Grandma's meal as she slips out the back door creating the lie for Liz that Jon is a great chef, and Jon, Liz, Garfield, and Odie sit down and enjoy a spare but rather sweet Thanksgiving meal together. 

Liz leaves, and I hope to god, other than future vets visits, will never be seen by Jon again. 

Seriously, this guy is actually a creep and Garfield deserves better than this putz. 

                                 

Gobble Project '24: A Disturbance in the Force

As I wrote about here, the Star Wars Holiday Special of 1978 was a bizarre affair that my mind mostly blocked out.  It was not really Star Wars, it was a variety show.  Not a good combination.  Those of us who survived it, know the whats, it's the whys that have kept us perplexed all these decades.

Thanks to last year's A Disturbance in the Force, those questions are answered. 

The thing aired just before Thanksgiving in 1978, and I remember it didn't go over well that night, nor did it hold up (minus Nelvana's Boba Fett sequence, which is the only thing Lucas approved of, and can be streamed on Disney+) to any extent, in any form or fashion. 

So why??

All the folks involved get their say here, and the main purpose was to keep Star Wars alive in the eyes of the zeitgeist until The Empire Strikes Back could appear and do its thing. If the folks behind Star Wars knew how big the film would turn out to be, how embedded in the culture it would become, this thing probably wouldn't have been necessary.  

Lucas apparently wrote a 5 page treatment that showed how seriously he took the thing before departing to work on Empire, and it appeared to be a quasi-sequel of sorts.  The network, CBS,  handed it off to what really were a bunch of folks who worked on variety television (the mainstay of network TV at the time) and it eventually evolved into something it was never intended to be.  Much like that Donnie and Marie Star Wars dance a thon with Kris Kristofferson as Han Solo (!) and Mark Hamill's dancin' appearance with Bob Hope.  To the Holiday Special's credit, these things were far more embarrassing. 

I don't want to give away a whole bunch, as you learn some great stuff, much of which is a bit shocking. The details here are often laughable, and at times during the testimonials, kind of fuckin' sad.  Let's just  say you feel for all involved, you really do.  Again, this was an example of something that was done truly for marketing purposes to keep Star Wars alive while America waited for the sequel, and it eventually became an inside joke; Bea Arthur, Art Carney, and Harvey Korman included.  It was done before Star Wars became cemented as Star Wars and no one thought it silly at all, especially at that time. 

That would come later. 

With all the people speaking here, from its creators to those who get a laugh or a warm fuzzy from it now, you find yourself growing a bit sentimental towards it, and that's a good thing. 

It may not be the best example of Thanksgiving (or Life Day) television, but it certainly is the weirdest.