The Beyond - Fear Flashback Review at Best Horror Movie List

In the absence of a new assignment from Best Horror Movie List I decided to review one of my favorite Italian horror movies. I'd just picked up the Grindhouse Releasing Blu-ray of The Beyond and it's well worth picking up, especially if you don't have a previous release. (I've also got the Arrow Blu-ray, but I'm happy to have double-dipped, as there are some great new extras and the picture quality is - IMHO - a tick higher on the Grindhouse disc.)

I've got a new assignment for BHML for next week (As Above, So Below), but will hopefully still review older films on occasion.

"The plot of your standard Fulci film is usually a thin excuse for random imagery and gory set pieces at the best of times..." [more]

31 Days, 31 Horror Movies: A Cat in the Brain

The first film of my weekend theme, which was: Films by Famous Italian Horror Directors That I Haven't Seen. Hope to have the second later today - trying to get caught up!

A Cat in the Brain (AKA Nightmare Concert)

A Cat in the Brain is a weird little film, which I know sounds redundant when I'm talking about a Lucio Fulci movie. It's kind of a clip-show - with some of the gorier bits of previous Fulci movies edited in around a framing story about a director that may or may not be going mad. And the director in question is Lucio Fulci - and by that I mean he's playing himself. A simplified highly stylized version of himself, I'm sure, but it makes everything that goes on so much weirder.

I had the film described to me as a proto-meta horror movie, a direct precursor to movies like Wes Craven's New Nightmare. A commentary on both horror movies in general and on Fulci horror movies in specific. Of course I also had it described to me as the lazy 'greatest hits' tour of a hack director out of original ideas, so there's that.

Medium
I rented the 2009 DVD from Grindhouse Releasing. Normally this is a 2 DVD set with extras on the second DVD, but I got it from Netflix so it was only the main disk. There are some trailers and a Q&A with Fulci at Fangoria's 1996 Weekend of Horrors. Not sure what's on the second disk, but there's no commentary track on the film itself. The picture is fine for a DVD.

Maybe there's an extra with Fulci's tips on firearms.

The Movie
There's an opening sequence in which someone - presumably Fulci - sits at a large desk, working on something. The camera descends... and suddenly we're inside his soft, pink, bloody brain. And then a cat starts tearing at it. Two cats, maybe. Tearing with their claws and devouring bits of brain.

Given the context of the rest of the film this is an interesting metaphor for the strange and disturbing ideas and imagery that are the obsession of horror film directors. What kind of brain is it that comes up with things like splinters in eyeballs and feeding people to pigs? A disturbed brain, a brain with some kind of creature pulling and tearing. Geez - I'd hate to see what kind of things are playing with my soft grey matter. Probably spiders.

After that we have some clips from Touch of Death, which involves a cannibal. Lots of gory shots of dismemberment. We then see that this is the film Lucio Fulci is working on, and after finishing the last shot (the feeding to pigs scene) he calls for lunch. However when he arrives at the restaurant he can't get past visions of the film - a filet and steak tartar just remind him of the awful things he's just shot. He ends up leaving the restaurant and going home.

"I'm less concerned with the steak Tartar and more with why I dressed in plaid today."

It seems that the horrific visions he creates in front of the camera are starting to infect his normal  life. He starts to have hallucinations in which normal, day-to-day occurrences become terrible recreations of bits of his movies (or new bits - I'll admit to not recognizing every gory moment as being from another film). Worried that he's becoming unstable and losing his grip on reality he goes to a psychiatrist who advises him that he's 'breaking down the barriers between what's real and what you film." Yeah, helpful, thanks doc.

"Trust me, I'm a doctor!"

Pressure mounts on Fulci, as he appears to be filming two movies at once. One of them appears to be a soft-core porn movie about Nazis and sadism, and Fulci questions the point of even making these sorts of films anymore. A German film crew arrives to interview him, but an extended hallucination of shooting another Nazi scene occurs and in the aftermath Fulci finds that he's assaulted the film crew.

Fulci doesn't appear to pulling a lot of punches in this film - he's not out to make himself look good. In the hallucination of shooting the Nazi orgy he's presented as both voyeuristic and even fueling the events - licking his lips and urging the actors on to even more degrading acts. That he looks a little like a bumbling professor most of the time makes those moments when he's acting the degenerate all the more disturbing.

This looks like a selfie gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Soon his psychiatrist has decided to take advantage of Fulci's problem, hypnotizing the hapless director into thinking that the hallucinations are real and that he's descending into madness, committing horrible murders. Meanwhile, the psychiatrist, Professor Swharz, takes out his rage at his wife's infidelity by murdering prostitutes. This... is all pretty ridiculous. The good doctor looks absurd in a hoody and enormous grin. I think he's supposed to be setting up Fulci to take the fall for these, but it's honestly not very clear (Fulci film - should have expected). He even had an epic villain speech where he announces his intentions and waxes about how stupid it is to blame real-life violence on movies - but it's to an empty room, so kinda wasted.

Why is he so happy? He looks ridiculous.

Fulci's visions get worse and worse. Pretty much every mundane thing - a drink, a microwaved dinner, a local girl in a wheelchair - all turn into visions of some horrific moment from his films. (The film clips are all the gory bits and come frequently - they're all low-budget, but entertaining in their own way. The burnt girl in the wheelchair is particularly creepy, though.) Eventually, convinced that the murders he's seeing on the TV are things he's done, he calls a detective friend, presumably to confess. However, the detective is on vacation, so Fulci goes once again to the psychiatrist.

Time to fire the gardener.

At one point he's driving down a road and starts chasing a guy who flees directly down the road, of course, never thinking to move the side into the trees. (I'd give him more crap about that, but I've seen Prometheus.) Hilariously, this guy - who seems to be homeless - recognizes the man trying to run him down and yells "What's the matter with you, Fulci?" Like Lucio Fulci is famous enough that random people on the street recognize him. Like if I was walking and Wes Craven tried to run me down. What's your problem, Wes? And then, just when I'm thinking Fulci only wants to get by and to his destination, he runs the homeless guy over. Like four times.

It's a hallucination of course. Most of the film is of poor Fulci reacting to these horrible scenes he's created. There's a lot of subtext about art and whether the man who creates monsters must be a monster himself, but it's all throwaway - more sub-subtext. While Fulci is honestly horrified to see these things outside of their context - the film set - within the film production context he actively seeks out and revels in them. The film crew that he assaults seems to be pleased to have a Fulci story to tell. And the psychiatrist gets to spout all the dialogue about violence and media. Of course the authorities will believe it's Fulci! He makes those horrible movies, after all.

The ending is abrupt and unsatisfying. Fulci faints at a murder scene and when the police arrive the next morning he fumbles to explain - but they've already caught the real killer, who followed Fulci to the park. It's all wrapped up, but Fulci's problems are never really followed up on - maybe because they're struggles he just has to live with. There's a fun little second ending after that, but the plot line - that I really did become involved in - has already ended, and badly.

"Well, we caught the bad guy. Should we wake him up and tell him?"
"Nah, he looks so peaceful - let him sleep."

The Bottom Line
I was surprised at this film. It really is a low-budget clip show. But it's also an interesting and somewhat fun meta-commentary on Fulci's films and being a person associated with creating horror. It's low budget - I mean it's cheap as hell - but strangely endearing. As with all Fulci, enter at your own risk. But it's definitely an worth a watch.

31 Days, 31 Horror Movies: Zombie

Zombie (aka Zombi 2, aka Zombie Flesh Eaters)

It's not October if I don't watch a Lucio Fulci movie.

I love Italian zombie movies. They're almost all terrible, with incomprehensible plots, incredibly bad dubbing, over-the-top gore that is also really fake looking, and more casual rape/misogyny/nudity than you can shake a stick at. And yet, they tickle me. As I've said before, I can almost always find something to enjoy in them - even Burial Ground. (Though what it was I enjoyed in that movie escapes me at the moment...)

Zombie, or Zombi 2 as it was released in Italy (to take advantage of the popularity of Dawn of the Dead, which was released as Zombi in Italy), is the king of them all. It's the template on which they're all based and is - in energy, creativity, technical skill and complete over-the-top gonzo-ness - the best of them. Does that mean it's a good movie? Well, I guess it depends on what you're looking for. A plot that holds together, realistic characterizations, good acting? You're out of luck. Inventive makeup effects, shocking thrills, an atmospheric location? Now we're getting somewhere.

I came to Zombie pretty late in my horror viewing. I distinctly remember that I was browsing the horror stacks at a local music/video store and coming up empty. It was pretty late in the day and I was looking for something - anything - that would scratch that itch for a new horror movie. I think this was in the 90's, a decade that was a little rough on horror fans. Down in the corner of the last row I saw a black-case DVD with an awesome looking zombie on the cover. Dude - there are WORMS in the guys EYE! And the tagline - 'We are going to eat you' - that's pure gold. This was the Anchor Bay release, which I still have somewhere.

Worms! In his EYE!

I was hooked. There was the general low-budget feel (and look - that was a pretty muddy transfer) of 1970's Italian horror movies. There was the synthesizer music that might or might not fit the scene. There was the over-use of bright-red blood. There was a pretty excruciating eye-impalement (something of a signature for Fulci). There was a zombie fighting a shark. A real shark, mind you. How could I not love it?

The Medium
I've got the Blue Underground Blu-ray release. I almost didn't pick this up, as I wasn't sure Zombie was a movie that would benefit from high definition. The poor video quality was part of the charm for me. However there were a bunch of extras on two disks, so I bought it (used).

Man, am I glad I did. The picture quality is improved enough that it almost looks like it's been restored. Colors are bright and the image is sharp and clean (as much as it can be for a low-budget zombie flick, anyway). It was enough to make me revise my opinion of the cinematography, anyway - it's a pretty good looking film now.

The Movie
Zombie has two openings - in the first a shadowy figure points a gun at us (the screen) while drums pound out a tribal beat on the soundtrack. A figure tied into a sheet slowly rises. The gun fires. Blood and brains spurt out of the sheet. The shadowy figure the speaks, saying that "the boat can leave now." After the titles we get another opening, wherein an abandoned sailing vessel wanders into New York harbor.

At this point new viewers may be forgiven for thinking there's some depth to the film. We've got a dramatic opening shot - literally - that connects directly to the next sequence and raises all kinds of questions. Is this the same boat? Where did it come from? What happened to the crew? There's also the chance that maybe the director is deliberately echoing that scene in Dracula when the Demeter arrives in England with only the captain's corpse aboard.

But no, it's really just an excuse to tie the film to Romero's by shoehorning an opening and a closing sequence in the US. It's effective, though, and the corpulent zombie that attacks New York's Finest is memorable and lets us know we're in for some rough treatment.

A three hour tour, a three hour tour...

We're introduced to two main characters in short order - Peter West, a reporter, and Anne Bowles, the daughter of the owner of the abandoned boat. Ian McCulloch does okay as West - though he's an 70's Hero of the comb-over variety - but Tia Farrow is completely lost as Anne. She spends a good portion of the film staring into the middle distance with a slightly dazed expression. The two are quickly on their way to the Caribbean to try and find Anne's father and hopefully an explanation for what happened on the boat.

Once there they charter a boat - or hijack someone's vacation cruise, I'm not really sure. Anyway, they meet up with another couple and start looking for the island that Anne's father was supposed to be on. The other woman - Susan - goes scuba diving, which leads to that zombie-vs-shark extravaganza I mentioned earlier. Repeated viewing of that scene has dampened some of my amazement, but I remember clearly being bowled over by it the first time. I mean there's a real guy in that zombie makeup under water wrestling with a tiger shark!

A little to the left, little more... perfect!

Meanwhile, on the island, Dr. Menard is struggling with an outbreak of disease and his wife. She wants to leave, he doesn't - though he's awfully vague about why. He goes to the hospital (after slapping no sense at all into her) where he'll practice medicine via pistol shot (he's the figure in the very first scene). His wife, meanwhile, will take a shower and then get attacked by a zombie. This scene involves an incredibly graphic sequence in which the poor woman's eyeball is pierced by a splinter. It's pretty tough to watch even now.

Not as tough for us to watch is it is for her.

Our heroes have drive-shaft issues (with the boat, you sicko) and get marooned on the very same island. People run back and forth, there's talk of voodoo and people abandoning villages. Then there are some really gross zombies that may or may not be conquistadors, risen from their graves.

Any real plot has gone out the window long ago, but there's still some really effective shots to be found. A single figure shuffling down the abandoned streets of a village. The red, red blood contrasted with the white, white linens of the hospital. The zombies themselves, all rotting and mud-covered, some with worms dangling out of their eye sockets.

Eventually our heroes are cornered in the hospital and must do battle with ravening hordes of the undead. Things go badly, but not as bad as you might expect, as people actually survive (though not everyone, of course). The tacked on ending with a horde of zombies making their way across the Brooklyn bridge is surprisingly effective.

Just another Monday in the Big Apple.

The cinematography varies wildly in quality. Much of it is simply workmanlike, with the characters generally in frame and focus. Sometimes, however, Fulci surprises you with shots of almost poetic beauty - the abandoned ship against the old New York skyline (the Trade Center towers towering in the background), dust-blown streets with oddly still figures, zombies shuffling around with their eyes closed like sleepwalkers.

Richard Johnson lends things a bit of gravitas as Dr. Menard, but he's all gravelly voice and darting eyeballs, sweating his way through scenes of vague import. At least his voice fits, unlike some of the other characters, whose dubbing seems half-hearted at best - particularly the second male lead, Brian. Tisa Farrow is so vacant at times that you could almost see one of the characters shooting her as a zombie in the melee - it would be an easy mistake to make.

Brains... must have... brains...

The Bottom Line
Zombie is an experience. As a horror movie it provides the gore if not the scares - you cringe more than you jump. The barest thread of a plot satisfies only so much as it serves to get the characters to where they can be attacked. But as a Fulci film it satisfies by being a little stylish, a lot gory and a bit crazy.