Lucio Fulci
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Lucio Fulci (June 17, 1927 - March 13, 1996) was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is best known for his directorial work on some of the goriest horror films ever made, including Zombi II (1979) and The Beyond (1981), although he made films in genres as diverse as giallo, western, and comedy.
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[edit] Biography
Fulci was born in Rome. After studying medicine, 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.
In 1979 he achieved his international breakthrough with Zombi II, an excessively bloody zombie film that was marketed in European territories as a sequel to George Romero's Dawn of the Dead. He followed it up with several tales of horror and the supernatural, many also featuring zombies. His features during this time have been described by some critics as the most violent and gory films ever made. City of the Living Dead (1980), The Beyond (1981), The House by the Cemetery (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. Most of his movies became synonymous with video nasties in the 1980's.
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 movie 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), was eventually directed by Sergio Stivaletti.
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 later, some of his splatter films (notably The Beyond and House by the Cemetery) began receiving occasional positive critical retrospective notices outside of the Fulci cult. His earlier, lesser-known giallos (notably A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971) and Don't Torture a Duckling (1972)), as well as the western Four of the Apocalypse (1975), received some critical acclaim as they became more widely available around the world.
After the mid-1980s, Fulci was far less successful. He began to suffer from personal and health problems, and marked a decline in the quality of his work. He died in Rome on March 13, 1996, allegedly by his not taking his insulin injection to treat his diabetes.
In 1998, Fulci's The Beyond was re-released to theaters by Quentin Tarantino, who has often cited the film, and Fulci himself, as a major source of inspiration.
[edit] Fulci vs. Sacchetti
Fulci and screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti share many screen credits from the late 1970's to the early 1980's. 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."
[edit] Filmography (as director)
- I ladri (1959)
- I ragazzi del juke box (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 (1965)
- I due parà (1965)
- Come svaligiammo la Banca d'Italia (1966)
- Le colte cantarono a morte e fu... tempo di massacro (Massacre Time, 1966)
- Come rubammo la bomba atomica (1967)
- Il lungo, il corto, il gatto (The Long, the short, and the Cat) (1967)
- Operazione San Pietro (1967)
- One on Top of the Other (1969)
- Beatrice Cenci (The Conspiracy of Torture, 1969)
- A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971)
- 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 Notes in Black (The Psychic, 1977)
- Silver Saddle (1978)
- Zombi II (also known as Zombie Flesh Eaters/Zombie, 1979)
- Contraband (1980)
- City of the Living Dead (also known as The Gates of Hell, 1980)
- The Black Cat (1981)
- The Beyond (Seven Doors of Death, 1981)
- The House by the Cemetery (1981)
- The New York Ripper (1982)
- Manhattan Baby (1982)
- Conquest (1983)
- I guerrieri dell'anno 2072 (The New Gladiators/Rome 2033 - The Fighter Centurions, 1984)
- Murder-Rock (1984)
- The Devil's Honey (1986)
- Aenigma (1987)
- Zombi III (1988)
- When Alice Broke the Mirror (also known as Touch of Death, 1988)
- Sodoma's Ghost (also known as The Ghosts of Sodom, 1988)
- The Sweet House of Horrors (1989, TV)
- The House of Clocks (1989, TV)
- Demonia (1990)
- A Cat in the Brain (Nightmare Concert, 1990)
- Voices From Beyond (1991)
- Door to Silence (1991)
[edit] 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.
