(1990)
Dir - Lucio Fulci
Overall: MEH
A thoroughly bizarre, late entry in Lucio Fulci's increasingly inconsistent filmography, Nightmare Concert: A Cat in the Brain, (Un gatto nel cervello (I volti del terrore)), finds the director not only appearing as himself, but also top billed for the first and only time in his career. A meta-film which desperately cobbles together footage from some of Fulci's older works as well as those from various other filmmakers, the linking story and entire presentation is rather lame and uninteresting. It is not just the sequences of previous movies included that give it an out of date feel, but the liberal use of zooms, piss-pour dubbing, and the giallo-flavored story line are anything but contemporary. To the film's credit, the mix mash of footage is not as consistently jarring as it could have been, though solo shots of Fulci simply reacting to things that are taken from different movies while never sharing the same screen space with anything in them is still pretty ridiculous let alone incredibly monotonous. It might be the easiest entry in Fulci's repertoire to tune out of while watching and sadly, a pretty embarrassing one to nearly go out on.
Dir - Lucio Fulci
Overall: MEH
A thoroughly bizarre, late entry in Lucio Fulci's increasingly inconsistent filmography, Nightmare Concert: A Cat in the Brain, (Un gatto nel cervello (I volti del terrore)), finds the director not only appearing as himself, but also top billed for the first and only time in his career. A meta-film which desperately cobbles together footage from some of Fulci's older works as well as those from various other filmmakers, the linking story and entire presentation is rather lame and uninteresting. It is not just the sequences of previous movies included that give it an out of date feel, but the liberal use of zooms, piss-pour dubbing, and the giallo-flavored story line are anything but contemporary. To the film's credit, the mix mash of footage is not as consistently jarring as it could have been, though solo shots of Fulci simply reacting to things that are taken from different movies while never sharing the same screen space with anything in them is still pretty ridiculous let alone incredibly monotonous. It might be the easiest entry in Fulci's repertoire to tune out of while watching and sadly, a pretty embarrassing one to nearly go out on.
(1994)
Dir - Michele Soavi
Overall: GOOD
Director Michele Soavi's first attempt at comedy be it of the dark, off-kilter variety was this adaptation of Tiziano Sclavi’s novel Dellamorte Dellamore, here also given the English title Cemetery Man. It is a bizarre mix of genres, some co-mingling more inconsistently than others. As the title character whose aim with a handgun is uncannily accurate, Rupert Everett seems all at once perpetually horny, easily love-stricken, cynical, cut-off from reality, and self-loathing in his desperately lonely job as a graveyard caretaker who also "takes care" of its inhabitants. Meaning inhabitants that routinely rise up as zombies for reasons the script spends literally zero time explaining. While it is often wildly unorthodox and bordering on incoherence because of it, this also serves as a large part of the film's charm. The absurdness is more subtle than overtly over the top, almost as if its messy lack of plotting is unintentional, though this is likely not the case. Throw in tone issues and inconsistent character behavior and it all makes for quite a unique, avant-garde finished product that is certainly headscratching, yet also entertaining enough for the same reasons.
(1996)
Dir - Pupi Avati
Overall: GOOD
A return to the horror genre and probably the best work in it form Italian filmmaker Pupi Avati, The Mysterious Enchanter, (L'arcano incantatore, Arcane Sorcerer), is a different beast than his more well-known giallos. That said, it does bare similarities to The House with Laughing Windows from twenty years prior as it takes place in a remote location, focuses on a character that is employed by an excommunicated monsignor, and features a diabolical twist. Plenty of other bizarre details are scattered about as well, though it is essentially a mood piece, with Avati, cinematographer Cesare Bastelli, and composer Pino Donaggio creating a menacing mood out of the large, run-down, candle-lit estate that is home to an enormous library presumably full of mysterious, supernatural enchanting volumes. As far as most Euro-horror which it is in part a throwback to, the story is more streamlined if not still intentionally ambiguous. There is no emphasis on outrageous set pieces or logic-defying silliness in other words; instead it is genuinely creepy and subdued, thankfully with no pacing lulls despite the small cast of characters and isolated setting.
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