(1981)
Overall: MEH
Breaking up the more frenzied, nightmarish monotony of his "Gates of Hell Trilogy", Lucio Fulci made the very loose Edgar Allan Poe adaptation in name only The Black Cat, (Gatto nero), right in between his masterpiece The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery. Comparatively more stripped down and simple in nature then, the story is not chock-full of just "Eh, fuck it let's just put a bunch of weird creepy crap in there", sans a few exceptions. Instead, it genuinely follows a pretty comprehensible structure. Unfortunately coming from a filmmaker like Fulci who usually excelled at arbitrary freakiness, (especially coming right after The Beyond), the movie's more pedestrian nature is not all that interesting. It is not a total bore though either. Patrick Magee in his penultimate film appearance does what he always does which is being a memorable, oddball, overacting creep. While the main narrative of a killer cat is of course utterly ridiculous and not even remotely frightening, the subplot of Magee's bitter old supernatural medium playing recordings from beyond the grave is a bit chilling. The feline-scratching gore is adequate for what it is, but again it pales in comparison to Fulci's usual crimson-splattered bread and butter.
(1984)
Overall: MEH
Opening up with two hilariously dated, full dance sequences set to two different though equally horrible songs, Lucio Fulci's Murder Rock, (Murderock uccide a passo di danza), is not off to that promising of a start. Unless of course one enjoys the concept of Flashdance if it was a badly dubbed Italian slasher. Technically a giallo then, this is a remarkably dull one despite or partly because of all the gyrating, leotard-clad dance numbers. The mystery never picks up any serious momentum and when it side-steps to develop its characters more, things get pretty boring pretty quick. Even the killer's inescapable quirk of poking women with needles is pretty lame, not that you get too many such scenes anyway. Elsewhere, it is either stagnant or laughably melodramatic. During one particularly absurd moment, a gruff detective interrogates a suspect with his lawyer standing right there, slaps the shit out of him, at which point the suspect says "She was a lousy Puerto Rican and I don't like spics!" followed by "You idiot!" and more roughing up, then chuckling from the detective. It still ends up being little more than a collection of camera zooms, killers making threatening phone calls for no reason, red herrings, some naked boobs, and more of the usual stuff. Just with more hot and bothered jitterbugging to shitty 80s music.
(1988)
Dir - Lucio Fulci/Bruno Mattei
Overall: MEH
This mangled production that found Lucio Fulci quitting before filming was complete, (which in turn forced producer Claudio Fragasso to bring in second unit director Bruno Mattei to shoot additional scenes with different actors), serves as the "sure, I guess" official sequel to Fulci's own Zombi 2. Further confusion exists from the fact that Zombi 2 was given the sequel moniker in the first place only to cash in on George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead and was in fact a stand-alone entry, plus the Zombi 3 title also belonged to a number of other movies in different markets before this one. In any event, the finished product here is an unavoidable mess considering its troubled background. Its first half is snore-inducing, there is unconvincing make-up effects, much ridiculous acting, and a steady lack of proper atmosphere since it is flatly shot in the sunny Philippines. The structure is your typical one of military personnel trying to contain a zombie outbreak while arguing with scientists in lab coats. Also, some of the zombies sprint while others cannot pick up their feet and of course some people turn into them after merely brushing up against one in a manner of seconds, while others take hours. As a low-rent, shameless rip-off of way better movies, its got a few outrageously goofy moments, but for the most part it belongs on the do not recommend list.
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