90's Lucio Fulci

DEMONIA

(1990)

Overall: MEH

The direct-to-video Demonia from Lucio Fulci is not one of his best executed films, though this is hardly surprising as it was made at the turn of the 1990s, at which point the Italian gore-father was rather universally considered past his prime.  The concept of horny nuns who murder their partners in the heat of passion, get crucified by angry villagers, and then cause supernatural tomfoolery centuries later seems like ideal fodder for Euro exploitation such as this.  So what went wrong?  Well as a quasi-paring of nunsploitation and slasher genres, it pulls off nothing exciting in either as the flat photography, lousy story, and unmotivated direction contribute to the colossally boring pace.  There are a few moments of ridiculous violence such as a guy getting his tongue nailed into a piece of wood, another guy being split in half, and a newborn baby being thrown into a pit of fire, but these moments are surrounded by awful, cheap keyboard music playing over too many characters to keep track of who sure do a whole lot of standing around and talking.  Fulci himself appears as a gruff police detective, (badly and unconvincingly dubbed of course, as is everyone else), but you have to be fightidoorng off your eyelids closing to even notice him.

 

DOOR TO SILENCE

(1992)

Overall: MEH

 

Italian filmmaker/producer Joe D'Amato was no stranger to craptatular material so in this respect it is easy to believe that he saw something in Lucio Fulci's short story "Porte del nulla"; something to turn it into the lackluster Door to Silence, (Door Into Silence, Le porte del silenzio).  To be fair, the concept of some guy getting haunted by a hearse that seems to be carrying around his own body probably sounded much better on paper, lending some potential to being a supernatural reworking of Steven Spielberg's Duel.  Unfortunately, the resulting film is anything but.  As was sadly the case throughout most of Fulci's career, the biggest drawback is the inadequate budget which undermines what could otherwise be a more captivating idea.  Shot on location in Louisiana over an eight week period, nearly the entire movie is John Savage's protagonist driving around what seems like about a two block radius, getting out of his car, getting back into his car, talking to someone, entering a building, and other really exciting things like that.  There is virtually zero atmosphere at any interval though, with everything being shot incredibly flat and rushed, all in broad daylight.  One or two puzzling moments do eventually transpire, but the uncinematic presentation and sheer monotony of it all disguises such moments far too efficiently.

 

VOICES FROM BEYOND

(1994)

Overall: MEH

While Lucio Fulci's final theatrically released film Voices from Beyond, (Voci dal profondo), is a slight improvement over his crop of television or direct-to-video projects from the end of his career, it is still hardly a memorable horror outing.  The source material was a short story by Fulci and Danielle Stroppa which was published in the 1992 anthology collection Le lune nere, though screenwriter Piero Regnoli ended up collaborating on the script as he and Fulci had previously worked together on 1990's Demonia.  Fulci pulls off some fun nightmare sequences here, (one of which even features his trademark of slow moving zombies), but they are pretty few and far between.  This is one of about a billion stories where several shoddy relatives are bitter about the outcome of a will from a deceased financier who hardly seemed to be the world's greatest guy in the first place.  Since the audience fails to have any sympathy for him, his pleas from beyond the grave to his more understanding daughter, (the only not villain in the whole movie), produces pretty uninteresting results.  It is nice that Fulci had the means one last time to produce something occasionally atmospheric and macabre, but its enormous lack of gore and snore-inducing narrative are not likely to please.