We Are Going to Eat You! - Lucio Fulci's Zombie

            Lucio Fulci is one of the most compulsive filmmakers of all time. In terms of sheer lunatic grandiosity, he is perhaps outdone only by the libidinous fever dreams of Jess Franco and Jean Rollin. Rollin with his fixation on dystopian ruins and Franco with his obsession over the female form. Fulci however is impassioned with violence, both of the body and of the mind. Another way to put it – Franco and Rollin made great films, but Lucio Fulci made Zombie (1979).

            Above I may make some seemingly eloquent statements about film, directors, and their works, but make no mistake… I am a troll. A burly, drooling, celluloid-obsessed troll who likes nothing more than a good, bloody, gory horror show. And Mr. Fulci delivers on all counts with Zombie, a film so full of guts, grue, and glorious gratuitousness that it has certainly earned its place in the neurotic witch hunts of overbearing conservative parents and the hallowed shrines of gorehounds everywhere. Eye-gouging, throat-ripping, gut-munching, head-exploding delightfulness. And better yet, it’s a total rip-off of a much better movie and it’s absolutely shameless about it.

            A clue to this lies in its Italian title Zombi 2. This of course is one of many titles that include Island of the Living Dead and Zombie Flesh Eaters. George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978) was a major success in Europe, especially in Italy where it was released as Zombi. Fulci’s film was certainly conceived as a cash-in even though it bears no real connection to Romero’s classic otherwise. Nevertheless, Zombie deserves a place of its own in the annals of horror, if only because it dares to do the silly things that Dawn of the Dead refused (helicopter blade decapitations not withstanding…)

            And what wonderful silliness it is! There is a bevy of gruesome delights in this exploitation shock-a-thon that include (but are not limited to) zombie heads crushed by crosses, eyeballs impaled on splinters, numerous gurgling throat-rippings, and even a zombie fighting a shark! Yup, you heard that right. A zombie fights a shark. Underwater. And it’s 1979, so it’s really under water. With a real tiger shark. And I’m assuming a real zombie.

            Trivia fact: said zombie was played by the shark’s trainer, whose make-up was not intended for underwater use and the resultant effect of it clouding off in the water evokes an unexpectedly real look of decay. This sort of happenstance typifies Fulci’s devil-may-care brand of success – things just seem to go better than expected. The same cannot be said of the aforementioned Franco, whose filmography ranges from surprisingly watchable to expectedly abysmal. Perhaps Lucio Fulci simply directs with a surer hand, or it could be luck. Either way Zombie sports several of these instances where the constraints of time and budget serve to help rather than hinder the picture.

            Another example of this is the zombie make-up. Dawn of the Dead features stellar make-up and prosthetics work by legendary effects guru Tom Savini, whose later work on films like Friday the 13 (1980), Maniac (1980) and Romero’s sequel Day of the Dead (1985) would make him as close to a household name as an FX-expert could hope to be. Zombie had to rely on clay-based make-up and even dirt on location to create the walking dead. Such limitations provided the happiest of accidents with the dead appearing realistically decayed, crawling with worms and maggots, crusted with dirt and rotted leaves. The overuse of spraying blood and oozing gore makes this a nastier, more gleefully deranged flick than Dawn as well, designed to appeal to the bottom-line grindhouse crowd. But of course, that’s the way we like it!

            The island location also gives Zombie a bit of a more unique flavor than its counterparts. The isolation gives our heroes nowhere to run and creates its own little pocket of hell on earth. This little atoll is a bit quirky though, as it sports both an underdeveloped island community on the one hand, while on the other Doctor Menard’s home is practically a mansion complete with electricity, running water, and an apparently inexhaustible supply of alcohol.

            Speaking of alcohol and quirkiness, the doctor’s wife Mrs. Menard is one of the most puzzling parts of the film. There is never an explanation given for her outbursts of hatred towards her husband, but her demise is certainly satisfying and the goriest moment of the movie. Buffet of entrails anyone? Discovered by our intrepid protagonists, she is splayed out in a frothy mess of what happened to be real guts (of the slaughterhouse variety) while zombies lazily munch on her viscera. Also, her character provides an occasion for Fulci to indulge one of his signature compulsive obsessions: eyes.

            In his masterpiece, The Beyond (1981), Lucio Fulci makes bountiful use of close-ups to focus on the eyes of his actors, often in moments of mental anguish. Zombie is comparatively restrained on this count with the notable exception of Mrs. Menard. During her scene of hysteria, we are treated to several zooms on Greek actress Olga Karlatos’ gorgeous green eyes. And later, much like The Beyond, we get to see in excruciating detail her eye being impaled on the splinters of a busted door frame. The scene is the film’s standout sequence, and is still the most-talked about whenever Zombie comes up in conversation.

            All these things make Zombie a delightful slice of exploitation cinema. Though Dawn of the Dead has certainly had more impact on the walking dead as a genre, there is nothing quite like the unceremonious relish of Fulci’s gut-munching shlock-fest. Banned in the UK as a video nasty, its tagline says it all – We are going to eat you! It is pure lowest common denominator and that is the highest compliment I can conceive. Bloody good stuff indeed.

Suspiria: A Reappraisal

            A few years ago, I wrote an in-depth – albeit dense and hard-to-read – short essay about Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977). I tried a bit too hard, I think, to dissect the film as though I was a top-notch film critic instead of simply an avid fan with a small talent for analysis. Time has come for a reappraisal of sorts. A reappreciation, as it were, and a short one - because it really would be better to watch it yourself.

            Sitting down with a friend to watch Suspiria again, I realized I must have seen it at least two dozen times. Partly because it’s a film I absolutely love, partly because it’s perhaps the most accessible and well-crafted example of Italian paracinema I can think of and therefore I use it exclusively to introduce friends and family to the genre. It says something about the quality of Argento’s masterwork that it makes such a great first impression on newcomers.

            Suspiria is a delirious nightmare in nearly every respect. It relies on a mystical sort of illogic, the kind that confuses the waken but makes perfect sense to the dreaming. Winding, twisting corridors that lead to rooms inexplicably filled with razor wire, blood red buildings, and rain glowing like neon lights. The entire picture plays like a squirming drug trip gone delightfully wrong. Even the parts that look somewhat unconvincing now (a certain bat comes to mind) look completely expected within the confines of this celluloid world.

            On the one hand, the film appears to be a fairly straightforward tale of conspiracy, witchcraft, and murder. On the other, a grim journey down the rabbit hole into a world where time and space appear to be naught but superficial trappings in an otherwise dark supernatural realm. There is no real explanation for why the villainous headmistresses spend so much energy at the very outset on Suzy – a girl who is the very definition of plain when she arrives at the academy. Their actions and attitudes serve to alienate her from the start, and in a way result in their downfall.

            Suzy Bannion, played with subtle pathos by Jessica Harper, follows every happenstance as if it was her own dream logic leading her to the truth. Steps leading to the right, the directress’ labored breathing, drugged wine, and hundred-year-old legends. We don’t need to connect the dots or make sense of it as long she makes it to the next challenge. She’s our guide to the recesses of Dario Argento’s mind because essentially, that is what he brings to the screen.

            Remarkably, for all the confusion and surrealism, Suspiria remains the most accessible of Dario Argento’s films. In fact, it may be the most accessible of any film to come out of Italy at the time, save perhaps Sergio Leone’s The Man with No Name trilogy. That accessibility set me on a path years ago to take in as many films of it’s like I managed to get my hands on. Subsequently I have shown it to every family, friend, and acquaintance I could in the hopes they would enjoy it as much as I have. And in the end, sharing the films we love is one of life’s great pleasures.

Zombie Holocaust: A Love Letter

            When I first got into horror films, I steadily made my way through all the American classics. In short order I found myself running out of domestic fair and, slowly but surely, I fell down the rabbit hole of Italian horror. I quickly consumed Dario Argento’s masterpieces like Suspiria (1977) and Deep Red (1975) and moved on to the Italian Godfather of Gore himself, Lucio Fulci. I found a complete love of his films like Zombie (1979) and The Beyond (1981). Above all I became a die-hard fan of Ruggero Deodato’s flesh-eating masterpiece Cannibal Holocaust (1980). After devouring every frame of essential spaghetti horror I could, my addiction became too great, and I found myself slipping further down that exploitation rabbit hole until I was in the throes of the dregs of the genre. The absolute bottom of the barrel. And there, among the throw-away drivel – I’m looking at you, Hell of the Living Dead (1980) – I found one of the most deliriously wonderful slices of grindhouse garbage I would ever lay my eyes on: a zombie/cannibal/mad doctor roller coaster known as Zombie Holocaust (1980).

Gut-munching, flesh-ripping, eyeball-gouging, limb-tearing, chunk-blowing, fluid-spewing, bloody, gory goodness. Everything an Italian zombie cannibal exploitation mashup should be. Violence, nudity, over-the-top gore, virtually no plot to speak of, and certainly nothing close to a traditionally ‘good movie’, the film truly embodies all that a genre aficionado craves. But if you need more convincing, let me ask… Have you ever seen a zombie’s head blended to bloody smithereens by an outboard motor? I thought so…

The plotline is made up of the most simplistic nonsense. Really, who would expect anything else? After a rash of unexplained cadaver mutilations sweeping New York City is tracked to an island chain in the South Pacific (because, why not?), a busty blonde anthropologist teams up with an investigator, an obnoxious journalist, and some culturally stereotyped Asian islander guides to unravel the mystery. Upon arrival on the island, mad cannibal zombie doctor hijinks ensue. What’s not to like?

Perhaps more infamous than the film itself is its history. Zombie Holocaust was directed by Marino Girolami, a director more well-known for the being the father of The Inglorious Bastards (1978) director Enzo G. Castellari. The film was conceived as a blatant cash-in on the successes of both Zombie and Cannibal Holocaust (if you couldn’t already tell). The production even went so far as to cast two players who had previously starred in Zombie, Ian McCulloch and Peruvian actor Dakar. Some of the music is taken from Fulci’s film, as well as a few B-roll shots the production somehow thought nobody would notice.

The real story, however, begins when Zombie Holocaust made its way to the United States. On this side of the pond the film was re-edited, re-scored, and re-titled as Doctor Butcher, M.D. (Medical Deviate)! This title was chosen despite the fact that very little medical goings on actually occur in the movie. Nevertheless, it provided the entire basis for the marketing campaign. The trimmings don’t remove any of the gore, only a few plot-related scenes that were deemed… unnecessary… The advertising for its release involved a station-wagon outfitted to appear like an ambulance and inside a stretcher and other bloody mad doctor paraphernalia. It made the rounds in Times Square and the police were called more than once! Producer/distributor Terry Levene simply bailed his people out and sent them back to the streets to keep the publicity going! From there the film made its debut on New York’s infamous 42^nd Street, where it passed into grindhouse history.

There are so many reasons to love this film. Not the least of which are the beautiful practical gore effects that leave nothing to the imagination and yet are so abysmally fake that you can’t help but laugh your ass off. One needs look no further than the scene where a hospital orderly leaps to his death out a seventh story window. When the mannequin hits the pavement, one can clearly see the arm come flying off. Top notch stuff, really.

Truly, that scene describes perfectly the brand of utter lunacy that is Zombie Holocaust. Between lines such as, “I’m determined to have your brain!” and the half-mumbled, incomprehensible mishmash that’s supposed to pass for the accents of Asian characters, nothing here quite makes sense. And that’s absolutely okay because that kind of terribleness is exactly what the audience of this motion picture is after.

No viewer comes to a film like this expecting Citizen Kane (1941). We come expecting the gruesome goods, and boy does this flick deliver. Disemboweling, eye-gouging, eating of fake guts slathered in bright red paint, ill-advised and medically inaccurate brain surgery… it’s all here my friends, in absolute spades. To borrow a phrase from General George S. Patton – I love it so!

Let’s be clear, Zombie Holocaust is not a good movie. It simply is not. But that is precisely why it is so damned wonderful. It offers a veritable cornucopia of dubious delectable delights that are never found all in the same place anywhere else. Want cannibals? You got it. Zombies? Got that too. A mad doctor creating zombies with gory brain transplants? Check. Actress Alexandra Delli Colli stripped nude, flowers painted all over her, and worshipped as a goddess by an island cannibal tribe? Oh what the hell, sure, why not?

Yeah, cannibals were done better in Cannibal Holocaust. Zombies were scarier in Zombie, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, etc… And if boobs are your thing there are just as many of those in movies far better known than this. But I ask you, where else can you get them all at once? Exactly, nowhere except the warm, cuddly, sleazy embrace of Doctor Butcher, M.D. So put on your best goofy grin and get ready for a very, very messy good time!