AENIGMA (Italy/Yugoslavia - 1987) Directed by Lucio Fulci. Written by Giorgio Mariuzzo and Lucio Fulci. Cast: Jared Martin, Lara Naszinski, Ulli Reinthaler, Kathi Wise, Riccardo Acerbi, Sophie D'Aulan, Jennifer Naud, Mijlijana Zirojevic, Dragan Ejelogrlic, Lijlijana Blagojevic, Franciska Spahic, Dusica Zagaric, Lucio Fulci. (Unrated, 89 mins) Having exhausted everything there is to say about Lucio Fulci's early '70s gialli and his trailblazing 1979-1982 gore galore glory days, cult film scholars have reached the point in Fulciology studies where it's time to begin re-examining his much-maligned late-period of 1986-1991. Peak Fulci came to a close after his falling out with producer Fabrizio De Angelis during the making of 1982's underappreciated MANHATTAN BABY, but he did some decent journeyman work on 1983's CONQUEST and the 1984 films THE NEW GLADIATORS and the FLASHDANCE-inspired slasher MURDER ROCK. Health issues kept Fulci sidelined through the rest of 1984 and all of 1985, and 1986's erotic thriller THE DEVIL'S HONEY was the start of what's considered "latter-day Fulci." Aside from gory throwbacks like 1988's ZOMBI 3 (which he left midway through production, citing health concerns, and the film was finished by an uncredited Bruno Mattei) and TOUCH OF DEATH and 1990's meta, self-referential CAT IN THE BRAIN, this period was almost completely dismissed by all but the most devout Fulciphiles. Other than THE DEVIL'S HONEY turning up in US video stores in 1991 as DANGEROUS OBSESSION, none of these later Fulcis made it to America until the post-2000 Eurocult DVD explosion after years of only able to be seen stateside via bootlegs and gray market means. But as the '00s kicked off, all of the late-period Fulci titles began appearing on DVD, courtesy of labels like Shriek Show, Image Entertainment, and Severin. And for the most part, they were as bad as we'd heard during that previous decade where they were difficult to see. None of these films are essential Fulci, but some indeed have their charms and deliver the gory goods, even if they lack the polish and financial backing that he was getting during his heyday. A pair of these later Fulci titles--1987's AENIGMA and 1990's DEMONIA--have just been given 4K restorations and are out on Blu-ray from Severin (because physical media is dead), and while neither are where any Fulci newbie should begin their exploration, they're both worth second looks for the die-hards.
Playing like a bizarre mash-up of CARRIE, JENNIFER, PATRICK, and Dario Argento's PHENOMENA, AENIGMA opens at the fictional St. Mary's College in Boston--though at no point does this Beantown look like anything other than Sarajevo, where this Italian/Yugoslavian co-production was shot--with a group of students, along with lecherous gym instructor Fred (Riccardo Acerbi) plotting a cruel prank on shy, awkward Kathy (Mijlijana Zirojevic). This results in Kathy being run over by a car and left brain-dead on life support at a local hospital, where she's looked after by neurologist Dr. Anderson (requisite American export value Jared Martin, best known for his recurring role as J.R. Ewing nemesis Dusty Farlow on DALLAS). Meanwhile, new transfer student Eva (A BLADE IN THE DARK's Lara Naszinski, niece of Klaus Kinski) gets settled into St. Mary's as she recovers from a nervous breakdown, though she soon becomes a sort-of psychic conduit of Kathy who, with the help of her occasionally glowing-red-eyed mother and school maid "Crazy Mary" (Dusika Zagaric), uses Eva to enact vengeance upon her tormentors.
When you think of Lucio Fulci set pieces, you probably go to the shark vs. zombie clash or the eye-splinter scene in ZOMBIE or maybe the intestine-barfing or drill-through-the-head scenes in THE GATES OF HELL or the razor blade-through-the-nipple bit in THE NEW YORK RIPPER. AENIGMA offers its own memorable sequence with the awesomely gross "death by snails" suffered by Virginia (Kathi Wise), who's eventually covered head-to-toe by snails and slugs in her bed. Fred is attacked by a double that materializes out of a mirror where he's admiring himself and his death is written off as a heart attack, while others are killed by a statue come to life or decapitated, or thrown from a window. Eva--enacting the desires of the comatose Kathy--seduces Dr. Anderson, and their constant fooling around makes Eva's roommate Jenny (Ulli Reinthaler) a third wheel. That is, at least until Eva has another breakdown and gets committed, after which Dr. Anderson starts sleeping with Jenny. Almost all of the characters in AENIGMA are varying degrees of shitty, with horrible teacher Drop Dead Fred and lecherous would-be sugar daddy Dr. Anderson really lowering the bar on male authority figures one should be able to look up to.
AENIGMA isn't top-shelf Fulci by any means, but after many years away from it, it has its entertainment value, even if some if it comes in the form of unintentional laughs, be they the Yugoslavian prop team's attempt at Massachusetts license plates, a shot of a miniature cityscape that could pass as a Lego "Antonio Margheriti Action Playset," the theme song "Head Over Heels" being listed as "Head Over Meels" in the opening credits, or a poster of Yoda on Jenny's wall demonstrating that Fulci really had his finger on the pulse of dorm life for late '80s American college girls. There's also the clarity of HD revealing oopsies like the timing of a red-filtered light during an overhead shot of an oil-slicked Martin/Naszinski sex scene offering a view of Naszinski that's perhaps a bit more proctological than anyone intended. But as it stands, AENIGMA is a not-bad second-tier offering from the waning days of Italian horror. It was produced by corner-cutting Ettore Spagnuolo, who spent most of the second half of the '80s trying to turn Harrison Muller into an action star in films like THE VIOLENT BREED and GETTING EVEN. Spagnuolo managed to get known names at cheap prices, like Henry Silva for THE VIOLENT BREED and Richard Roundtree for GETTING EVEN, but despite his visibility on DALLAS and other American TV shows going back to the late '60s (with requisite stops on FANTASY ISLAND and THE LOVE BOAT), Martin, who didn't even stick around to dub himself, wasn't enough to secure any kind of US distribution deal for AENIGMA, which didn't legitimately appear in America until it was released on DVD by Image Entertainment in the summer of 2001.
DEMONIA (Italy - 1990) Directed by Lucio Fulci. Written by Piero Regnoli and Lucio Fulci. Cast: Brett Halsey, Meg Register, Carla Cassola, Lino Salemme, Christina Engelhardt, Pascal Druant, Grady Thomas Clarkson, Ettore Comi, Michael J. Aronin, Al Cliver, Isabella Corradini, Paola Cozzo, Bruna Rossi, Paola Calati, Antonio Melillo, Francesco Cusimano, Lucio Fulci. (Unrated, 89 mins) Like AENIGMA and most other latter-day Fulci, DEMONIA was a staple of the bootleg VHS circuit in the '90s, finally getting a legit US release when Shriek Show released it on DVD in 2001. It was lumped in with the generally dismissed stretch of product that Fulci was cranking out, like THE HOUSE OF CLOCKS, THE SWEET HOUSE OF HORRORS, and what most consider his worst horror film, SODOMA'S GHOST. And like AENIGMA, time has been kind to DEMONIA while still being unquestionably lesser Fulci. Much of that is due to the presentation on Severin's Blu-ray, which really makes both of these films look better than they ever have. Both have that sort-of "gauzy" look that was common with a lot of Italian horror of that time, particularly the product coming off of Joe D'Amato's Filmirage assembly line, but DEMONIA's outdoor scenes--the film was shot on location at Sicily's Capo Bianco and at the San Pellegrino monastery in nearby Caltabellotta--really benefit from the 4K restoration and help at least those portions of the film look a lot better than most of the stuff that was being bankrolled by budget-conscious producer Ettore Spagnuolo.
A frequently nonsensical mix of Michele Soavi's THE CHURCH, Marcello Avallone's SPECTERS, with a little of John Carpenter's PRINCE OF DARKNESS, with some bonus nunsploitation thrown in for good measure, DEMONIA deals with a team of Canadian archaeology students led by Prof. Evans (veteran American actor Brett Halsey, a late-period Fulci regular at this point after THE DEVIL'S HONEY and TOUCH OF DEATH) on a dig in Sicily. The locals, led by pissed-off butcher Turi (Lino Salemme from the DEMONS movies), don't want them there, but they proceed with their work anyway. The dig has a profound effect on student Liza (Meg Register), who takes part in seances (a shout-out to Catriona MacColl's character in THE GATES OF HELL) and believes in all manner of psychic hooey despite Evans reminding her that she's a scientist. Liza explores the dig on her own and finds a walled-off crypt with the skeletal remains of five crucified nuns. Lilla (Carla Cassola), the local medium--doesn't every superstitious village have one?--fulfills her Basil Exposition duty by informing Liza that in 1486, the five nuns were accused of holding orgies and committing deviant sexual acts in the nunnery after making a pact with Satan, prompting the villagers to crucify and execute them. The spirits of the five nuns now seek vengeance on the town and have established a psychic connection with Liza, which somewhat thematically ties it to the Kathy/Eva situation in AENIGMA. Various gory deaths ensue, including an Evans rival (Fulci stalwart Al Cliver of ZOMBIE, appearing here long enough to get spear-gunned by a topless apparition) whose decapitated head prompts an investigation by the local cops, represented by Lt. Andi (Michael J. Aronin) and his boss Inspector Carter, played by none other than Fulci himself in a prominent supporting role (dubbed by Robert Spafford) that gives him more screen time than his usual cameo.
DEMONIA has a lot of atmosphere in the foreboding catacombs and Fulci even breaks out a Steadicam for a show-offy tracking shot at one point. He also doesn't skimp on the gore--highlights a woman's eyes being clawed out by possessed cats and a graphic wishboning of one of Evans' team--though the shoddy effects are pulled off by the aptly-named Elio Terribili. Co-written by Fulci, Piero Regnoli (BURIAL GROUND), and an uncredited Antonio Tentori (CAT IN THE BRAIN), DEMONIA drags a bit in the middle before all hell breaks loose, and even taking the dubbing into account (no one voices themselves, not even Halsey, who's dubbed by Ted Rusoff), the performances seem stilted and awkward. That's not helped by scenes that drag on without going anywhere--there's a lot of padding to get DEMONIA to feature length, especially the time-killing way Aronin's Andi hems and haws in his prolonged and ultimately pointless confrontation with Halsey's Evans, then Fulci just cuts away and never wraps it up--and Salemme's character is underdeveloped, as Fulci kills him off before the villagers raid the excavation site with torches like an angry mob from an old Universal FRANKENSTEIN movie.
Halsey, who was groomed as a leading man back in the '50s but went to Europe in the '60s after it never panned out, remained a busy character actor who found himself back in Italy in the late '80s, appearing in three Fulci films (four if you count recycled footage in CAT IN THE BRAIN), along with others by the likes of Jess Franco, Antonio Margheriti, Luigi Cozzi, and Bruno Mattei, and the same year he starred in DEMONIA, he landed a supporting role as the second husband of Diane Keaton's Kay Corleone in THE GODFATHER PART III. Despite his long career in Hollywood and abroad, Halsey's name, like Jared Martin's with AENIGMA, wasn't enough to secure any interest in DEMONIA from US home video distributors, nor was Fulci's by that point. Though he looked better here than in his haggard appearance around the time of AENIGMA, Fulci's health would soon take another downturn. He only made two more films--VOICES FROM BEYOND and DOOR TO SILENCE, both in 1991--before being sidelined by diabetes and other related medical issues. He attempted a comeback when it was announced that he would write and direct THE WAX MASK, a HOUSE OF WAX redux produced by Dario Argento, but he died at the age of 68 shortly before production began in 1996. Argento handed THE WAX MASK off to Italian FX master Sergio Stivaletti, with a dedication to Fulci in the opening credits.
BURIAL GROUND aka THE NIGHTS OF TERROR (Italy - 1980; US release 1985) Directed by Andrea Bianchi. Written by Piero Regnoli. Cast: Karin Well, Gian Luigi Chirizzi, Maria Angela Giordan (Mariangela Giordano), Simone Mattioli, Antoinetta Antinori, Roberto Caporali, Peter Bark (Pietro Barzocchini), Claudio Zuchett, Anna Valente, Renato Barbieri. (Unrated, 85 mins) The success of George Romero's 1979 masterpiece DAWN OF THE DEAD led to an explosion of zombie knockoffs from Italy, where it was released as ZOMBI. This flood of the undead essentially helped establish the iconic status of Lucio Fulci, whose ZOMBI 2, aka ZOMBIE (1979), CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (1980), and THE BEYOND (1981) are arguably the greatest of all post-DAWN Italian zombie movies. Almost every journeyman Italian genre vet got a chance to crank out a cannibal zombie gutmuncher: Umberto Lenzi's NIGHTMARE CITY, aka CITY OF THE WALKING DEAD (1980); Marino Girolami's ZOMBI HOLOCAUST (1980), and its retooled 1982 American variant DOCTOR BUTCHER M.D.; and Bruno Mattei's HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD, aka NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES (1980) are just a few examples. BURIAL GROUND, one of the most memorable films from the early '80s Italian zombie craze, came from veteran sleaze merchant Andrea Bianchi, whose credits include the trashy 1975 giallo STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER, the grim western-themed 1976 polizia CRY OF A PROSTITUTE, and the softcore (or hardcore, depending which version you see) 1979 possession sexploitationer MALABIMBA, aka THE MALICIOUS WHORE. Anyone even remotely familiar with Bianchi's work knows to expect trash, but BURIAL GROUND is in another dimension altogether, hitting the ground running, introducing one nonsensical element after another. It settles into more familiar zombie territory in the middle, but then the third act comes along and just takes everything into total jawdropper territory, collapsing into all-out insanity by the climax, where you see exactly why a diminutive man in his 20s had to be cast as a little boy. There's no shortage of reasons BURIAL GROUND has become a cult classic, but young Michael is at the top of the list. Ask anyone who's seen BURIAL GROUND and they'll know exactly who and what you're talking about.
Filmed in 1979 but belatedly released in the US in the fall of 1985 by the short-lived Film Concept Group, a company co-owned by mobster-turned-Christian motivational speaker Michael Franzese, BURIAL GROUND has group of mostly unlikable assholes converging on a remote villa in the country. They're the guests of Professor Ayres (Renato Barbieri), a madman-bearded idiot who ventures into a crypt on the property and is promptly killed by some really decrepit-looking zombies. This happens despite his pleading with them "I'm your friend!" Even by walking dead standards, these zombies are a pretty sorry lot, looking like Blind Dead cosplayers and shambling about in subpar makeup and tattered clothing. But they're nevertheless resourceful, proving adept with makeshift weapons and having the wherewithal to find other entrances into the villa when the hapless heroes barricade themselves inside. Ayres' guests are a rather interchangeable lot, largely unconcerned with Ayres' mysterious absence and opting to get busy between the sheets. That's especially the case for MILF-y Evelyn (Mariangela Giordano) and her new husband George (Roberto Caporali), who are interrupted as soon as they're alone by Angela's son Michael, a creepy kid with his pants pulled up entirely too high and played by one Pietro Barzocchini, who will forever be immortalized under his Anglicized pseudonym "Peter Bark." Michael doesn't like George. In fact, he doesn't like any man around his mother. So in the midst of the undead carnage, Bianchi and screenwriter Piero Regnoli give us a skincrawling Oedipal nightmare scenario where impending doom at the hands of flesh-eating zombies means Michael may only have a short window to seduce his sultry mom. Bianchi's handling of the zombie mayhem has some intermittently effective moments, but it's mostly pretty standard and eventually repetitious, until the last five minutes which, once seen, can never be unseen. Frankly, as much as I love BURIAL GROUND, there's a much more interesting film that could've been made had the focus been on Evelyn and Michael. That's a backstory that needs telling.
BURIAL GROUND opening at a first-run theater
during a slow weekend in Toledo, OH on September 6, 1985
Bianchi gets some mileage out of his effective use of the ornate Villa Parisi, a frequently seen house in Italian genre fare, most notably 1974's BLOOD FOR DRACULA. He also has a game heroine in 42-year-old Giordano, a veteran C-lister with a career going back to the mid-1950s before she found a niche in post-HERCULES peplum of the early 1960s. Giordano was romantically involved with BURIAL GROUND producer Gabriele Crisanti at the time, and starred in several of his productions during their relationship. These included numerous sexually explicit horror outings like the aforementioned MALABIMBA (in which Giordano plays a nun who decides the best way to exorcise the demon possessing her niece to have some hot lesbian sex with her), 1979's GIALLO A VENEZIA, 1980's PATRICK STILL LIVES (where she was on the receiving end of a vile death-by-fireplace-poker), and 1982's SATAN'S BABY DOLL. Giordano and Crisanti would part ways soon after, and her most prominent post-BURIAL GROUND roles were in Michele Soavi's THE SECT, aka THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTER (1991) and as a resurrected Bathory-like countess after the titular Spanish punk rock group in Jess Franco's KILLER BARBYS (1996). Bark's film career went nowhere and he fell into obscurity not long after BURIAL GROUND (there's a great YouTube clip of Bark as a backup dancer for singer Gena Gas on Italian TV in 1979), though he has been making some European festival appearances in recent years thanks to his Michael infamy. There's footage from one on Severin's new deluxe Blu-ray release of BURIAL GROUND, which is easily the best this shoddy film has ever looked. One of the greatest bad movies of all time, BURIAL GROUND is must-see Eurotrash of the highest order, with Michael and his ludicrous transgressions, the over-the-top gore, the gratuitous T&A, the careless continuity errors, the blipping and blooping synth score, the bad dubbing, the awkward dialogue ("Mother! This cloth...smells of death!"), and the misspelled on-screen text at the conclusion, a "profecy" warning of the "nigths" of terror.
Directed by Andrea Bianchi. Written by Piero Regnoli. Cast: Henry Silva, Barbara Bouchet, Fausto Tozzi, Vittorio Sanipoli, Mario Landi, Patrizia Gori, Dada Gallotti, Alfredo Pea. (Unrated, 93 mins) Titled QUELLI CHE CONTANO in Italy, which translates to the vague THE ONES WHO COUNT in English, this tawdry 1974 Eurocrime thriller was given a sleazy, drive-in-ready rechristening as CRY OF A PROSTITUTE for its 1976 US release by grindhouse outfit Joseph Brenner Associates, Inc. It's not exactly false advertising--there is an ex-prostitute who figures into the story and she indeed cries--but it probably disappointed those specifically looking for T&A trash, though audiences did end up getting a more-violent-than-usual Italian mob movie out of the deal. The great Henry Silva, who was getting a ton of work in poliziotteschi films throughout the 1970s, is Sicilian-born hit man Tony Ariante, who returns to his rural Sicily village birthplace after spending years with the American mob in Brooklyn. He's back at the behest of Don Cascemi (Vittorio Sanipoli), who wants to start a war between two other bosses, Don Cantimo (Fausto Tozzi) and Don Scannapieco (Mario Landi). The three warring dons have gotten involved in the drug trade, though Cascemi and Tony are appalled that the bodies of dead kids are being used to move junk back and forth between Europe and America. In classic YOJIMBO fashion, Tony plays both sides against the other ("Whose side are you on?" Scannapieco asks, to which Tony replies "The winner") and things escalate when he steps in and offs three goons who try to kill Don Scannapieco's handicapped son Zino (Alfredo Pea). If that's not enough, Tony's lured into a sadomasochistic fling with Don Cantimo's alcoholic, nympho wife Margie (Barbara Bouchet), the former prostitute of the title, who ropes Tony in by gently fellating the tip of a peeled banana at the dinner table. Fortunately for Tony, Don Cantimo gets off on being a cuckold, demanding dirty-talk confessionals about her extramarital flings while they have sex ("God, what a whore you are!" he ecstatically moans in the velvet tones of veteran voice dubber Michael Forest). Tony doesn't have time for romance, instead opting to anally rape Margie in the barn while beating her and forcing her face-first into the gutted, raw carcass of a hung-up pig in a scene so wrong in so many ways that it has to be seen to be believed.
The casually cruel nature of CRY OF A PROSTITUTE shouldn't be a surprise since it's directed by Italian trash auteur Andrea Bianchi, whose later films include the charming 1975 giallo STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER, the sleazy 1979 supernatural horror/porno crossover MALABIMBA: THE MALICIOUS WHORE, and the 1981 zombie incest masterpiece BURIAL GROUND. Silva plays one of the most vile sociopaths of his career, possibly even more despicable than the similarly nihilistic asshole he played in Fernando Di Leo's THE BOSS, aka WIPEOUT!, a year earlier, the difference being that Tony's the hero. Not only is there the extremely brutal sodomy scene in the barn, but he also later whips Margie with his belt, finishing her off with a few thwacks across her face with the buckle (the end result adorned Joseph Brenner's US poster art, which would not fly today). He also finds it's not enough to kill a couple of rival gangsters, but he also has to drive over and flatten them with a conveniently-available steamroller. The only thing that makes Tony even slightly human is the small amount of sympathy he feels for the helpless Zino, and a surprise reveal at the end tries to justify Tony's actions, but it's pretty hard to excuse his--or the film's--treatment of the pathetic Margie, played by the gorgeous Bouchet at her least glamorous. After opening with an instant classic decapitation, CRY OF A PROSTITUTE is a little slow-going and predictable for a while, but Bianchi clearly gets bored and starts going increasingly over-the-top in ways that make Silva's next Eurocrime gig--Umberto Lenzi's incredible ALMOST HUMAN--seem tame by comparison. Whether it's the misogynistic sexual violence, the pervy antics of Don Cantimo, or the insane killings (another guy gets his head split when it's pushed through a band saw), CRY OF A PROSTITUTE never resists a chance to go for shock value.
It also takes advantage of its rural, old-country setting by essentially making the story a spaghetti western in poliziotteschi disguise, from Tony's FISTFUL OF DOLLARS machinations to his climactic resurrection to take on Don Cantimo's men after he's presumed dead. Also noteworthy to the spaghetti western motif is Tony's ominous whistling before the kill, an obvious nod to Charles Bronson's Harmonica in Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. There's some good ideas in Piero Regnoli's script but Bianchi, by all accounts still with us at 90 though long-retired from the movies, is just too rude and crude to pull off any notion of stylistic, genre-melding subtleties. In the relatively controlled hands of a Di Leo, an Enzo G. Castellari (STREET LAW), or a more politically-minded genre figure like a Damiano Damiani (CONFESSIONS OF A POLICE CAPTAIN), CRY OF A PROSTITUTE could've been a much smarter film. But Andrea Bianchi never did subtle or smart, so it still scores as unabashed drive-in garbage, which is fine on its own. It also offers an essential Silva performance, with the actor getting in one of his signature, emphatic "MotherFUCKER!" bellowings ("Will you please clean my shoes?") that have retroactively made him the Samuel L. Jackson of Eurocrime.
Newspaper ad for CRY OF A PROSTITUTE, opening in Toledo, OH on 6/2/1977, significantly toned down from the brutal one-sheet art.
