Lisa Marie picked her favorite scene from Lucio Fulci’s classic Zombie (aka Zombi, Zombie Flesh Eaters) and now I counter with my own favorite scene from this film.
This scene has a simple set-up. The wife of the doctor researching zombification on the island of Matool gets herself in a sort of a pickle. Zombies have laid siege to her island home and most of her servants have either fled into the night or have become zombie chow. She’s barricaded herself in a room as zombie begin to batter down doors to get to her. It’s in the sequence where she has thought herself safe as she’s barricaded the door to her room when the hand and arm of a zombie breaks through the door (for some reason quite flimsy and prone to splintering) and grabs her by the hair and begins to pull her out through the splintered hole in the door.
I could continue to describe the scene, but I think it’s better for people to see why this scene is the one I love from Lucio Fulci’s Zombie.
Okay, so I realize that this is a pretty familiar scene. Along with being one of the highpoints of Lucio Fulci’s seminal Zombi 2, it was also used — out of context — in a television commercial a few years ago. I can’t remember what the commercial was for but I do remember being ticked off whenever I was on twitter and I saw people who had probably never even heard of Lucio Fulci going, “Awww! I love the Shark/Zombie makeout commercial!”
(Oh! Wait, I do remember — it was one of those “Windows So-and-So was my idea!” commercials. God, I hated that advertising campaign.)
Anyway, here’s a scene I truly love, shown in its proper context — the Zombie/Shark fight from Lucio Fulci’s 1979 masterpiece Zombi 2. One thing I always wondered was whether or not that the shark came back as a zombie shark.
This is one of those public domain films that seems to show up in every other Mill Creek Box Set. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine and the trailer is all tacky goodness. Plus, Erika Blanc’s in it. (And the title has allowed me to have a lot of fun at my friend Evelyn’s expense.)
Before he was hired to direct Zombi 2, Lucio Fulci directed this spaghetti western. Not surprisingly, it’s one of the darkest, most cynical westerns ever made.
Nine years before Four of the Apocalypse, Fulci directed another western, this one with Franco Nero. Have I mentioned the things I would let Franco Nero do to me if I could get my hands on a time machine? Mmmmm….Franco Nero.
Happy Labor Day! In honor of this holiday, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge a unique genre of film that truly sparked my love affair with cinema. That genre, as you may have already guessed, was Italian horror.
Today’s song of the day comes from one of the greatest of the Italian horror films, Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2. While the film’s very true artistry is often overshadowed by its infamous reputation and the score itself is clearly a product of its time (the late 70s), I think that Zombi 2 was a cinematic high point in general and a masterpiece of horror in specific. And a large part of that was due to Fabio Frizzi’s operatic yet foreboding score.
Here then is today’s song of the day, Fabio Frizzi’s Main Theme from Zombi 2.
Since late last year, one trailer has managed to consistently scare me. That trailer was advertising a horror film called Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. Well, after a few delays, Don’t Be Afraid of The Dark has finally been released and I’ve finally seen it. Unfortunately, the trailer is the only thing scariest thing about Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark.
The film starts out as a classic haunted house story. Sally (well-played by Bailee Madison) is a young girl who is sent, by her neglectful mother, to live with her father. Sally’s father (Guy Pearce, who seems to be bored by the whole movie) is restoring an old mansion in Rhode Island with his girlfriend (Katie Holmes). In a plot development that will be familiar to anyone who has seen Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond, It turns out that the mansion was previously owned by a crazy painter who disappeared over a 100 years ago. Anyway, Sally isn’t all that happy with the situation to begin with and, once she starts to hear malevolent voices whispering threats at her, she’s even less happy with it. However, her father refuses to take Sally’s fears seriously. Why? Because, simply based on his actions in this film, Sally’s dad is an idiot as well as being the worst father ever! Seriously.
The main problem with Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is that it’s simply not scary. Director Nixey, making his film debut here, borrows a few effective images from other, better horror films but otherwise, he creates no sense of pace and no sense of tension. The owners of the voices are revealed fairly early on in the film and as soon as they show up, the film pretty much loses whatever atmosphere of dread that it may have built up. It’s as if nobody told Nixey that the unknown is always far scarier than obvious CGI.
It really doesn’t bother me that all of the characters continually do stupid things. We expect that. That’s just part of the horror genre. If the characters in a horror movie acted sensibly and just left the haunted house or didn’t wander off by themselves then there wouldn’t be any horror. What does bother me in this film is that there’s no consistency in the way the characters act or any sort of continuity for scene to scene. Sometimes, everybody in the house can hear Sally scream regardless of where they’re located and then other times, it appears that Sally could scream for hours without anyone noticing. Sometimes, Katie Holmes seems determined to save Sally from the house’s evil forces and then other times, she seems fairly indifferent to whether she survives or not. Horror films don’t require that characters act with any sort of logic but it does help if there’s at least a little consistency.
I mentioned Lucio Fulci earlier and I did that on purpose because, in many ways, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark reminded me of one of Fulci’s later, post-New York Ripper films. Like most of Fulci’s later films, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is ultimately a disappointment but occasionally, a little glimmer of talent shines through and manages to keep the film from being a total loss. In the case of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, most of those glimmers belong to Bailee Madison who is well-cast as Sally and who bring some much needed conviction to the film. Also, towards the end of the film, there’s a lengthy dinner party sequence in which Sally attempts to ward off the evil creatures while her unaware father attempts to schmooze with his guests (one of whom was played by Alan Dale, the same actor who played Charles Widmore on Lost). The dinner party sequence actually generates some tension (as well as some intentional laughs) and it hints at what the film could have been.
One of Lucio Fulci’s final films, this was made for Italian television. It’s actually better than you might think from the trailer. But, yes, it is a far cry from Zombi 2.
Judging from the trailers I’ve come across since I first started this feature, the 70s were a turbulent time. The revolution continued with Combat Cops.
“Pam Grier is …. Sheba, Baby!” Sad to think that the last time we saw Pam Grier on-screen, she was reduced to playing Julia Roberts’ best friend in Larry Crowne.
George Romero’s follow-up to Night of the Living Dead is better known as Season of the Witch. Like most of Romero’s non-zombie films, it has some major issues with pacing but it remains of interesting artifact of its time. The film has a feminist subtext which works about as well as can be expected, considering that the movie was made by a man.
Hi. Good morning. I’m sitting here in my beloved Pirates shirt with my hair a big mess and an aggressive kitty trying to dig his claws into my thigh as a sign of affection as I try to complete this thing known as “waking up” but I’m still a happy girl and I’ll tell you why.
First off, we’re only six posts away from hitting that magical 1,000th post. And, once we hit a thousand, Arleigh is going to give us all a 50% raise on our current Shattered Lens salary. Yay! I know I can really use the money as I’m getting ready to go back to school and get my master’s.
This trailer is for the Italian satire/sci-fi film The 10th Victim. As this trailer makes clear, the film’s American distributor wasn’t quite sure how to sell this particular film.
By contrast, the distributors of Chained Heat appear to have known exactly who would be sitting in their audience. Chained Heat has a reputation for being one of the sleaziest of the Women in Prison films and that’s saying something. I actually saw this playing on cable once though I was kinda *ahem* tied up at the time and as such, didn’t pay too much attention to it.
Yeah, I haven’t actually seen this film but I’m going to guess that the trailer is probably more exploitive than the actual film. This is a classic example of the exploitation tease. Also, this is yet another example of a ’70s trailer that makes me go, “Ewwwwww!” at the sight of a dumpy man running around in his man panties. I mean, seriously — ewwwww, 1970s, ewwww!
The title makes it sound like a second-rate Broadway musical but actually, Manhattan Baby was (along with the far better remember New York Ripper) Lucio Fulci’s follow-up to the brilliant Beyond trilogy. I’ve sat through this film a few times and I’m still not sure why it’s called Manhattan Baby. Maybe Fulci was trying to start a trilogy of New York-themed horror films. Maybe The House By The Bronx was meant to be next…
Let’s start things out with this film from 1988. I haven’t seen this film but the trailer has a certain silly charm to it and how can’t you enjoy the use of the fake lightning special effect? Plus, those finger nails screeching across the car — Agck! Freaky.
This is one of my favorite movies. Basically, a bunch of hippies take some really powerful acid in 1968 and then, eight years later, they end up having the worst flashback ever! To say that Zalman King gives an “interesting” performance as the film’s hero is a bit of an understatement.
“Jamie Lee Curtis is…Hitch.” Well, that would probably explain why she was destined to end up hitchhiking. Seriously, parents — give it some thought before you give your child any old name. Anyway, Road Games was director Richard Franklin’s follow-up to Patrick and it’s one of the better slasher films of the early 80s.
Oh my God, this looks like a bad movie. The trailer, however, is just so silly and kinda endearing in the way that it seems to desperately be saying, “No, it’s not as bad as it looks! Look — we have ice people!”
Speaking of the evil that men do, this sexploitation film from Michael and Roberta Findlay is pretty rough even by today’s standards. Don’t watch this if you’re easily offended. If you are easily offended, just remember that ten years after making this film, Michael Findlay was decapitated by a rotating helicopter blade.
On a slightly less disturbing note, here’s the trailer for Moving Violation. The film is actually a bit more odd than you might guess from just the trailer.
This is one of the most financially succesful films of all time and apparently, it extended the life of the Southern drive-in by a good decade or so. It’s actually a pretty good movie.
Also known as the Death Wheelers. This is one of those trailer that can pretty much speak for itself. (Though I will point out that co-star George Sanders committed suicide shortly after filming completed.)
Not surprisingly, this movie was directed by Ted V. Mikels. What makes this trailer memorable (for me) is the blandly cheerful narration. I don’t know who that is providing the narration but you hear his voice a lot as you explore the world of grindhouse trailers.
Made in the Philippines (as were many exploitation films in the 60s and 70s — I always expect to hear someone say, “Made in the Philippines — where life is cheap!” whenever I watch one of these trailers), The Twilight People is best remembered for featuring Pam Grier as the Panther Woman. I love how the trailers for Filipino exploitation films always seem to promise us that we’re in for “blood…blood…and more blood!” like some nightmarish 1950s feminine hygiene film.
“Do you think we killed niiiiiiine people for nuthin, maaaaan?” This trailer plays like one of the many “fake” grindhouse trailers that every toadsucker on Youtube is making nowadays. (And, by the way, that trend is getting increasingly obnoxious as it’s obvious that a lot of these trailers are being made by jerks who have never even seen a genuine grindhouse film.) However, Cop Killers is a real film and this is a real trailer. Every time I go down to Half-Price books, I come across the DVD for this movie. They want $9.00 for it. And every time, I end up grabbing this DVD, planning on buying it, just to then come across a movie or book that I want more. So, I haven’t seen Cop Killers yet but I’m sure that eventually, I’ll break down and get it.
Feel bad for all those cops getting killed Cop Killers? Don’t worry, the fraternity of blue meanies got their revenge in plenty of other films, including this 1978 Italian film. Convoy Busters was directed by Ruggero Deodat0 (of Cannibal Holocaust and House On The Edge of the Park fame) and is also known as Cop on Fire. (Apparently, it was retitled to take advantage of the international success of Sam Peckinpah’s Convoy.)
This is the (very) American trailer for Lucio Fulci’s Murder To The Tune of Seven Black Notes. This film is actually one of Fulci’s more subtle and interesting films and, considering that it’s a Fulci film without zombies or a huge amount of gore — it has a surprisingly large number of fans (including Quentin Tarantino). At the time of its release, however, it failed at the box office and so hurt Fulci’s reputation that the producers of Zombi 2 were able to hire him cheap whereas previously, they wouldn’t have been able to afford him. Hence, it can be argued that the success of Zombi 2 was directly the result of the failure of The Psychic. (That’s what we call the circle of life.)
Through the Shattered Lens 