By Chas. Balun

Published by Fantasma Books, 1996

 

Reviewed by Michael Bolvary

 

    "Every time one of his movies plays, on theater screens, at home on the VCR, or in the mind's eye, the Maestro lives.  There are millions of frames of film that hold his essence.  The fear, the terror and the horror will remain indelible, but so will this man's lifelong love for his work.  He was a True Believer.  A genuine artiste in a world brimming with poseurs, sycophants, liars and passionless hacks....  FULCI LIVES!"

    It's passages like that which make this book a truly heartfelt tribute to Italy's meastro of maggot mayhem, Lucio Fulci.  It was produced in the rush of Fulci lionizing after his death in 1996, and although it's scarcely 80 pages long, Chas. Balun's fanboy tribute is a passionate, engaging work that evokes genuine devotion to a filmmaker and his films. 

    It begins with not one, or two, but three forewords from a variety of sources: Antonello Fulci, Shawn "Smith" Lewis and Thomas Rainone.  Antonella's brief intro gives us some revealing and intimate memoirs of her father and his life, ranging from his weird relationship with a psychiatrist fiancee to recognizing a baby who looked like Peter Lorre in a supermarket.  She sheds light on her father's character and makes us feel we know him a bit better: "He was a grumbler and his black humour didn't spare anyone, including me.  If you really knew him, you learned there was just one way to please him; you had to 'resist' when he was teasing you.  If you could answer back (and it was not easy) he just loved you." (p.7)  Personal and heartfelt, I think Antonella's intro to this book is far superior to the one she wrote for the "definitive" Fulci study, Stephen Thrower's "Beyond Darkness."

    Balun's friend Shawn "Smith" Lewis, owner of Blackest Heart Media, now linked to Rotten Cotton graphics, provides an enthusiastic "Publisher's Note" that describes how he first discovered Fulci's films in 1980 when he saw "Zombie".  He unsurprisingly thanks Balun for spreading the word to America that Fulci was one of Italy's masters of gore, which is all very admirable, except for this statement: "Chas. kept the word of Fulci alive  while other publications were spewing about the 99.9% talentless Franco, or 'Deja-vu Argento' who has been remaking the same film for the last ten years and still can't get it right. (Truth hurts, huh?)" (p.10) Considering that Chas. Balun started a fanzine called "Deep Red" out of respect for Dario Argento's work, I find it surprising that he would include that statement in the intro to one of his books.

    More surprising is Shawn's assertion that he was the instigator of what would turn out to be Fulci's only appearance at an American horror convention: "At one particular show, a friend of mine mentioned a convention in England that Fulci had attended.  I wished I had known about it in time; I don't care how much it would have cost, I'd have been there.  Then I figured, fuck, I'll get Fulci to a show here in the States!  I contacted Kevin Clement of Chiller Theatre and he thought it was a great idea.  It would be Fulci's first convention appearance in the States.  Well, after about two months and $800 in long distance calls to Italy, it looked like things were going to happen....  Then ... through the "horror grapevine" Fangoria magazine found out about Fulci possibly appearing at a Chiller Theatre convention.  Since Chiller is their number one rival they set out to beat me to the punch.  Fangoria took advantage of their notoriety and money--the rest is history.  Fulci attended the Fangoria Weekend in New York in January 1996....  I just want everybody to know that I started it all and if it weren't for me getting the ball rolling, Fangoria wouldn't have given two shits!  Hey, Mr. Timpone, maybe you can help me with my $800 bill before they cut off my fuckin' phone!" (p. 10-11)

    Shawn briefly describes meeting with Fulci at Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors as well as how he felt two months later when he learned that Fulci had died on March 13th: "That day, part of me died too.  At first I didn't know how to take it.  I was shocked, then saddened.  I felt empty inside.  It was as if I had just lost my best friend." (p. 12)  Every Fulci fan must have felt the same way.  

    Tom Rainone's foreword goes into much more detail about his meeting with Fulci at the Fangoria convention, describing how he saw an old, tired, jet-lagged Fulci go through a complete rejuvenation when he took the stage and saw his vast legion of fans.  Fulci became deliriously happy, "returning his audience's enthusiasm with both barrels."  Later on, Rainone treated Fulci to dinner with friends Eric Caidin, Michael Weldon, Tom Savini, Tony Timpone and John Saxon.  Rainone even got to show Fulci his music videos for Motorhead in his hotel room and was even considered for a cameo role in the Wax Mask project before Fulci passed away.  Rainone concludes: "He was a true hardcore artist loyal to the horror film.  A director who, in these MTV ball-less '90s refused to sell out to the censors whom he hated with a vengeance.  A quality that proved him by far to have the biggest balls in horror... Mr. Lucio Fulci." (p. 16)

    Then we jump into Balun's body of work, which is an extended fanboy rant delivered with such unbridled enthusiasm that it's hard not to relish to matter how familiar it all seems.  

    Disappointingly (and unsurprisingly) Balun skips over Fulci's earlier films--1969's "Beatrice Cenci" is given the most attention, probably because it was Fulci's favourite film of his own--and only devotes one page to describing Fulci's giallo thrillers "Lizard in a Woman's Skin" and "Don't Torture the Duckling."  The classic gothic horror trilogy "Zombie", "The Gates of Hell" and "The Beyond" are given the most attention, of course. Balun resorts to quoting from various genre magazines (Samhain, Fangoria, even his own Deep Red) to augment his statements on these three staples of modern horror.  Some items of interest that I hadn't known before I read this book were: Robert Kurtzman was inspired to write the story for "From Dusk Till Dawn" after seeing "Zombie" at a drive-in horror movie festival called "A From Dusk Till Dawn All-Night Horror Show"; also, Fulci did not really consider H.P. Lovecraft to be an inspiration for "The Gates of Hell" ("[Lovecraft] is a nightmare fantasist," Fulci says, "while my nightmares are made of passion." p. 36).  Finally (and I suspected this from the first time I learned about it), Balun exposes the truth behind Tobe Hooper's and Kim Henkel's frothing statements for the 1981 Aquarius release of  "The Seven Doors of Death": "Fulci had revealed that he doubted either one had seen his movie and Kim Henkel finally 'fessed up years later that Terry Levene had made up the quotes and they had just lent their names as a favour; Ron Harvey, one of Levene's assistants at the time, insists all the changes really benefitted the film and, risking heresy, declared 'the cut version is better.'  Yeah, right--bite me, yahoo." (p. 40)  

    Balun's reviews of the rest of Fulci's output spans the gamut between the predictable and the surprising: he states that "The Smuggler" aka "Contraband" is one of Fulci's most overlooked films and a must-see for fans of his violence, but calls "The New York Ripper", arguably Fulci's most disturbing and downbeat movie, "a hollow, forced, uninspired effort that very few have rallied to support." (p. 46)

    The final portion of Fulci's life consisted of his cameo appearance in Massimo Lavagnini's "Sick-o-Pathics" and his renewed enthusiasm for directing when he landed the job of making "The Wax Mask" with Fulci's veteran cinematgrapher Sergio Salvati behind the camera and Dario Argento producing.  Perhaps sensitive to the fact that Fulci and Argento once had a bitter rivalry--and considering that Shawn Smith Lewis had knocked Argento's movies in his foreword--this book barely mentions that Argento produced the film after he and Fulci made amends and became friends in the mid-1990s.

    Following a small collection of photos from "The Fulci family archives" (some of which can be seen in the "Fulci Tribute" section of Anchor Bay's excellent 2000 DVD release of "The Beyond"), we get a complete Fulci filmography and a final eulogy from Massimo Lavagnini entitled "Beyond the Memory".  "It is necessary that a man dies to make others verify his merit," Lavagnini begins, quoting the Italian poet Vittorio Alfieri.  He goes on to describe how he first fell in love with Fulci's films after seeing "House by the Cemetery" at a young age and first met with Fulci to do an interview on the set of "Demonia" (this video footage can be seen--edited--on the Anchor Bay DVD of "The Beyond" and unedited on Media Blasters DVD of "Demonia").  Their friendship was really made four years later at the Rome Fanta Festival, which led to Lavagnini's invitation to Fulci to do a cameo in "Sick-o-Pathics."  In describing his death, he explains that many newspapers didn't mention Fulci's passing as the Polish director Kryzsztof Kieslowski had died the same day.  "With all respect, I say who cares about a Polish director when we lost the only brain the Italian cinema ever had." (p. 77)  

    Balun's book is brief and somewhat sketchy in places, but includes essential words from associates that Fulci's fans will love.  Hardly the definitive Fulci study, it's still essential reading for aficionados of Italian horror cinema.    

 

    4 BITCH SLAPS

Discuss this book in our forum.

 

Back