FULCI FOR FAKE -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 6/28/20


 

For an unusual filmmaker such as Lucio Fulci comes an unusual approach to a screen biography, FULCI FOR FAKE (2019), which gets points for trying something new even though the attempt isn't always a success.

Writer-director Simone Scafidi, a longtime admirer of his subject, came up with the odd conceit of placing a fictional character, that of an actor hired to play Fulci in a fictitious film about his life, in the position of interviewing actual people from Fulci's life in order to lay the groundwork for his portrayal.

Thus, when we see Fulci's daughters Camilla and Antonella along with various friends and coworkers being interviewed by Scafidi, closeups of the actor are inserted asking the questions.  We also see occasional glimpses of the actor contemplating the role as he goes about his daily business.

For me, this unique form of presentation never really gels, and I began to view the actor segments as more of an intrusion than anything else. It's a cinematic affectation that doesn't really do anything to augment the actual interview material or the film as a cohesive whole.

Still, for Fulci fans the documentary material will prove priceless, as we're treated to extensive contemplations, ruminations, and revelations about the famed Italian film maestro by those who knew and loved him best.

Daughters Camilla and Antonella give the most intimate details of their father about whom they still get visibly emotional.  More essential perspectives on Fulci as a filmmaker and as a man are supplied by the likes of close friend Sandro Bitetto, film composer Fabio Frizzi, actor Paolo Malco (NEW YORK RIPPER), cinematographer Sergio Salvati (THE BEYOND, THE WAX MASK), director Michele Soavi, writer-producer Enrico Vanzina, and official biographer Michele Romagnoli.

The film is at its best when these notable personalities are waxing nostalgic about Fulci. Where I find it most lacking is in the almost total absence of film clips. We never get to see actual examples of the scenes to which the interviewees are referring, and the only visuals besides the talking heads consist of still photos and some home movie footage.

The narrative also tends to stray from the more interesting cinematic aspects of Fulci's life into less compelling areas such as his love for horses and even such trivial things as how unruly his hair tended to be. This results in some rather dry passages that don't really add much to the film.

More pertinent to many viewers will be details such as the making of the maestro's final film, THE DOOR INTO SILENCE, and his beginning work on THE WAX MASK (which was conceived for him by friend Dario Argento) during which he died due to heart complications.

In addition to this is some fascinating coverage of Fulci's most essential works in the horror genre during the late 70s and 80s, including AENIGMA, THE DEVIL'S HONEY, and ZOMBIE 3.

Perhaps the most fulfilling parts of Severin Films' Blu-ray edition of FULCI FOR FAKE (which is in Italian with English subtitles) are contained in the generous bonus menu, which contains Camilla Fulci's entire interview along with extra interview footage with Salvati, Frizzi, Malco, Soavi, Vanzani, and Romagnoli.

We also get more of those vintage home movies (with commentary by Fulci and Romagnoli) and audio recordings by Fulci himself. Rounding out the menu is some zombie footage from the Venice Film Festival and a trailer.

Scafidi himself reveals in a bonus interview that his docudrama isn't intended to be a comprehensive biography of Lucio Fulci--the internet now exists, he says, to fill interested parties in on such details--but is more of an esoteric celebration of the essence of the man. 

This makes watching FULCI FOR FAKE a rather fruitless pursuit for the uninitiated, while those already interested in and somewhat knowledgable about the subject should find it an enriching experience.

FULCI FOR FAKE -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

AENIGMA -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 6/25/20


They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but it also has no fury like a woman who suffers the humiliation of a cruel college prank and then, while fleeing from her jeering tormenters, gets hit by a truck and ends up in a coma from which she uses her psychic powers to possess the body of a newly-enrolled student and exact bloody revenge upon everyone who put her there.

Which, incidentally, is the plot of Italian horror maestro Lucio Fulci's murderous melodrama AENIGMA (1987, Severin Films). Inspired by such films as CARRIE, PATRICK, and Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA, this lively entry gets all of that plot set-up out of the way in the first ten minutes and then gets right down to the good stuff.

Milijana Zirojevic as the put-upon "Kathy" spends the rest of the film in a hospital bed hooked up to a jumble of wires and looking the worse for wear, while her pretty surrogate, Eva (Lara Naszinski), moves into the girls' dorm (a nice SUSPIRIA-like interior location) and wastes no time linking up with her erstwhile tormentors for one juicy episode of bloody payback after another.

These include some pretty imaginative touches, such as a museum statue coming to life and giving one of the girls a cold reception. There's also what may be the only known instance of what can only be described as "death by snails" in horror film history.

The "headless Tom" sequence is another highlight, in which one of the girls pulls back her bed covers to find her boyfriend sans noggin, then runs screaming from room to room just to encounter the same sight over and over again.

Needless to say, the comatose Kathy--no longer flatlining now that her brain waves have something fun to do--has all the power of the supernatural at her disposal in exacting these imaginative revenge scenarios. 

This gives director Fulci a free hand to indulge in whatever way-out visuals (including some pleasantly outlandish gore) that strike his artistic fancy.

The story starts to get even more interesting when neurologist Dr. Robert Anderson (Jared Martin, a prolific actor whose face you'll probably recognize) is called in to deal with poor Eva's sudden fits of violent hysteria brought on by Kathy's mental control.

A sudden romance forms between the two, one whose inevitable complications (including a jealousy-fueled love triangle) form the basis for the film's lively finale. 

Performances are good--well, good enough, anyway--and Fulci (who does a cameo as a police inspector) gets the job done with his usual workmanlike skill, infectious enthusiasm for the genre, and occasional displays of style.

The 2-disc Blu-ray from Severin Films (with slipcover) contains a CD of the robust soundtrack music by Carlo Maria Cordio. The film itself was scanned in 4K from the original negative for the first time in America. Dialogue is in both Italian and English 2.0 mono, with English subtitles.

Bonus features include an audio commentary with Troy Howarth, author of "Splintered Visions--Lucio Fulci and His Films", and Mondo Digital's Nathaniel Thompson; an interview with screenwriter Giorgio Mariuzzo; the featurette "Italian Aenigma--Appraising Late Day Fulci"; trailers; and the film's Italian main titles.

While it could be described as derivative, I found AENIGMA's deftly-handled blend of familiar elements from earlier films to be quite enjoyable for that very reason.  It's your standard "bloody revenge in a girls' school" tale, Italian-horror style, and with Lucio Fulci at the helm it just can't help being a lot of fun to watch.


2-Disc Blu-ray Featuring CD Soundtrack and Limited Edition Slipcover
Limited to 1500 copies

AENIGMA -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

THE WAX MASK -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 10/3/19

 

Talk about "Grand Guignol" to the max--the 1997 Gothic gorefest THE WAX MASK (Severin Films) mixes the antique ambience of early 1900s Italy with generous helpings of the extremely morbid and grotesque in this handsomely mounted shocker.

Conceived by Italian horror/giallo maestro Dario Argento (PHENOMENA, TENEBRE, SUSPIRIA) as a vehicle for the ailing Lucio Fulci (DOOR INTO SILENCE, ZOMBIE 3, THE DEVIL'S HONEY), it's a loose remake of the Vincent Price classic HOUSE OF WAX (along with MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM and numerous other wax museum horror flicks), although that's just a jumping off point for a tale of horror and gore that aims to outdo them all.

With the unfortunate passing of Fulci before filming began, directing chores were handed to first-timer Sergio Stivaletti (THE THREE FACES OF TERROR), previously known mainly for his work in the fields of SPFX and makeup.

Working from a screenplay by Argento, Fulci, and Daniele Stroppa, Stivaletti fashioned a gorgeous-looking film that leisurely unfolds its dark narrative with a keenly efficient style that's never quite as self-consciously arty as Argento's or off-the-hook unhinged as Fulci's yet has its own elegant, colorful appeal.

The story begins with the grisly aftermath of a double murder in a Paris hotel room that's witnessed by a little girl who grows up to be the beautiful Sonia Lafont (Romina Mondello), still troubled by her past even as she gets a job in a wax museum in Rome which specializes in gruesome historical horrors.

The museum is run by the mysterious, creepily eccentric Boris Volkoff (Robert Hossein, RIFFIFI) and features incredibly lifelike wax figures in scenes of death designed to horrify. 

But even more horrific is the reason the figures are so lifelike--namely, each one contains the corpse of a murdered human being who has been processed in the museum's nightmarish basement laboratory and given a severe case of unsightly "wax buildup."

These scenes are the result of director Stivaletti's years of SPFX expertise and are absolutely mind-boggling as we watch one still-living victim, a hapless prostitute from a nearby house of ill-repute, strapped to a table and injected with some volatile serum while Kenneth Strickfaden-style electrical machines spark and crackle. 

But this densely-packed screenplay has a lot more to offer in the way of gory killings, dismemberments, and other carnage before the suspenseful finale in which Sonia's journalist boyfriend Andrea (Riccardo Serventi Longhi), her blind aunt Francesca (Gabriella Giorgelli), and a sympathetic police detective from her childhood (Gianni Franco) fight against time to prevent the hideously disfigured villain and his twisted henchmen from turning Sonia into one of the museum's unholy exhibits.

The Blu-ray from Severin Films features a 4k scan from the original negative supervised by Stivaletti himself. Severin outdoes themselves with this bonus menu loaded with interviews with production principles including Argento, Stivaletti, actress Gabriella Giorgelli, and others, along with vintage behind-the-scenes featurettes.

These bonus features include:

    Audio Commentary with Director/Special Effects Artist Sergio Stivaletti and Michelangelo Stivaletti
    Beyond Fulci: Interviews with Producer Dario Argento, Director Sergio Stivaletti, Producer Giuseppe Columbo, Production Designer Massimo Geleng, Actress Gabriella Giorgelli and Filmmaker Claudio Fragasso
    The Chamber of Horrors: Interviews with Producer Dario Argento, Director Sergio Stivaletti, Producer Giuseppe Columbo, Production Designer Massimo Geleng and Actress Gabriella Giorgelli
    Living Dolls:  Interviews with Producer Dario Argento, Director Sergio Stivaletti, Producer Giuseppe Columbo and Actress Gabriella Giorgelli
    The Mysteries of the Wax Museum:  Interview with SFX Artist Sergio Stivaletti
    The Waxworks Symphony:  Interview with Soundtrack Composer Maurizio Abeni
    The Grand Opening:  Interviews with Producer Dario Argento, Director Sergio Stivaletti and Producer Giuseppe Columbo
    Wax Unmasked: Interview with Film Writer Alan Jones
    Vintage Featurettes: Behind the Scenes, Special Effects, On Set with Dario Argento
    5.1 and 2.0 English and Italian Audio
    English with Closed Captioning, Italian with English Subtitles

Easily one of the best wax museum movies ever made, THE WAX MASK fully exploits the horrific potential of the original HOUSE OF WAX and its ilk like no previous version I've ever seen. Although lacking certain qualities of Argento or Fulci, it more than compensates with a richly-hued, stylized visual sense, lush production values, riveting scenes of carnage, and a fiery, face-melting finale.


Buy it from Severin Films

THE WAX MASK -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

DOOR INTO SILENCE -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 9/16/09

 

 

Lately I seem to be going through a "70s made-for-TV scary movie" cycle. First it was BAD RONALD, then DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, and now, the psychological thriller DOOR INTO SILENCE, aka "Le porte del silenzio." The difference this time, however, is that it isn't made-for-TV, and it was filmed in 1991. But darned if it couldn't pass for one of those mildly eerie low-budget films I saw on "ABC Movie of the Week" when I was a kid.

The credits tell us that this film was written by "Jerry Madison" and directed by "H. Simon Kittay", but the big surprise is that both of those names are pseudonyms for none other than Italian goremeister Lucio Fulci. Equally surprising is the fact that DOOR INTO SILENCE, his final film, has nary a trace of blood and gore, nor are there any zombies or other supernatural creatures.

What it does have is a "Twilight Zone"-style plot padded out to feature length. John Savage (THE DEER HUNTER) plays Melvin Devereaux, a real estate agent headed for his home in Abbeville, Louisiana after visiting his father's gravesite in New Orleans. At the cemetery he meets a beautiful, mysterious woman (Sandi Schultz, later to become Savage's real-life wife) who displays a strange interest in him and even admits that she's following him. Yet she always disappears just before he can learn anything more about her.

Melvin's journey home is an exercise in frustration. Traveling along desolate backroads (Fulci manages to make southern Louisiana look like the end of the world) he's constantly being forced to make detours onto bad roads where he gets stuck in the mud or is forced to drive over crumbling bridges. In one scene, he wanders into the woods and is almost shot by a hunter, who chides him for being scared. In another, his car breaks down and he encounters the woman again in his motel room as he waits for it to be fixed. To make matters worse, Melvin keeps getting stuck behind a ubiquitous black hearse whose driver won't let him pass.

The story unfolds slowly and gives us plenty of time to try and figure out what's going on, although the outcome is pretty obvious. The first scene in the movie shows a head-on collision between a car and a big rig, with the car's clock being stopped at 7:30. During the film, Melvin keeps checking the time and, to his puzzlement, it's always 7:30. Not only that, but no matter how long he's on the road, the sun is constantly glaring into his eyes from the same spot right above the horizon.

As if this wasn't enough to clue us in on what's really happening with Melvin, the casket in back of the hearse has a wreath that sports first his wife Sylvia's name, and later his own. He has a vision while driving in which he enters his hometown mortuary and finds the mystery woman and the hearse driver working there. In the viewing room, all the caskets bear his name and in one of them he finds his own body. Later, he visits his Aunt Martha, who's a fortune teller, and when she reads his palm she informs him he's been dead for several hours. It's as though Fulci couldn't wait for the twist ending and just twisted the whole movie.

Meanwhile we're treated to scene after scene of Melvin's endlessly frustrating trip through rural Lousiana. For the first half of the movie it's somewhat intriguing and suspenseful despite the slow pace, but the story starts to drag when the outcome becomes increasingly obvious and we realize that Fulci is stretching this simple plotline like Silly Putty.

The movie did manage to hold my interest--although the end was pretty obvious, I was still curious to actually see how it would happen. And along the way there are some pretty creepy scenes that have a bit of a CARNIVAL OF SOULS vibe to them, especially when the distraught Melvin disrupts a funeral service and later when his visit to Aunt Martha ends badly. Ultimately, however, the story's resolution is a letdown, and the final "gotcha" shot is about as cheesy as they come.

Fulci's uneven direction seems slapdash one minute, inspired the next. The very low-budget Kodacolor look of the film has a kind of rough-hewn appeal, with an effectively eerie and oppressive atmosphere. Always sort of a peculiar actor, John Savage is fun to watch as he inhabits the harried, confused, and increasingly frantic Melvin Devereaux character with all his distinctive quirks. (One distraction was the fact that every time someone said his name, I kept expecting Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis to respond, "Melvin?")

Sandi Schultz makes a lovely mystery woman, and Richard Castleman is so irritating as the blustery hearse driver that we can understand why Melvin wants to deck him. Also making the most of their small roles are Mary Coulson as Aunt Martha and Jennifer Loeb as a whiny hitchhiker-prostitute with whom Melvin has an uncomfortable sexual encounter. Prolific exploitation filmmaker Joe D'Amato (as "John Gelardi") executive-produced, and Laura "Emanuelle" Gemser is billed as "Costume Designer."

Severin Films' DVD transfer is from a nice-looking print, presented here in full-screen and Dolby Digital 2.0 English mono. It's a barebones disc with no extras.

I reckon Fulci completists will want to grab a copy of this movie sight unseen. Others might be better off renting or borrowing before "going all the way", since this is hardly what most horror fans would expect if their only knowledge of the director is from films such as ZOMBIE and GATES OF HELL. In fact, I would more strongly recommend DOOR INTO SILENCE to fans of Rod Serling's "Night Gallery."

DOOR INTO SILENCE -- DVD Review by Porfle

ALL THE COLORS OF GIALLO -- Blu-ray/DVD/CD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 1/31/19

 

A primer, a history, and a celebration of giallo all rolled into one 3-disc set, Severin Films' ALL THE COLORS OF GIALLO pretty much covers all the bases for new fans wanting to learn more and old ones who just want to revel in it all.

As the publicity states, "‘Giallo’ is Italian for ‘yellow’, the color of the lurid pulp novels that inspired one of the most intense, extreme and influential genres in movie history."

The genesis of all this is the krimi, or German crime novel, which contains elements (shadowy settings, shocking murders, mysterious phantom killers, police procedurals) that would later be adopted by Italian filmmakers but jacked up to new levels of violence and lavish indulgences in cinematic style for its own sake.

Disc One (Blu-ray) starts off with a feature-length documentary by Federico Caddeo entitled "All the Colors of Giallo", an exhaustive history of the genre that takes us from the beginnings of the German krimi books and films, and in particular the works of Edgar Wallace, all the way through the evolution of the giallo thrillers by such directors as Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, and Dario Argento.

Several of giallo's main figures are interviewed including Fulci and Argento themselves, along with familiar screen talents such as Barbara Bouchet and Susan Scott.

"The Giallo Frames" offers even more on the subject, giving us an in-depth interview with John Martin, editor of "The Giallo Pages." 

But best of all (for me, anyway) is a full four-hour collection of giallo trailers that run the gamut of the entire genre and are accompanied by a commentary track from Kat Ellinger, author of "All the Colors of Sergio Martino."

Kat showed her depth of knowledge on the subject during her commentary for Martino's film "All the Colors of the Dark", but here she is a veritable gold mine of information and unbridled enthusiasm on each and every trailer that we see, keeping a running commentary that never fails to entertain.  Thus, the trailer collection becomes a four-hour documentary unto itself, and perhaps the highlight of the entire collection.

Disc two (DVD) delves deeper into the subject of the krimi, with the informative documentaries  "The Case Of The Krimi" and "The Case Of The Krimi: Interview With Film Historian Marcus Stiglegger."

Then we get yet another hour-and-a-half of trailers, this time mostly in beautiful, atmospheric black-and-white (with very nice picture quality as well) before turning to color for the later ones.

Klaus Kinski fans will be pleased to find that he appears in practically all of these krimi trailers, which are a lively bunch of clips providing much entertainment and amusement.

Disc three is a CD entitled "The Strange Sounds of the Bloodstained Films", containing twenty giallo soundtrack selections from such composers as Ennio Morricone, Riz Ortolani, Bruno Nicolai, Stelvio Cipriani, and others.  It's great stuff, whether you have it on in the background or don your headphones for an intensive listening session.

Experienced giallo fans will enjoy reliving old favorites with this collection of documentaries, interviews, and trailers, and those just getting into such lively, lurid, and lavishly cinematic fare may find their curiosity stoked into an insatiable desire.


Buy it from Severin Films

Special Features:
DISC 1 – Blu-ray
All the Colors of Giallo: A New Feature Length Documentary By Federico Caddeo
The Giallo Frames: Interview With John Martin, Editor Of The Giallo Pages
Audio Commentary with Kat Ellinger, Author of All The Colors Of Sergio Martino

DISC 2 – DVD: The Case of the Krimi
Kriminal!: Trailer Compilation
The Case Of The Krimi: Interview With Film Historian Marcus Stiglegger

DISC 3 – CD
The Strange Sounds Of The Bloodstained Films: Compiled By Alfonso Carillo of Rendezvous! From The Archives Of Beat Records. Remastered By Claudio Fuiano.

ALL THE COLORS OF GIALLO -- Blu-ray/DVD/CD Review by Porfle

THE DEVIL'S HONEY -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Legendary Italian director Lucio Fulci would often turn his attention from the world of graphic gore (ZOMBIE, GATES OF HELL, THE BEYOND) and focus it on less horrific subjects, one being the "erotic thriller." 

With his 1986 film THE DEVIL'S HONEY, he ventures into territory harkening back to the days of watching steamy foreign sex movies on Cinemax After Dark and The Playboy Channel.

This humid, sometimes offhandedly perverse softcore sex drama tiptoes through hazy Freudian fever dreams while remaining, for me anyway, resolutely un-erotic.  Somehow, even Fulci's sex scenes are distastefully off-putting--but entertainingly so.

This is especially true when we find surgeon Dr. Wendell Simpson (Brett Halsey) in surreptitious dalliance with a two-bit hooker in a hotel room.  The scene is about as sexy as cleaning out a cat box, but it's a good indication of what a sad dead-end Simpson has reached in that regard.  Married to Carol, played by the beautiful Corinne Cléry, he can only get aroused by cheap, impersonal sex in degrading circumstances.

Meanwhile, a gorgeous but terminally-confused babe named Jessica (Blanca Marsillach) lusts madly after her emotionally-cool boyfriend Johnny (Stefano Madia) yet feigns disinterest until he blows his saxophone up her skirt during a recording session or terrifies her with dangerous hijinks on a motorcycle. 

Then she's all over him, both inviting and then rebuffing his advances to suit some weird mental sex thing that only Johnny understands.  In short, she's pretty messed up.



Fulci smashes Simpson and Jessica together when Johnny is seriously injured and dies on the operating table after the not-so-good doctor, dazed and heartbroken from a bitter divorce decree by his jealous, unsatisfied wife, botches the operation.  An inconsolable Jessica blames him for Johnny's death, vows revenge, kidnaps him, and terrorizes him for days in a seaside villa as he lies helplessly chained to the wall.

While this sounds like a set-up for a bit of the old torture porn, there's very little here that deviates from similar "erotic thriller" stuff we've seen before and, while mildly diverting, doesn't really get interesting until the sexually perverse nature of their situation begins to effect both Jessica and Dr. Simpson in ways that neither could have foreseen.  (End of story recap lest it get too spoilery.)

Halsey, whom I recall fondly as one of the two college kids killed by the Gill Man in REVENGE 0F THE CREATURE and the human-insect monster in RETURN OF THE FLY, underplays it all nicely and allows his inherent acting skills to carry each scene.  Blanca Marsillach, wildly attractive as she stalks the place stark naked like an angry cat, has less skill but lots of camera presence.
 

Fulci directs them with his usual competent and sometimes imaginative style which, to me, is really only interesting because I know that it's him doing it. A sorta-kinda sex scene between the two antagonists is noteworthy because of the ironic way it harkens back to earlier scenes of the two going at it with others.  For the most part, "sex" in Fulci's world isn't all that sexy unless naked Corinne Cléry is involved, and even then we don't get to finish.

The Blu-ray from Severin Films has a full bonus menu which includes engaging interviews with Brett Halsey, Corinne Cléry, producer Vincenzo Salviani, composer Claudio Natilli, and Fulci author Stephen Thrower. There's also a trailer, alternate opening, and audio essay by Fulci author Troy Howarth. The mono 2.0 soundtrack is in both English and Italian with English subtitles.

THE DEVIL'S HONEY is one of those sleazy softcore sex thrillers that play up the seamy side of things in a big way, resulting in a kind of curdled eroticism that's more unpleasant than appealing.  Which, for the purposes of this story, is fine, if you like your romance a little on the demented side.

Buy it at Severin Films

THE DEVIL'S HONEY -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Grindhouse Releasing's Special 2 Disc DVD of Cat in the Brain is Coming March 31st!

One of Lucio Fulci's last and most personal works is finally coming to DVD and it's coming from Grindhouse releasing so you know it's going to be filled with a ton of unique extras, including rare interviews with the late director never before seen outside Italy!

Here is a link to pre-order.

http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/aid.85597/filmID.549865/qx/details.htm
Click on the image for a larger copy of the info.

Grindhouse Releasing's Special 2 Disc DVD of Cat in the Brain is Coming March 31st!

Lucio Fulci's Young Dracula: A Review by Troy Howarth

Young Dracula (1975)

A businessman (Lando Buzzanca) is bitten by the effeminate Count Dragelescu

(John Steiner) and turns into a vampire....

Despite a screenplay co-written by Pupi Avati (director of the acclaimed The House with the Laughing Windows), Young Dracula - aka, Dracula in the Provinces- doesn't emerge as one of Lucio Fulci's stronger pictures. The film came at a good creative period for the writer/director, and it bears the hallmarks of classic Fulci: atmospheric cinematography by Sergio Salvati, crisp editing by Vincenzo Tomassi, a score by the trio of Frizzi, Bixio and Tempera. In terms of production values, it's a capably mounted and executed production. Alas, despite the best efforts of an above-average cast, the film never really catches fire. The film deals with the themes of homosexual panic and the exploitation of the working class, but its satire feels forced and heavy handed - a tremendous contrast to the legitimately funny The Eroticist (1972), directed by Fulci only a few years before. In that film, Lando Buzzanca gave a terrific comedic performance as a senator with an overwhelming ass fetish – its potshots at Italian institutions landed the director in hot water, whereas no controversy greeted Young Dracula, a sign, perhaps, of its comparative feebleness. That is not to say that the film is without merit, however, nor does it indicate that it belongs in the bottom tier of Fulci's filmography. Some set pieces are executed with undeniable flair, notably a genuinely amusing visit to a phony wizard, played with elan by Ciccio Ingrassia. Fulci also piles on the nudity, a genuine plus with so many attractive starlets in the cast. Buzzanca is amusing as the neurotic antihero, and he's well supported by the likes of John Steiner, Sylva Koscina and the aforementioned Ingrassia.

Valentina Cortese (Day for Night, The Girl Who Knew Too Much) makes a fleeting appearance, but isn't given much to do. The metaphor of vampirism for corporate greed promises a much sharper satire than what emerges, but devotees of the director would still do well to seek it out. Regretfully, the only version circulating in the US is of very poor quality, derived from a Greek VHS source, but at least it is in English and widescreen. One can only hope that a company like Severin or Blue Underground may afford it a proper R1 DVD release.

**1/2 out of ****

Lucio Fulci's Young Dracula: A Review by Troy Howarth