OMG Horror.com

Traveling from Brazil to Italy, this month's edition of Foreign Fear Fridays basks in the glow of legendary filmmaker Lucio Fulci. Born in Rome on June, 17 1927, Fulci would find moderate success writing and directing comedies and westerns before turning to the horror genre in the early '70s, where he became one of the most influential and hailed visionaries in the European horror scene. An orthodox Marxist, former med-student and art critic, Fulci imbued his films with a raw vigor and intense level of violence that would result in many of his films being severely cut to avoid X-ratings, or flat out banned all together. His 1982 film The New York Ripper for example, was not only barred from the UK entirely, all working prints of the film were exported. In the '80s, three of his flicks landed entry on the 74 film list of Britain's "video nasties" (the most reviled and disgusting films) including Zombie 2, The Beyond and House By the Cemetery. The guy wasn't fuckin' around!

If you don't know who Lucio Fulci is, you can't really claim to be a hardcore horror head. Deemed worldwide as the "Godfather of Gore", Fulci has an astounding oeuvre that's no doubt catapulted him to the forefront of Italian splatter pictures. A giallo majordomo you could call him, perhaps sharing the distinction with only Argento and a Bava or two. But just because he and Argento share a venerated status doesn't mean they see eye to eye, or even get along. In fact, the 13 year older Fulci went out of his way NOT to work with Argento, even going so far as to publicly slander the rival horror icon. In 1997 however, the pair agreed to collaborate on a film called The Wax Mask, which never came to fruition due to Fulci's declining health (the film saw direction from Sergio Stivaletti, though Argento took story credit, Fulci took screenplay credit). There's no telling just how brutal their joint-effort could have been, though we could dream.

Fulci also acted in many of his own films, often playing a reporter or doctor, doing so with staunch aplomb. As a life-long diabetic, Fulci's health would incrementally wane to the point where he faded and fizzled into working on TV horror production throughout the mid-late '80s. He kicked around for the next few years, directing his final flick, Door to Silence in 1991. Forgetting to administer his own insulin shot before bed one night, Fulci died in his sleep on March 13, 1996; fueling suicide speculation. Like many filmmakers, with the advent of DVD a posthumous rediscovery of Fulci's work by horror fans has only heightened his level of recognition.

With a tough choice out of a solid handful of flicks, we've elected to flash the beams on Fulci's widely extolled masterpiece, The Beyond. Released in 1981, the film never saw an uncut American release until Quentin Tarantino (who's cited Fulci and The Beyond as a major influence) acquired the rights to the film and with his production company Rolling Thunder, put the film out on DVD in 1998 (along with Miramax). The Beyond centers on a woman's move to a 1927 Louisiana motel, where after an artist-mistaken-for-warlock is killed, one of the "seven doors of death" is hatched; and a phantasmagoric portal to hell ushers droves of the dead into the realm of the living.

The Beyond is the follow up to Fulci's 1980 film City of the Living Dead, and a second installment to the unfinished "gates of hell" trilogy. Fusing unnerving atmosphere with graphic grit and grue, The Beyond is an uncompromising blood-bath. Desiccated zombies, face eating tarantulas, twisted apparitions, putrid flesh-starved spirits, you name it the flick's got it, and got it in spades. Fulci's background in fine art is evident, beautiful shot composition is uniquely met with disturbing, violent images that lend a surrealistic quality to overall experience. Many versions of the film, ranging from 83-89 minutes (depending on how much gore was omitted) have been released all over the globe (Anchor Bay attains the 89 minute version). The flick stars Catriona MacColl, David Warbeck, Cinzea Monreale, Antoine Saint-John...Ah hell, just peep the trailer and get a glimpse of what the Godfather Lucio Fulci is capable of.

The Beyond is hardly available on DVD, but be sure to check it out along with other films featured in Foreign Fear Fridays.

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