Gates
of Hell Trilogy
Director- Lucio Fulci
From Italy
This is a trilogy of barely
related movies by Italian horror director Lucio Fulci. They all involve
locations that are focal points for evil supernatural forces. The first and
third installments are OK and are probably more enjoyable for slasher fans who
don’t mind supernatural elements. The middle film, The Beyond, is very good and probably Fulci’s best known work. As
the films aren’t really that connected, they can be watched individually
without any detrimental effect to the viewing experience.
City
of the Living Dead (The Gates of Hell)
1980
Cast- Christopher George, Catriona MacColl, Carlo De Mejo,
Janet Ågren, Antonella Interlenghi
Not to
be confused with City of the Dead,
the 1960 Christopher Lee movie about a town of witches. This is mostly a zombie
movie with elements of the supernatural that dips its toe into surrealism periodically.
Lucio Fulci is known for his gore and this movie delivers some gross scenes.
The
story begins with a priest hanging himself in a cemetery. This causes the dead
to start rising from the grave in the town of Dunwich. Meanwhile in New York,
while in a séance, a young woman witnesses the whole thing psychically. This
causes her to die from fear. Or maybe not die, it’s not exactly clear. At any
rate she come to life in the coffin and is rescued by a reporter who is
investigating her death.
She
tells the reporter about her vision of the dead rising from the grave and they
set out to find the town of Dunwich. Meanwhile the dead keep rising. Most of
the time, they shuffle around like typical zombies but sometimes they magically
teleport. Why? Who knows? They also seem to really enjoy pulling the backs of
people’s heads off. Why? Again, who knows (are you starting to see a trend
here). The zombies are led by the dead priest and the protagonists have to
descend into an underground tomb to confront the undead clergyman.
The
movie isn’t particularly scary but it does create a sense of weird
creepiness. It doesn’t adequately explain
most of what happens, so you just have to take things at face value. Warning if
you suffer from vermiphobia you will not like this film. In addition to lots of
gross worm shots, the scene where the forces of darkness blow about 500 pounds
of maggots through a window into people’s hair may send you over the edge.
The
Beyond
1981
Cast- Catriona MacColl, David Warbeck, Cinzia Monreale, Antoine
Saint-John, Veronica Lazăr
This is
Fulci’s best known film (with the arguable exception of Zombie 2) and of the trilogy The
Beyond is definitely the best of the three.
The
story moves from the east coast to Louisiana and centers on a hotel that serves
as one of the gates of hell. The movie begins with the torture and execution of
a suspected warlock by local villagers. Years later, Liza (Catriona MacColl)
arrives from New York having just inherited the hotel.
She
tries repairing and remodeling it and almost immediately tragedy strikes and
deaths occur. The gate to hell releases the horrible mutilated remains of the
dead warlock and it begins mutilating more people and turning them into zombies
which in turn engage in more mutilations.
Brought
into this chaos is the town doctor (David Warbeck, from the excellent Hammer
film, Twins of Evil). Liza and the
doctor discover the Lovecraftain Book of Eibon that explains what is happening,
but will it do the any good?
The real
draw for this is the gore. It may be Fulici’s goreist. The victims aren’t just
killed, they are destroyed, particularly their faces, obliterating any trace of
humanity. Just some of the deaths include acid in the face, spiders eating the
face, a dog eating the face, and of course, Fulici’s trademark eye trauma; eyes
are gouged out, poked out and eaten out.
Even if
you haven’t seen either of the other films in the trilogy, The Beyond is worth seeing and owning in its own right. It’s a fun,
gory example of 80s Italian horror cinema and Fulci’s signature work.
The
House by the Cemetery
1981
Cast- Catriona MacColl, Paolo Malco, Ania Pieroni, Giovanni
Frezza, Silvia Collatina,
This
film is a little hard to follow and I don’t think it’s because things were lost
in translation. It’s more of a case of trying to squeeze too many different
themes into a relatively short film and not having the time to explore any of
them fully.
A married
couple (Catriona MaColl and Paola Malco) are moving into a house that has an
ominous reputation. Their child Bob (an oddly adult name for a child)
apparently sees dead people as he has ongoing discussions with a little red
hair girl that no one else can see (Silvia Collatina). Bob is played by child
horror actor Giovanni Frezza who looks like some kind of androgynous life size
doll. Weird things happen that don’t seem to scare them off. They are attacked
by a mad bat and don’t seem too weirded out by finding the baby sitter (Ania
Pieroni) cleaning up a pool of blood.
There is
also a killer loose in the house who periodically murders people and hides the
bodies. In turns out that the killer is the unfortunately named Dr. Fruedstein,
who, for a reason that isn’t quite clear, is immortal, has been trapped in
their basement and survives by murdering people and using their flesh to
regenerate his own. Freudstein murders his way through the whole cast until he
gets to Bob who is rescued by the little red hair girl who seems to be the
ghost of Freudstein’s daughter, though I’m not sure.
The
movie doesn’t have much tension and the pacing seems off. There is a scene where
Bob’s parents try to get through a door to get to Bob and it literally takes a
maddening 5 minutes of screen time before they get through. Plus, as previously
stated, the various themes aren’t explored very well.
The film
does have some decent gore and I like the soundtrack which is a sort of
quintessential 80s horror musical score. Probably the best reason to watch the
film is just so you can say you’ve seen the whole trilogy. It also has a lot of
familiar faces for fans of Italian genre cinema. Catriona MaColl appeared in
the other two installments in the series as well the fantasy cult favorite, Hawk the Slayer. Giovanni De Nava,
Daniela Doria, Gianpaolo Saccarola, appear in other installments in the
trilogy. Paolo Malco appeared in the Italian sci-fi B movie, Escape from the Bronx, as well as the
Fulci film The New York Ripper. Ania Peroni
appeared in Dario Argento’s Inferno. Giovanni Frezza (Bob in the film)
appeared in Demons.
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