Thursday, July 11, 2019

Gates of Hell Trilogy


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,
Dagmar Lassander

    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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