Or, The Discreet Charm of the Eye-Gouging Zombie. This falls squarely into the no-logic, pure-dreamscape type of horror movie, such as Inferno, Messiah of Evil, or Phantasm, where the story is less important than the cumulative effect of the images. This is my first Fulci, and I was under the impression that he was a hack; he still may be, but he's a hack with a knack for a good composition or a nice camera move. At one point, a woman's face is dissolved by acid (don't ask) and the resulting blood and foam creeps along the white floor towards the woman's daughter, taking on a malevolent life of its own.
The thing about these kinds of movies is that they aim to strike the viewer in the pre-rational part of the brain via all the illogical and discontinuous imagery, and I think that a lot of people block off that part when adulthood sets in, ironically making these violent and gory movies most effective for kids. (Had I seen The Beyond when I was nine, it might be one of my favorite movies; as it happened, I saw Phantasm instead.) The Beyond is even more bizarrely organized than most. The movie starts with an evocative prologue, taking place in 1927 and shot in sepia tones, but in terms of narrative information, it's superfluous. From that point on, it doesn't even really build to any particular moment; rather than progressing in a linear, horizontal fashion, it seems to stack its scenes vertically, moving from scene to scene based on feel, match-cuts, and of course, the next victim to die a gory death.
Ah yes, the gore. Perhaps Fulci is a hack, since he insists on ending every legitimately spooky scene with an outrageous (and terribly done) bit of gore, usually meaning someone's eye is torn or poked out. The probably-infamous spider scene is particularly egregious, although its silliness borders genius; I know Fulci needed a fake spider to crawl into a guy's mouth and bite his tongue, but did he need to put the fake spiders in with the real ones for the establishing shots?
The real problem though, is that, for me, a film of this type has to compete with Phantasm. Don Coscarelli's masterpiece, for all its ridiculousness, is about something: the moment when a child realizes that death is real, and not only are those dead relatives not coming back, death eventually comes for him as well. (Also, the combination of a pre-rational narrative and a kid protagonist makes it double effective.) The Beyond can only offer stumbling zombies.
And yet, despite all this hackery, Fulci manages to pull off an incredibly effective slow-motion finale, one that's haunting and damn-near poetic. Okay, I'm sold. Mr. Fulci, where shall we go next?
Where we saw it: dvd | We deign to rate it: outta 1001.) Is this the one set in New Orleans?
2.) PHANTASM has always creeped me out in a good way. I even kinda, sorta liked the first two sequels. It's that weirdo dream logic thing that gets to me, again, in a good way.
1. Yep, that's the one.
2. Glad to know there are other people who appreciate PHANTASM. I'm also a huge fan of PHANTASM II (despite being a very different kind of movie), which, incredibly, is not on DVD yet.
Posted by: Kza at June 17, 2004 02:21 PM1.) Thought so. I tried watching THE BEYOND last year and didn't make it past the prologue. If I attempt any more Fulci, I'll go with ZOMBIE, I think.
2.) Yeah, Netflix only has the original and the godawful PHANTASM IV: OBLIVION. Too bad; I'd love to watch the first three films back-to-back some day.
This review almost exactly describes my reaction to "The Beyond" -- also the first (and to date, only) Fulci I've ever seen. The only deviation is with the spiders; that, I think, went past goofy and into creepy, the way primitive makeup effects often do. (Which is one reason I'm less-than-charitable with CGI gore; physical effects often risk looking cheap or unrealistic, but there's a physicality to them that can make them effective in spite of their fakeness.)
Posted by: Steve at June 17, 2004 05:40 PMYeah, you know, I don't think I've adequately settled my own reaction to the spider scene. One of the reasons I say it borders on genius is because, in anybody else's hands, it'd just be stupid. (I'm sure to many, it's only that.) But it just goes on for so long, and Fulci so doesn't care if you notice that some of the spiders are fake, and just seeing a spider impossibly rip flesh from a human... It's a pretty incredible scene, in all senses of the word. However, I think when the spider bites the tongue, it goes past creepy and right back into goofy. But overall, it's truly demented and inspired.
Your comment on the physicality of non-CGI effects is spot on. It's neat when a low-budget foreign epic like BANG RAJAN uses CGI gore to add a little oomph to the preceedings, but generally, real is better.
Posted by: Kza at June 17, 2004 07:59 PMAlso, I just learned that Fulci died in '96, so I guess all my references to him should be in the past tense.
Posted by: Kza at June 17, 2004 08:02 PMWell, I gotta agree with most of the commentary above, but I also gotta say "Zombie" was a great movie.
The scene where the zombie battled the shark, underwater, was ingenious.
Posted by: mobb at June 22, 2004 09:06 PM