Fulci Lives! But then again, don't we and won't we all?

Since I've been all misty eyed over the passing of Petrus T. Steele for the better part of 2 weeks now and I see no signs of this melancholic mood lifting, I might as well wax messianic on another dearly departed artist who confounded critics and left behind a legacy of art both heretical and laced with religious allegory. I'm speaking of course on the godfather of gore, the often imitated, never duplicated, deceptively complicated Lucio Fulci. Now, I never met the man and his art wasn't inextricably linked to my past hormonal upheaval, so I doubt this tribute will be as cryptic and heartfelt as the Pete Steele retrospective, but there is plenty of meat on this carcass to pick through and examine for profound morsels and egregious gristle. In the spirit of brevity and with no small debt of inspiration to the illustrious Uncle Bill from Deadpit radio's recent musings on the Deadpit message board, here are my thoughts on the films I have seen from the much maligned maestro.

Zombie: If there was one thing Fulci understood above nearly all other genre film makers, it was how the symbolic power of decay could be used to create and sustain an atmosphere of total desolation and desperation. It's not the half hearted adventure script from Dardano Sachetti that sticks with you, it's the inescapable sense of impending dessication, the destruction of flesh and disregard to ocular sanctity. It is the terror of physical violation and ignominious death that permeates the most potent frames of this fetid film. This is a picture so powerful it actually smells. It reeks off the screen and puts you at arms length. Zombies attack sharks and conquistadors go for the jugular with unrestrained aplomb. As much respect as I have for George Romero's original "Dead" trilogy, this film is possibly the single best thing to come out of it. What if there were no political or social subtext to take from an epidemic of the undead? What if it were simply the end of man played out grand guignol with no remorse, sophistication or meaning on 35MM accompanied by a bowel shaking Fabio Frizzi score? Zombie is what. Recognize.

House By the Cemetery: Slow burn... Giovanni Frezza... Paolo Malco's beard... On top of being great potential band names, the previous 3 phrases all succinctly sum up what is essentially Fulci's delirious and incomprehensible take on Kubrick's The Shining. Haunted house, mad scientist, psychic potboiler, a visibly flummoxed Catrionna MacColl, it's all here and it's all great. This film makes less narrative sense than a James Gandolfini fever dream brought on by a meatball parm sub before bedtime, but goddamn if it isn't one evocative sum'bitch. The pseudo classical score fosters the delusion of grandeur and old world, stately elegance in what is basically an hour and twenty minute build up to one of the most effective children in peril moments ever captured on film. Not the best, but well worth more than one viewing.

Aenigma: I dunno, something about a prank resulting in a coma resulting in naked snail retribution. It's pretty ridiculous and a blatant Patrick and Phenomena rip off. From the preponderance of inexcusably 80's hairdo's and blouses to the garish lighting design and color palette, this film verily dares you to watch it. If you're up to the challenge, you can one day trade war stories with the other unfortunates who no doubt used clinical insomnia as a means to conquer the daunting task that is Conquest.

Conquest: Originally titled Cocaine the barbarian, this misguided Conan cash in has precious little to recommend it unless you can't get enough of billowing smoke and silk draped over the camera lens obscuring the "action". I suppose you could get off on the shapely woman lasciviously draping a writhing python across her genitals or the dog men who tear cave dwellers limb from limb or the neon arrows drawn from thin air by a sub Marc Singer Cimmerian if it weren't all so dull and tiresome. Note to Blue Underground: Some films actually deserve obscurity and oblivion.

The Black Cat: Patrick Magee does the acting of 10 men and Daielle Doria suffers another nude and ignominious death. A cat stalks around a small town, David Warbeck struts his unimpressive stuff and us gorehounds are left all Clara Peller asking, "Where's the grue?!?".

The Beyond: All mockery aside, it truly doesn't get any better than this for a fan of horror films. This is the rare motion picture that has the brass balls to stroll up to you and say, "I don't give a blue fuck whether you have any idea of what's going on or not, I simply want to portray the awful, unknowable mystery of the horror that awaits after our collective, inevitable expiration." Clearly fake tarantulas make hotel blueprints disappear, jovial painters take a dinger off scaffolding after seeing a blonde with contacts, doorways become stairways, ginger's get shot in the fucking face and the original Joe the plumber gets what we all hope is coming to John McCain's Joe the plumber. Somehow both cosmic and terrestrial, this film will shrink your shlong, trigger your gag reflex and make you secretly pray for something as silly and simplistic as the traditional Judeo-Christian concept of life eternal's existence as some sort of soporific security blanket to fend off the all too probable cavalcade of atrocity that no doubt awaits us when we cease to breathe and our heart tires of beating. The true definition of terror.

City of the Living Dead: Chris George chomps both cigar and scenery. Giovanni Lombardo Raddicce lusts after blow up dolls and under age girls and gets his cranium perforated for the transgressions. Danielle Doria is allowed to die clothed, but her demise is all the more spectacular for focusing on her insides. Suicidal priests, self absorbed psychiatrists, spooked tavern patrons and cinematic perfection await all who choose to spend an evening with this faultless film, coming soon to bluray.

Cat in the Brain: A.K.A a crabby, bitter old fucker cobbles together crappy gore scenes from his shittiest movies and tries to blame the American film industry for the ostracization he suffered in his homeland. Kind of funny and entertaining, but in no way good, a meta-messterpiece of shit that stinks in a sweet, sad fashion. A strangely fitting epilogue to a monumentally disjointed and capricious career.

Admittedly, I've seen more of his films, but the less said the better. The bottom line is that while erratic, when the man hit, he knocked it out of the fucking park with a forceful violence that could make all pretenders to the throne quake with shame and knowing, insufficient embarrassment. No matter the varying degree of competence, god bless every frame of film that beautiful, angry, ugly closet Catholic ever shot. I am a better man for having slogged though and endeavored to dissect it.

R.I.P Petrus T. Steele

Pete Steele and Type O Negative had a monumental impact on me during my formative years. When I say formative, I'm referring to the ages of 15 through about 20. The years when I felt, as most adolescent boys I imagine, incurably schizophrenic. At once powerless, yet imbued with limitless vitality. Able to laugh for hours with friends at the most trivial and silly things and able to turn around after they had left and sink into the lowest, most brooding depression's of my life. It was at the onset of puberty and the beginning of my dealing with the opposite sex. It was at this time, shortly after picking the Bass guitar as my instrument of choice and when music was the most important thing in my life that I discovered Type O Negative.

I was watching Headbangers Ball every Saturday night and caught the video's for the truncated versions of Christian Woman and Black No. 1. Needless to say, as a young horror film and heavy metal fan, I fell instantly in love with everything about the band and their music. They were dark, romantic, Gothic, bad ass and seemingly in on the joke. I bought every magazine featuring interviews with the band (this being long before the Internet made every snippet of info readily available for the typed asking). I bought all their albums and pored over the lyric pages as if having been blessed by the decree of a dark lord, not simply the vaguely misogynistic musings of a former sanitation worker made good. I became verily obsessed with Steele, who at that time was on a huge fitness kick and physically resembled the Kurgan from Highlander if he was half a foot taller and twice as buff. He was basically Count Dracula on steroids. 6 foot 8 and solid with sinewy muscle, gifted with an impossibly deep and rich voice he had remarkable control of and possessing a twisted, self deprecating sense of humor, to me, this was not a man. This was a god. I mean that literally. Some kids grew up worshipping athletes and some movie stars, I idolized a gigantic, Gothic freak of nature from Brooklyn.

As impressive a physical presence as he was back then, the interest would have subsided quickly if his music hadn't so spiritually resonated with me. My favorite albums have always been the sort where one song bleeds into the next and the whole thing plays out like an operatic swan song of moods and peaks and valley's. Bloody Kisses is one of the best of that kind of album I've ever encountered. I would lay in bed in my room with the lights out and let that masterpiece wash over me as I fretted and sulked over now long forgotten and unrequited loves. It had 11 plus minute epics of doomed romances and pithy punk tunes talking about hating everyone. It was as I, a schizophrenic, sad beast awash in self loathing and sweet nothingness. It is a tragic, beautiful, hilarious, depressing, desperate, catchy work of absolute art. It is, in a word, perfection.

I had the hammer gear logo from early albums tattooed on my right forearm, proudly wore their shirts and more or less lived and breathed that band and their world for several years. I liked the follow up record October Rust well enough, but outside of album opener Love you to Death (which I will proclaim with zero trace of hyperbole as one of the best written songs I've ever heard), it just didn't send me like Bloody Kisses did. Over time, I lost interest in the band and as I matured as a man, found myself less and less interested in brooding misanthropia in my music. Last week, after I became aware of Steele's passing, I went to the Internet and spent the whole day at work listening to Type O songs, past and recent. I was brought to tears several times by the aching, emotional honesty of the music and did my best to stifle my reaction, which surprised me as much as I'm sure it would have my co-workers. Hearing those pieces of music again after so many years, reminded me of who I once was and how I once felt. It made me smile to think back on my naive, juvenile mindset and my unbridled, unreserved enthusiasm, both long dead and buried. Above all else, hearing those songs made me think of the complicated, charismatic and combustible individual who brought them into existence and shaped such a large part of my personality and interests.

Pete Steele, dead at 48. leaves behind a legion of fans and a legacy of unique, brilliant, inimitable music. I won't bother blathering about the circumstances that may or may not have led to his death. I will say only this in closing: I met Pete Steele at the legendary First Avenue concert Venue in Minneapolis MN. on the tour for October Rust. During the opening band, I saw him seated off to the side of the stage by himself, and despite being partially paralyzed by fear, approached him like the gawky fanboy I was and extended my hand. To my astonishment, he shook it and introduced himself, "I'm Peter, nice to meet you." Now, I'm a brawny 6 foot one and his hand enveloped mine as if he were exchanging pleasantries with a child. I gushed on and on about how important he and his music were to me and showed him my tattoo and asked about the evening's set list. He was polite and accommodating and showed genuine interest in my queries and sincere appreciation for my slavish devotion. He was kind to me at a moment when being a callous jerk would have crushed me. He spoke about how grateful he was for people showing up and paying to see him perform and how, having been a working man most of his life, he never forgot that when he putting on a show. He was a gentleman and a class act. That, and how much his art enriched my life is how I will remember Pete Steele.

Dawn of the Amateur Film Critic

I'm a pompous guy. I can admit that. I'm guilty of believing that my thoughts on film are more nuanced than the average Joe and therefore more worthy of being appreciated and deferred to. I suppose that's why I bother posting on message boards, taking part in internet podcasts and of course... writing a horror film blog. That doesn't mean I'm incapable of stepping back from previously formed opinions and taking stock of how said snobbery has unfairly prejudiced and ignorantly informed them. Case in point, my recent reappraisal of Zach Snyder's seemingly universally liked remake of George A. Romero's universally loved Dawn of the Dead.

I saw the Dawn of the Dead remake 3 times in the theater and loved every minute of it. I adored the slam bang nihilism, the slick, uncluttered photography and the ceaseless instances of zombies being shot in the face. My friends and I, all ardent and longtime fans of the original, were flabbergasted by how not blasphemous the film turned out to be. Then, perhaps due to the glut of mainstream undead films no doubt occasioned by Snyder's success, it faded from memory. I later read a critique of it in Rue Morgue (a beloved bastion of genre snobbery if ever there was one) in which the reviewer said something to the effect that those people who heralded how fantastic it was needed to "turn that noise down". That turn of phrase was instrumental in coloring 5 intervening years worth of distaste. The cynical jerk in me loved how it summarily dismissed a large cross section of enthusiastic fans, succinctly killing their buzz. I read on and found myself suddenly agreeing with the authors central complaint that the film was a pale, soulless imitation of a Romero classic, full of sound and fury, signifying the death of intelligent genre film.

I sort of decided after reading that review that that was how I felt about the film. Surely I was just relieved at the time to get a halfway decent horror flick in theaters, like a dying man in the desert offered an Evian bottle dewy with condensation. I wasn't one of those mouth breathing plebes who got into a movie just because it kicked ass, was I? How gauche!

Well, I recently took in a solo bluray screening of Snyder's testosterone fuelled calling card and suffice to say, I was suitably impressed. The film was every bit as enjoyable and satisfying on the surface as I remembered and a great deal more personal, touching and shot through with reverence for human connections. After watching the action genre devolve into a lazy series of extreme closeups and succumb to shaken camera syndrome over the last decade, Snyder's ability to construct exhilarating sequences of vicious carnage without resorting to the shoddy parlor tricks of his contemporaries is all the more commendable. Plainly stated, the man is THE best action Director working today. He has a signature style that is crisp, instantly identifiable, compulsively watchable and inarguably powerful. Dude knows where to put the camera and more importantly, he knows to step back and let the scene breathe. He knows that for an action scene to truly work, the viewer needs to know what the hell is going on at all times, not simply to feel as if they're getting their ass kicked amidst the scuffle. His ability to give a scene space while still cutting quickly enough to approximate combustibility is a breathtaking tightrope walk to behold and I'm anxiously awaiting every new set piece he stages from here on out.

The thing that really floored me this time though, was how somber and moving he made the Matt Frewer death scene. Ving Rhames stands poised cradling a shotgun, the personification of impersonal eventuality, as Frewer's life force ebbs to nil. "You want every... single... second." he says, and it hits us like a ton of bricks. His gaunt, skeletal visage. His knowing, depressing delivery of the line. It makes you realize, amidst all the gooey fun, that this is most likely how we will go. Slowly wasting away and sadly realizing we are about to lose all we know and love. It's easily the scariest scene of the film. Also of note is how gently he builds the relationship between Sarah Polley and Jake Webber. Their blossoming romance is underplayed so deftly that when they are cruelly separated at the climax and we see him standing there at the end of the dock, gun in hand, left to his own lonely fate, it has weight. That's right. I said it. A romantic relationship in a horror film with weight, meaning and purpose. Outside of Cronenberg in his handling of the Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum coupling in his brilliant Fly remake, I can think of no other genre heavyweight who has pulled off that feat.

To return to my original point, I convinced myself I thought a certain way because I was tired of the consensus opinion trumpeting its cheery approval. I wanted to be above and beyond that supposedly simple assessment and find fault with what others enjoyed. That's what a true critic does, right? I guess I don't know what a true film critic does because I'm not one. I'm just a dude with a high school diploma who is reasonably well read with an unreasonable belief in the majesty and spiritual importance of film. Maybe part of the film critics process should be to re watch a film and write another review one year to the day of the initial screening so as to be made aware of how narrow and short sighted first impressions often are. I'm not advocating endlessly apologizing for every piece of popular tripe to come down the remake pipe, but it might behoove us all to use a little foresight and common sense when we contemplate putting pen to paper and setting the pages ablaze with another reactionary, inflammatory screed.

Doesn't that Elm Street remake look like total dog shit though?