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Reviews
Non si sevizia un paperino (1972)
Village of the Damned
Like several other reviewers here, I knew Lucio Fulci only from viewings of a couple of "House by the Cemetery" and "The Beyond", which did nothing for me. So I was also startled by this, an assured and fully realized piece of work that pulls the viewer deep into the psychological miasma of a small Sicilian village terrorized by the brutal serial murders of several young boys. The setting is vivid and unsettling- the ancient and cloistered existing on the edge of a modern highway overpass, indifferent drivers buzzing past while a bloody and primal drama plays out in the world they've left behind.
The story manages to balance elements ranging from a kinky giallo seductress given to inappropriate teasing of fevered pre-pubescent boys, a fraudulent shaman and his traumatized companion, the local "witch", a critique of mob hysteria and an anti-clericalism that somehow echoes Pete Walker's contemporaneous and extremely bitter take on the subject. A tiny and repeatedly exhumed skeleton is an apt recurring image for this meditation on violated innocence.
The very mobilized camerawork seems to revel in the memorable extremes of the landscape in which this all unfolds - in a way that actually recalled the best and most ambitious spaghetti westerns - and despite resolutely grim subject matter, this viewer was compelled to see things through to a disturbing climax that feels just right and doesn't trivialize what came before.
I can believe that Fulci felt particularly proud of this film - it has the feel of personal commitment and engagement - not in any way just an entertainment, it still grips the viewer in a high style nightmare like the best gialli do, but with something more lurking
Kaidan semushi otoko (1965)
Japanese Gothic fever dream
Finally found this film on YouTube after years of looking for it under the title "Ghost of the Hunchback". (The film was apparently available on Amazon Prime but is no longer, at least not "in my area"). Who would not be intrigued by the prospect of a Japanese take on the then-current Italian Gothic horror cycle? Adding to the strange mix, this version is dubbed into Italian, with the credits being anglicized in that weird Italian way - a bunch of unconvincing English sounding names, this time appended to a film obviously made by a Japanese director with Japanese actors, and subtitled in English! But no matter. The film does not disappoint, and is in fact considerably more gruesome and sexually frank (and perverse) than almost any Italian counterpart from the same time period that I can think of ,and conjures up a very effectively creepy atmosphere. The rather free-wheeling plot is hard to summarize (and therefore to spoil) and actually doesn't feel particularly Japanese, in terms of what we might expect from Japanese horror. Director Hajime Sato doesn't seem to have made too many films, but is responsible for another big favorite of mine, the rather amazing "Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell". Both films play with and freely mix genre conventions, provide ample shocks and surprises along the way, display a lot of visual flair and end with a certain grim finality. I wish he had made more movies.