Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

Love him or hate him (I fall somewhere in the middle) he did make an impression in Italian genre cinema. I remember as a youngster watching Zombie on the big screen and also attending double features of his films along with Romero & Argento at Times Square.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

Shark vs. zombie wins.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

I haven't seen a single movie of his I like, though I'm far from a completist. Don't Torture... was at least watchable and competently made, which is more than can be said for the 3 or 4 other films of his I have seen.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

I have yet to see a movie of his that was watchable

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

Had to go with Zombie. It has one of the most iconic scenes in horror.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

I find his films to be very amateurish. The pipe cleaner spider scene in "The Beyond" was one of the funniest things I have ever seen in a movie.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

Never seen any of the films listed. I checked IMDB and the only film of his I've ever seen is the western, MASSACRE TIME (1966), aka THE BRUTE AND THE BEAST, with Franco Nero. I remember liking it. I need to see it again.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

Only ones I've seen are The Beyond and Zombie. Neither was particularly good, but there was at least some sense of technical accomplishment to The Beyond, the craftsmanship in the Italian film industry at that time was apparently pretty good. Sadly, the movie itself exists from set piece to set piece with an incomprehensible narrative an tons of gratuitous gore which is pretty much the only reason it existed in the first place. Zombie was dull with a few good splatter bits.

Pipe cleaner?

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

The scene where the tarantulas attack the librarian. There's like one or two real spiders and the rest look like they were made out of pipe cleaners attached to plastic eggs. It's awful.

Another scene in the movie that always made no sense to me...the face-eating acid. This woman walks into a morgue, sees her dead husband, then looks up and screams at something unknown...cut to the daughter running into the room and she sees the woman lying on the floor and a vat of acid just happens to be falling down on her little by little eating her face. It really makes no sense.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

"Spiders", that were clearly styrofoam balls with pipe cleaners for legs, dangling from strings. Although what I found funnier in that scene is the chewing noises the spiders made...

The best Fulci film, by far, is Don't Torture a Duckling. It's one of the few Fulci films with a consistent motif that is on display throughout the film, even from the opening frame. I'm talking about modern civilization invading a rural community, and you see it throughout the entire movie. And it also factors in as the killer's motivation.
But, you still see the Fulci-isms as well, like the extended torture sequence of the suspected witch, where the camera lingers on the wounds long enough that you can obviously see they're fake (see: pipe cleaner spiders). I've always thought that Mr. Blonde torturing the cop in Reservoir Dogs is an amalgam of this scene, and the ear cutting in Django.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

You've pretty much just described every Fulci film.

I guess Zombie for me, but even that has its fair share of typical Fulci movie problems; they're just a little easier to endure in this particular regard.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

Haha, I forgot about that scene. Just set up for the sake of gore.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

I watched this just a few months ago and I enjoyed it a lot.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

I chose City of the Living Dead. Though similar in story & atmosphere to The Beyond it is IMO tighter & a bit more coherent.
His more Giallo like films : A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, Don't Torture a Duckling & The Psychic (Seven Notes in Black) are worth watching.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

Well I love Zombie, COTLD, The Beyond, House By The Cemetery. They are fun, but I admit that I love the music to them more than the films themselves. The music is what makes them creepy. My vote goes to COTLD.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

Zombie is the only film of his I've seen. Terrible acting aside, I had a lot of fun watching it so I'll vote for that.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

I was tempted to vote Zombie, but The Beyond seems to really incorporate everything Fulci is known for, while also being just a solid, atmospheric horror tale.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

I've seen a few of his movies, and I never have any idea what's going on. I voted for "Zombi" because it's admittedly got some cool visuals.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

I added another Duckling vote for these reasons.

Though while it's his "best" movie, my favorite is a toss-up between Zombie and The Beyond. Incredibly cheesy but lots of fun. Zombie in particular made a big impression on me when I first saw it as a VHS rental in the 80s. To a kid, it was mindblowing stuff. So many videos looked on great by the cover but failed to deliver ... Zombie delivered in spades. I remember telling other kids about how awesome it was and they were jealous that my parents would let me watch this stuff.

Though as silly as these movies could get, there would be moments and shots that were damned effective. And Fabio Frizzi did some great music for Fulci too.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

:up:

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

I haven't voted because I've only seen Zombie, of course the shark vs. zombie fight was amazing just a brilliant concept. But the part that sticks with me is the eyeball scene. I was a seasoned horror junkie when I watched the movie, but it still seriously disturbed me. From the slow, drawn-out nature of the scene, complete with squirming and screaming, to the actual piercing of the eyeball going further and further. Really gruesome stuff.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

Voted for Zombie because of the replay value.

Guiltiest pleasure by Fulci=NYRIPPER

Seek out Four of the Apocalypse as well. It, honestly, is one of the best films he made.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

It's hard to rank Fulci films because of the wide variety of genres and styles. I think his most well-made movies are his gialli, Don't Torture a Duckling, The Psychic, and Lizard in a Women's Skin. I chose The Beyond because that's his best "Fulci gore" movie and the type of film that most people identify him with. Contraband is a pretty good movie too.

He made some really miserable movies towards the end, too.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

top five for me

- Zombie
- The Beyond
- House by the Cemetary
- The Psychic
- City of the Living Dead

there's a movie missing; 'Sodoma's Ghost' - which might be intentional since it's by far his worse movie.

even though most of the movie is comprised of scenes from other movies oh his, I quite enjoy 'Cat in the Brain'

'Demonia' was a valiant attempt - but it went nowhere despite a great death scene where a guy is quartered by a horse

from what I've read - his version of 'White Fang' is supposedly quite good.

Re: Best film directed by Lucio Fulci.
 

I'm rather phobic of insect and arachnids, so I was looking at the real ones, so I didn't catch that. I guess that's what he was hoping for.

Nothing in that film makes any sense, half the time I don't even know why everyone is where they are. The Friday the 13th movies are terribly written, but at least when they cut from one place to another I understand where everything is.

Knowing Tarantino, that wouldn't surprise me at all.

Clearly someone liked him, his career was quite long. The Grindhouse releasing DVD of The Beyond that I Netflixed is one of the most lovingly put-together DVD packages I've ever seen, the passion of the people and the fans is really something to see. It's unfortunate that the film was such a disappointment.

Perhaps that's why you enjoyed watching it :p?

Atmospheric yes, but I kind of found incomprehensible. Whether because of the dubbing, bad screenwriting, or just because I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, I don't know.

I remember that there was an old mom and pop's VHS rental store a couple of miles from my house. Once, when my parents went out of town, I walked there and rented the old HBO tape of The Evil Dead. The cashier spoke about 19 words of English, from what I could tell. He asked if I was 17, I told him I was (Give or take ;)), and he gave me the tape. Good times.

Individually, yes.

Yeah, I kind of wish some of it was on CD.

There's violent, and then there's sadistic, which is what puts Fulci over the edge.