Summary:
A priest commits suicide and causes the gates of hell to open, unleashing zombies on a town.
My Thoughts:
I’m a huge fan of Italian horror.
Argento is by far my favorite Italian horror director (“Suspiria”, “Deep Red”), he’s the one that took my hand and said, “Let me show you some weird stuff, trust me, you’ve never seen anything like it!” and after that I’ve been lost in a labyrinth of bizarre horror flicks. Argento started my love affair with the subgenre, but lately I’ve started to delve into Bava (“A Bay of Blood”, “Kill, Baby, Kill”) and Fulci (“Don’t Torture a Duckling”, “Zombie”), and I’ve found there’s a lot to like there too. While in my opinion Argento still reigns king of Italian horror, Bava and Fulci still provide some wonderfully chilling films that would feel right at home alongside a collection of John Carpenter (“Halloween”, “In the Mouth of Madness”) or George Romero (“Day of the Dead”, “Martin”) movies. If you like classic horror flicks with lots of weird stuff and buckets of gore, then this is a film you’re going to want to see.
Side note: this is the first film in Fulci’s ‘Gates of Hell Trilogy’, the other two entries being “The Beyond” and “The House by the Cemetary.”
“This morning she was inside a coffin at the funeral home, and now she’s here in my kitchen!”
While participating in a séance, Mary Woodhouse (Catriona MacColl, “The Beyond”) has a vision of a priest (Fabrizio Jovine, “The Psychic”) hanging himself in a cemetery outside the town of Dunwich (Lovecraft reference!). Mary is overcome by fear and dies during the séance, but the next day, when reporter Peter Bell (Christopher George, “El Dorado”) visits Mary’s fresh grave, he hears her scratching about inside and rescues her. Mary and Peter visit Theresa (Adelaide Aste), the medium who performed the séance, and Theresa tells them of a prophecy in the Book of Enoch which predicts the return of the dead on All Saints Day. Mary and Peter must figure out how to stop the dead from rising, while the people of Dunwich find themselves beset by monsters.
QUICK RANT ABOUT WATCHING ITALIAN HORROR: I feel like though I’ve given this film a 3.5/5 star rating, some people would find this movie difficult to get through, and there are a few reasons for that. For some people, Italian films take a bit of getting used to, particularly if you’re not used to watching films that are dubbed in post. It can be jarring for some people to watch films where the lips don’t match the lines. Also, you’ve got to remember that for a lot of these directors, English is their second language, so the dialogue might seem a little stilted. I also think that Italian horror films use soundtracks that we Americans wouldn’t really think of as scary- they’re more stylized, used to bring attention to whatever it is that is meant to scare you rather than build tension. And, there are a lot of stylistic things in Italian horror films that might feel weird or dated to audiences who don’t know what they’re in for: whip zooms, brightly colored blood, production design that seems implausible… I recommend Italian horror flicks all the time, and some people see these elements and they think that makes the film hokey, and I honestly find it hard to argue with them. What works for me will not necessarily work for you. I’ve watched enough giallo and other kinds of horror flicks that the schmaltzier elements of Italian horror are part of the reason I watch films like these. I don’t mind the over-the-top acting, the bad dialogue, and the sometimes strange plotting because the atmosphere is amazing, the style is unchecked, the production design is darkly beautiful, and the violence is graphic as hell and gorgeously realized. So, yes, sometimes these kinds of films require the viewer to work with the movie as opposed to latching on to every flaw. I’m willing to do that because I love this genre; it’s up to you if you’re willing to give this film as much leeway as I.
So, now that I’ve pretty much admitted there are some really schmaltzy moments, lets discuss the bad stuff before we get to the good. For one thing, I think this film is a bit difficult to follow the first time through, and that’s something I’ve said about a few Fulci films now. The main reason that this film is hard to follow is because were cutting back and forth from our main characters, Peter and Mary, to the people of Dunwhich, which is where most of the actual horror is going on. It takes a little while for Peter and Mary to get to Dunwhich, and by the time we do, we’ve already seen a number of spooky things happen characters that have seemingly no effect on the overall plot. I actually don’t mind this jumping back and forth because it makes it seem as if the horrific things are more widespread, less contained, more cosmic. Much like John Carpenter’s “The Fog”, the town’s population itself is a character that grows as that population collectively learns about the paranormal activity happening within their town limits. Another thing that’s pretty rough is the acting. No one in this film gives a remarkable performance, but some of the smaller parts are downright cringe-worthy. The dialogue, too, is pretty iffy throughout.
Lets talk good stuff now: This movie’s atmosphere is awesome. I love the almost gothic design of the houses and hotels, the cemetery, even the look of the dilapidated buildings. Every building in Dunwich looked as if it had passed its prime thirty years ago, and was barely still standing. It’s gorgeously gothic, and I loved almost every set. The violence and special effects in this movie are what really elevate this movie above some of its peers. The makeup for the zombies is pretty fantastic, but even more amazing is some of the gory effects. There’s one scene where a girl vomits up all of her innards while bleeding from the eyes, and that moment just screamed iconic to me. Fulci likes to use a lot of maggots in his movies, and there’s one scene where an entire room is suddenly coated in the squirming little things. The final act of the film is pretty great all around, from the pacing, to the violence, to the production design of inside the mausoleum was all wonderful.
Verdict:
This film was like a warm blanket of spookiness that I just wanted to curl up in. There are plenty of moments that modern audiences might have a problem accepting, so I’d fault no one if they thought this film sucked, but for me, the great stuff and the stuff that I really liked far outweighed the bad. I can’t wait to check out the rest of “The Gates of Hell” trilogy.
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