Paura:
Lucio Fulci Remembered Vol. 1 (2008)
Paura Productions DVD (region 1)

d. Mike Baronas; pr. Mike Baronas; m. Dave Neabore; ed. David Beinlich; cast. as themselves - Ruggero Deodato, Lamberto Bava, Florinda Bolkan, Enzo G. Castellari, Al Cliver, Umberto Lenzi, Sergio Martino, Bruno Mattei, Dardano Sacchetti, John Steiner (225 mins)

Paura is a compilation of interviews of various lengths from collaborators, compatriots and actors who have had the experience of working with Italian director Lucio Fulci.

This is not a documentary in the traditional sense but rather a special presentation made directly for DVD by Fulci enthusiast Mike Baronas.  The menu screen divides the DVD into three sections – “accomplices”, “peers” and “victims” – all of which contain interviews which can be played either individually or in succession.  In essence thus, Paura resembles a DVD special features package extended to fill out the entire disc and suffers from an overall repetition and lack of assembly.

For existing fans of the director it is taken as a given that this “maestro” of Italian horror be so remembered; but compiler / researcher Baronas has a different and much more ambitious agenda. 

Many of the interviewees regularly admit that Fulci has developed a cult popularity primarily in America, where he is now much more valued after his death than he ever was before, but is forgotten in his native Italy.  Indeed, while the name “Lucio Fulci” may be instantly recognizable to legions of horror movie enthusiasts for such classics as Zombie Flesh Eaters, The New York Ripper, Manhattan Baby and The Black Cat, in Italy his name is inconsequential.  Compiler Baronas is well aware that Fulci has no critical respect and has assembled this collection of interviews in the attempt to redress the balance and restore Fulci to the historical prestige he feels is his due.

The interviews thus fulfil several functions.  Initially they build up a portrait of the director as a learned, cultured man (though one who was never particular about his hygiene or appearance and was often dismissed accordingly) who knew the mechanisms of the Italian film industry and worked diligently in a number of diverse genres before finding an affinity for thrillers and exceptionally graphic horror movies (many of which still circulate only in censored prints).  Fulci’s reputation in the industry is addressed and his collaborations with other practitioners is mentioned, his fate as a “hot” director after the box-office success of Zombie Flesh Eaters gradually dwindling as the industry began churning out low quality, low budget works in which Fulci struggled to maintain his creative vision and secure the budgets that would enable him to realize it. 

Fulci’s passionate love of his profession emerges in these interviews as does the respect with which his collaborators and several of his peers in the horror genre hold him but there is no insight into Fulci from the actual critics that DVD compiler Baronas feels should devote more attention to Fulci. 

An expert craftsman Fulci is described as a fast and proficient technician and innovator.  Although a compulsive womanizer, Fulci is well-remembered by the women who as actresses had to appear nude and in the most awful, protracted death scenes for him.  Never taken seriously by the Italian press, Fulci emerges in these interviews as a stalwart auteur working in the most disreputable of genres who managed to inject those genres with a distinctive style despite general indifference from the industry. 

However, in concentrating on interviews with only those of Fulci’s immediate circle, Paura fails in its intention to restore the director to a status within the Italian film industry.  While there is much praise from his peers, all of these peers are from within the same genre (Luigi Cozzi, Michele Soavi, Umberto Lenzi, Ruggero Deodato) and who, like Fulci, have been dismissed by the Italian critical intelligentsia.  In this, Paura: Lucio Fulci Remembered unfolds as a belated eulogy, creating a fond and loving memory of the man by those who worked within the same field but doing very little to counter Fulci’s critical.  As such, Paura emerges as a feeble fan tribute, offering minimal critical insight into the body of work Fulci left behind as director and instead devolving into a series of often trivial anecdotes.

 

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Copyright (C) Robert Cettl All Rights Reserved Last modified: November 11, 2009