Fans of extreme violence and gore rejoice, for today would have been the birthday of Italian horror extraordinaire Lucio Fulci, who was born all the way back in 1927!
Fulci is regarded as "the Godfather of gore", for reasons that will hopefully become apparent in the next few sentences. His most famous films were all featured on the video nasties listing in the UK, and one of his films, The New York Ripper, had all copies of it loaded onto a plane and sent back to Italy by British censor James Ferman.
Why was it so bad? Well even though it's still never been released uncensored, some of the scenes that made the most recent cuts include a woman having broken glass shoved into her crotch, and another having her breasts cut off with a switchblade.
Needless to say, for all his grotesque imagery Lucio Fulci was often seen as a horror movie hack by critics.
But where the critics saw hack his fans saw genius, not just for his directing style and his use of disgusting practical effects, but also for how incredible some of the spectacles he presented the audience with.
For example, in Zombie Flesh Eaters there's a scene where a zombie fights a shark. In The Beyond a man is slowly eaten alive by paranormal tarantulas. In Zombi 3 a zombie head flies out of a fridge and chews someone's face off. Awesome.
Sadly, for all the joy he brought horror movie enthusiasts, the world in turn was not as kind to him. His wife committed suicide in '69 when she found out she had terminal cancer, and one of his daughters was killed in a car crash in the 70s. As if things couldn't get shittier for him, by the 80s he had begun to fall very ill, starting with hepatitis in 1984.
Around this time he also fell out of favour with his long-time friend and collaborator Dardano Sacchetti, who worked with him on all of his most acclaimed films. This led to a severe dip in the quality of his later movies, and by the 90s he was struck again with hepatitis, as well as diabetes which caused serious issues with his legs. In '94 he met with Dario Argento to discuss a new film collaboration, and Argento was shocked to see how ill and frail he had become.
Fulci died alone on March 13 1996, in a small apartment in Rome he was forced to move into after selling his home. Argento paid for all his funeral expenses.
Is there a happy ending to Fulci's story? Well two months before his death he attended the Fangoria horror convention in New York, and was blown away at how many fans were stoked to see him. He'd never known how popular his films were outside of his home country, and he could finally see that it didn't matter what the critics thought of his films, because he had a loyal fan base who loved his work.
Lucio Fulci, thank you for all the eye gouging, zombie flesh eating, and supernatural goings on.
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