Lucio Fulci Remembered – Volume One (2008/Paura Productions DVD)
Picture:
D Sound: C Extras: D Feature: D
Lucio
Fulci was one of those filmmakers that most people rarely hear of. Though horror fans may know him as the man who
brought us the Zombi trilogy and
many other horror titles, his filmography transcended any one genre. And while his legacy should certainly be
appreciated and remembered, this film (and I hesitate to even call it a film)
will not make that happen. Lucio Fulci Remembered – Volume One
(2008) is an entire disc comprised simply of interviews with people who knew
Fulci, and none of them have anything terribly enlightening to say. If you were to sit through this entire disc,
you would have wasted several hours of your life and not learned anything new
since the first twenty minutes. The
worst part is, this is apparently Volume
One. I hate to think that there
might actually be a Volume Two.
The 1.33
X 1 full-screen picture quality looks like this film was hosted on YouTube with
compression artifacts around the subtitles and just general fuzziness around
the entire frame. The sound quality is
better, but honestly, who cares?
There is
arguably one special feature on this disc. Hidden in the menu is an interview with the fellow
who put this DVD together. He is
apparently a DVD supplement producer by trade and has worked on releases of
several of Fulci’s films. It would seem
that he has been waiting for his opportunity to get in the spotlight, making us
sit through his title card twice as long as any of the deserving, accomplished
filmmakers and artists that he interviews on the rest of the disc. And then, once he finally gets around to the
actual interview, he tells us about his fondest memory: that one time that he
almost talked to Fulci but then didn’t.
To be
honest, this disc wouldn’t be so terribly bad if it had been put together as a
documentary rather than just a loose gathering of interviews. Had there been some editing, mixing parts of
the different interviews together to create some sort of narrative of Lucio
Fulci’s life or career, maybe this wouldn’t have been so bad. I won’t go so far as to say that it could have
been good, but it may have been worth watching maybe the first half hour. Instead, what DVD supplement producer and
failed documentarian Mike Baronas has created is a stain on the memory of Lucio
Fulci. And don’t we owe more to the man
who finally answered the burning question in each of our hearts: Who would win
in a fight, a zombie or a shark?
- Mathew Carrick
