Top: House with Laughing Windows (1976), Deep Red (1975)
Middle: The Seventh Victim (1942)
Bottom: Black Sabbath (1963), Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
I wasn’t going to participate in Ed Hardy’s 31 Flicks That Give You the Willies List due to suffering massive list-making burnout following the recent Favorite Foreign Language Film poll (which I still want to write about in more detail), but at the last minute I decided to send him a list of nominees. As I’ve mentioned before, horror is far and away my favorite film genre so I had an incredibly hard time narrowing down my list of favorite films to a mere 31.
I will confess that I cheated a bit since I deliberately left off any film that I knew had already gotten 3 votes and wouldn’t need mine to make the final list of nominees. Some of those films included Suspiria (1977), Martin (1977), The Wicker Man (1973), Dellamorte Dellamore (1994), The Shining (1980), The Exorcist (1973), Psycho (1960) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). With that confession out of the way, here is my own list of…
31 FILMS THAT GIVE ME THE WILLIES (Listed by release date)
1. Frankenstein (1931; James Whale)
2. The Seventh Victim (1942; Mark Robson)
3. The Uninvited (1944; Lewis Allen)
4. Night of the Demon (1957; Jacques Tourner)
5. Blood and Roses (1960; Roger Vadim)
6. The Brides of Dracula (1960; Terence Fisher)
7. The Innocents (1961; Jack Clayton)
8. Night Tide (1961; Curtis Harrington)
9. Carnival of Souls (1962; Herk Harvey)
10. The Haunted Palace (1963; Roger Corman)
11. Black Sabbath (1963; Mario Bava)
12. The Haunting (1963; Robert Wise)
13. Castle of Blood (1964; Antonio Margheriti)
14. Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971; Piers Haggard)
15. Daughters of Darkness (1971; Harry Kumel)
16. Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971; Lucio Fulci)
17. Short Night of the Glass Dolls (1971; Aldo Lado)
18. Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971; Armando de Ossorio)
19. All the Colors of the Dark (1972; Sergio Martino)
20. Don’t Look Now (1973; Nicolas Roeg)
21. Deep Red (1975; Dario Argento)
22. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975; Peter Weir)
23. The Tenant (1976; Roman Polanski)
24. House with Laughing Windows (1976; Pupi Avati)
25. Full Circle (akak The Haunting of Julia, 1977; Richard Loncraine)
26. The Brood (1979; David Cronenberg)
27. Possession (1981; Andrzej Zulawski)
28. Zeder (1983; Pupi Avati)
29. The Reflecting Skin (1990; Philip Ridley)
30. Cure (1997; Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
31. Audition (1999; Takashi Miike)
After sending Ed my list I was surprised and annoyed with myself since I managed to forget to include Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960) and lots of early Japanese and Spanish horror films that I love. I also neglected to include any films with Peter Lorre, Christopher Lee and Klaus Kinski, who have all appeared in some of my favorite thrillers. Where did my head go?
Some conclusions I came to after making my list:
1. Sexually repressed women, ghosts, the supernatural, vampires and devil worshipers/cults give me the willies. Since I’m not a religious person, I find it extremely amusing that so many satanic horror films made my list, but I think it’s more about the esoteric elements of these films and the constant mystery of the unknown then the actual “devil” that give these types of movies their edge.
2. Only four American born directors made my list. British and Italian directors dominate it. This isn’t a surprise since I really don’t care for American horror films all that much.
3. 1960 and 1971 were truly the most amazing years for horror cinema in my humble opinion. At some point during the list making process I had six or eight films from each of those years on my list.
4. The only director that has more than one film on my list is the greatly under-appreciated Italian director Pupi Avati who I think makes some of the most fascinating and chilling films I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately I’m clearly in the minority since none of his movies made it on the final list of 180 Nominees and as far as I know, I’m the only person who nominated any of his films for inclusion.
Last but not least…
I plan to write about some of the lessor seen films mentioned above that didn’t make the Official Nominee List in the coming days.
I love Spaghetti Westerns. The best ones are what I would call “gothic westerns” since they combine some of the best aspects of Italian gothic horror films and literature with classic American westerns and western novels. They are filled with high drama but laced with subtlety. They offer romantic views of the west but they’re often very dark and at times even frightening. Suspense, death, blood, dirt, graveyards, coffins and religious iconography are reoccurring aspects of Italian westerns. Silence and sound were equally valued by directors and atmosphere was as important as story. Good and evil are often irrelevant and humanism - with a misanthropic streak - is king.
Of course, it’s impossible to ignore the politics at play in many Italian westerns. Many of the directors, composers and actors who made these films were card carrying Communists. Capitalism and Imperialism were often the real bad guys and many of the best Italian westerns managed to present their Marxist ideals in an incredibly entertaining way.
Recently Keith Brown over at Giallo Fever asked his blog readers what their “Top 10 Spaghetti Westerns” were. I had a hard time putting my list together because I like a lot of Spaghetti Westerns, but I thought I’d share my current Top 10 List here.
1. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (a.k.a. Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, 1966, Sergio Leone)
This is my favorite Leone film for many reasons. It’s a thoughtful, funny and entertaining movie with an amazing Morricone score. I really love the writing and I think the script is just brilliant, plus Leone films it all beautifully. Eli Wallach gives one of the greatest performances of his career as Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and in my opinion he steals the show from Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef. The scene between Wallach and his brother (the priest - Luigi Pistilli) is one of my favorite scenes from any film ever made. Wallach is not just reviving his character Calvera from The Magnificent Seven here, he’s giving him depth and making him one of the most enduring characters in the history of cinema. It’s a movie I’ve watched countless times and I never get tired of it.
2. The Great Silence (a.k.a. Il Grande silenzio, 1968, Sergio Corbucci)
I’ve already written a bit about why I love The Great Silence but the movie deserves a few more words. I think it’s Corbucci’s best film and definitely one of the most violent westerns ever put on film. There is deep humanity and brutal realism at play in The Great Silence and I think the movie has a kind of surreal quality that’s hard to put into words. Klaus Kinski gets to play one of the most ruthless characters ever created and that’s reason enough why this movie is one of my personal favorites but I also love Jean-Louis Trintignant’s performance as the tragic and doomed Silence.
3. A Bullet for the General (1966, Damiano Damiani)
I wrote about this terrific film last month and explained why it’s one of my favorite westerns so I won’t bother with the details again. Please check out my previous review.
4. Once Upon a Time in the West (a.k.a. C’era una volta il West, 1968, Sergio Leone)
This is another great Leone film with a terrific Morricone score that I love. I think Henry Fonda is wonderful as the cruel killer Frank and the infamous scene where he murders the boy and his family is one of the most brutal scenes ever captured on film but the rest of the cast (Bronson, Cardinale and Robards) also offer worthwhile performances here. In the end though Once Upon a Time in the West is really an epic about the birth of the civilized west and the landscape that gives it life. The story and the directing are the real stars. It’s a beautiful love letter from Leone to all Spaghetti Western fans.
5. For a Few Dollars More (a.k.a. Per qualche dollaro in più, 1965, Sergio Leone)
This is my second favorite Leone/Eastwood film. The story is wonderfully told and the film’s really entertaining but I especially love the interplay between Klaus Kinski’s hunchback character Wild and Lee Van Cleef’s Col. Mortimer. Both actors are my favorite western bad boys and their scenes together in For a Few Dollars More are truly priceless. Kinski’s performance is full of his typical twitches and outbursts, and Lee Van Cleef gets in his usual cold hearted stares. Eastwood is really good here and he looks truly fantastic in his poncho and hat but in the end this is really Lee van Cleef and Gian Maria Volontè’s movie. Both actors are terrific in their starring roles alongside Eastwood and once again Morricone delivers a fantastic score that really compliments the action and drama.
6. Django (1966, Sergio Corbucci)
I love the Django series and I had a hard time choosing between three Django films to list here. Django Kill - If You Live, Shoot! (1967) and Strangers Gundown (1969) are also worthy of being added to my Top 10 list, even if they’re inclusion in the Django cannon is debatable. In the first film the handsome actor Franco Nero stars as the enigmatic Django and his performance as the coffin carrying gunslinger is equal to Clint Eastwood’s best performances as “the man with no name.” The story of Django is well told and beautifully directed by Corbucci. The film also boasts a great score by composer Luis Enríquez Bacalov which is comparable to some of Morricone’s best work. All three of the Django films I mentioned are well worth a look if you like your spaghetti westerns dished up bloody and a bit surreal.
7. Death Rides A Horse (a.k.a. Da uomo a uomo, 1967, Giulio Petroni)
The story treads familiar ground but it’s still one of the most entertaining revenge westerns ever shot. Lee Van Cleef and the very cute John Phillip Law give two of their best performances here as Ryan and Bill, and I think they have a surprisingly good chemistry together. The movie boasts some creative camera-work and it features one of Morricone’s most unnerving scores. One of my favorite scenes involves a poker game between Bill (John Phillip Law) and bad guy Burt Cavanaugh (Anthony Dawson), but Lee van Cleef gets a lot of great scenes in Death Rides A Horse as well.
8. Massacre Time (a.k.a. The Brute and the Beast/Tempo di massacro, 1966, Lucio Fulci)
I wrote about Fulci’s Massacre Time back in March so I won’t bother going over it again but I will add that besides Fulci’s stylish directing, Massacre Time includes one of George Hilton’s best performances and it has a great score by composer Coriolano Gori (a.k.a. Lallo Gori).
9. My Name Is Nobody (a.k.a. Il Mio nome è Nessuno, 1973, Tonino Valerii & Sergio Leone)
I really enjoy the humorous westerns that feature Terence Hill and this one is my favorite of the bunch. It’s probably Sergio Leone’s most lighthearted effort but he works well here with Tonino Valerii who directed some great Italian thrillers. Henry Fonda delivers a terrrific performance as an old gunslinger and he has some wonderful scenes with Terrence Hill. Morricone’s score is really playful at times which works well with the movie’s comedy. My Name Is Nobody is a fun film but it’s also a touching farewell to the old west and it confirms that Leone offered Fonda some of his best and most interesting roles late in his career.
10. Dragon Strikes Back (a.k.a. Shanghai Joe/Il Mio nome è Shangai Joe, 1972, Mario Caiano)
When I was a kid Kung Fu was one of my favorite TV shows. The impact that the show had on me is hard to explain but the philosophy it championed definitely made an impression on me. Dragon Strikes Back is basically a drawn out movie version of Kung Fu with Chen Lee (a poor man’s Bruce Lee) playing David Carradine’s role. It’s plain silly at times and the story is thin but it also has some great moments such as the fantastic bullfight and the duel between Chen Lee and Klaus Kinski (once again playing a nasty bad guy here). The combination of Spaghetti Western and Kung Fu action flick is a strange mix that really works. The movie also has a great Bruno Nicoli score (with borrowed bits from Have a Good Funeral, My Friend) and overall the movie is just a really entertaining treat.
I don’t know if I’ll get around to writing about all the Lucio Fulci films that have recently been released and re-released on DVD anytime soon, but I recently wrote about Fulci’s Perversion Story (Una sull’altra, 1969) for Cinedelica which was released by Severin Films late last month.
Perversion Story is a great thriller, but I personally wouldn’t refer to it as a giallo even though it’s been called that by lots of reviewers. It seems like that term is getting tossed around really casually lately by critics and DVD companies trying to sell movies. Every Italian thriller made in the 60s & 70s that’s been released on DVD in the past few years seems to be given the “giallo” label.
But enough of my complaining… Perversion Story is easily one of Fulci’s best films and if you enjoy stylish & erotic Italian thrillers please stop by Cinedelica and give my review a look. The movie stars the lovely Marisa Mell who happens to be one of my favorite actresses and it also has a fantastic score by composer Riz Ortolani. Severin’s Perversion Story is easily one of the best DVD releases of the year so far.
Today is the 11th Anniversary of Italian director Lucio Fulci’s death. To celebrate the life of one of my favorite filmmakers I thought I would share a brief overview of Fulci’s early career in cinema, which is often overshadowed by his later years as a popular director of gory horror films and stylish thrillers.
Lucio Fulci was born on June 17, 1927 in Rome, Italy. His first passion was medicine and while he was studying the subject at an Italian medical school, Fulci also spent his time writing art criticism for local papers. One day while sitting on a train he noticed an advertisement on the back of a newspaper being read by a man sitting across from him which announced that the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (Experimental Film Studios) was accepting students. Fulci decided to apply and after a rigorous examination from legendary filmmaker Luchino Visconti (president at the time), Fulci was admitted to the school. Afterward he developed a friendship with Luchino Visconti along with Visconti’s assistants, which included filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni.
At Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia Fulci studied film theory from such luminaries as Umberto Barbaro, Luigi Chiarini and Béla Balázs alongside fellow students which included future filmmakers Nanni Loy and Francesco Maselli.
In 1948 Lucio Fulci graduated from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia and immediately began working as an assistant to the visionary filmmakers Max Ophüls and Marcel L’Herbie. During this early period in Fulci’s career he began specializing in documentaries and comedies. He also started co-directing and co-writing scripts with filmmakers such as Carletto Romano, Steno (Stefano Vanzina), Mauro Bolognini, Giorgio Simonelli and Marino Girolami.
It seems for a brief time in the late 1950s that Fulci returned to writing criticism as part of the editorial staff for the entertainment publication La Settimana Incom. During this time Lucio Fulci also continued writing scripts and in 1959 he finally made his solo directing debut with a mobster comedy called I Ladri (1959) which starred the legendary Italian actor Totò along with Armando Calvo and Giacomo Furia.
Following I Ladria, Lucio Fulci went on to direct a few Italian musical comedies known as “Musicarello,” which featured many popular musical stars of the period. Fulci had become involved in co-writing songs for the young Italian artist Adriano Celentano with Piero Vivarelli. Together Fulci & Vivarelli composed a few of Adriano Celentano’s most popular songs including the award winning Il tuo bacio è come un rock and 24 mila baci.
One of Fulci’s early musicals was the interesting Urlatori alla sbarra (aka Metti, Celentano e Mina…, 1960). The movie featured many Italian pop sensations from the 60s such as Mina, Brunetta and Adriano Celentano, along with American jazz musician Chet Baker and the cute actress Elke Sommer. I came across some great old clips from this hard-to-find Lucio Fulci musicarello on Youtube and couldn’t resist sharing them here. The first clip featuring Mina really showcases Fulci’s early directing skills and the second clip manages to perfectly capture the high-energy of the youth movement that was taking shape on the streets of Italy during the 1960s.
Urlatori alla sbarra featuring Mina and directed by Lucio Fulci, 1960
Urlatori alla sbarra featuring Adriano Celentano and directed by Lucio Fulci, 1960
Following Fulci’s all too brief musicarello period, he began focusing on comedy and directed many popular features starring the Italian comedy duo of Franco Franchi & Ciccio Ingrassia. Many of these comedies were crime parodies such as I Due pericoli pubblici (1964) or spy spoofs like 002 agenti segretissimi (1964).
In 1966 Lucio Fulci directed his first spaghetti western called Massacre Time (aka Tempo di massacro, 1966) and this film would take Fulci’s directing in a stylish and violent new direction. The movie starred genre favorites Franco Nero and George Hilton in their first big starring roles as feuding brothers. Both men would go on to gain international fame in surprisingly better known westerns such as Django and A Bullet for Sandoval (Los Desesperados, 1969) which was co-directed by Fulci.
It’s hard to watch Massacre Time and not be impressed by Fulci’s directing skills. The action and gun play is creatively shot and Fulci’s color palette is extremely eye-catching. The movie has obviously influenced many other filmmakers but unfortunately Fulci’s first western hasn’t gotten the critical attention that it richly deserves. In this brief trailer for Massacre Time you can easily see Fulci’s effective and dynamic film making abilities on display.
Massacre Time directed by Lucio Fulci, 1966
After making Massacre Time Fulci’s career as a filmmaker would take a dramatic turn towards thrillers and horror films as he he tapped into his own troubled life, which became haunted by the unexpected and tragic death of his wife. He would also begin to revisit his medical background and use it as the basis for creating many of the most violent and horrifying scenes in cinema history. This penchant towards extreme gore and unexpected shocks in Fulci’s later films would propel him into notoriety.
Four of Lucio Fulci’s best films from the second half - or middle period - of his long career as a filmmaker have recently been released on DVD, so over the next few days I hope to cover these new releases in more detail.
31 FILMS THAT GIVE ME THE WILLIES (Listed by release date)
I love Spaghetti Westerns. The best ones are what I would call “gothic westerns” since they combine some of the best aspects of Italian gothic horror films and literature with classic American westerns and western novels. They are filled with high drama but laced with subtlety. They offer romantic views of the west but they’re often very dark and at times even frightening. Suspense, death, blood, dirt, graveyards, coffins and religious iconography are reoccurring aspects of Italian westerns. Silence and sound were equally valued by directors and atmosphere was as important as story. Good and evil are often irrelevant and humanism - with a misanthropic streak - is king.
(a.k.a. Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, 1966, Sergio Leone)
(a.k.a. Il Grande silenzio, 1968, Sergio Corbucci)
(a.k.a. C’era una volta il West, 1968, Sergio Leone)
(a.k.a. Per qualche dollaro in più, 1965, Sergio Leone)
(1966, Sergio Corbucci)
(1967) and 
(1969) are also worthy of being added to my Top 10 list, even if they’re inclusion in the Django cannon is debatable. In the first film the handsome actor Franco Nero stars as the enigmatic Django and his performance as the coffin carrying gunslinger is equal to Clint Eastwood’s best performances as “the man with no name.” The story of Django is well told and beautifully directed by Corbucci. The film also boasts a great score by composer Luis Enríquez Bacalov which is comparable to some of Morricone’s best work. All three of the Django films I mentioned are well worth a look if you like your spaghetti westerns dished up bloody and a bit surreal.
7. 
(a.k.a. Da uomo a uomo, 1967, Giulio Petroni)
(a.k.a. The Brute and the Beast/Tempo di massacro, 1966, Lucio Fulci)
(a.k.a. Il Mio nome è Nessuno, 1973, Tonino Valerii & Sergio Leone)
Watch: 
(a.k.a. Shanghai Joe/Il Mio nome è Shangai Joe, 1972, Mario Caiano)
(1976), 
(1970), 
(1969) and 
(1971) all came close to making my list.
I don’t know if I’ll get around to writing about all the Lucio Fulci films that have recently been released and re-released on DVD anytime soon, but I recently wrote about Fulci’s 
At Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia Fulci studied film theory from such luminaries as Umberto Barbaro, Luigi Chiarini and Béla Balázs alongside fellow students which included future filmmakers Nanni Loy and Francesco Maselli.
(aka Tempo di massacro, 1966) and this film would take Fulci’s directing in a stylish and violent new direction. The movie starred genre favorites Franco Nero and George Hilton in their first big starring roles as feuding brothers. Both men would go on to gain international fame in surprisingly better known westerns such as 
and 
(Los Desesperados, 1969) which was co-directed by Fulci.
by Luca Palmerini and Gaetano Mistrett