Help me understand Lucio Fulci, please....

[zombie no.one]

I only have 2 Fulci films: AENIGMA and THE RED MONKS

neither of them makes much sense, at all. A girl in Aenigma gets eaten by slugs and doesn't run away.

I want to get A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN because it looks like a high class/surreal Giallo and has lots of good reviews.

[retrorussell]

From what I've seen, logic and sense are not to be found in a Fulci film.  Watch the eye impalement scene in zombie and ask yourself why she didn't, oh, turn her head slightly, or move the splinter to the side, or any of a number of other things.  His films play out like nightmares, with a logic that can't be trusted and a lot of stuff that makes no sense.  I find some of his imagery and sequences of violence hypnotic and mesmerizing, but a lot of the other sequences and the films as a whole often disjointed and a little dull. 

I hear his earlier giallos are a lot more conventional though.

I agree, especially about the women never running away or squirming much, if at all, while being attacked.  Not a big fan of Fulci but Zombie is okay (the only Fulci film I own).

[Trevor]

As a doctor, writer, and director Fulci was someone in control, someone who had answers, yet life life would throw something at him which he could not answer. In 1969, his wife committed suicide. Several years later, his daughter was killed in a car wreck. Some say that his films entered into a dark period following these tragedies; especially following his daughter's death.

Thanks, Dr M: I never knew that happened to him.

Zombie (Zombi 2, among a dozen or so titles) is my favorite. It has Fulci's trademark atmosphere and apocalyptic feel, but unlike several of his films it has an actual linear storyline; not to mention that I'm kind of fond of the doctor named Menard. 

When I first joined this site, I had read up on LF's films and I just knew where you got your screen name from 

You know things are going to get nasty when John Morghen makes an appearance on screen (and I must personally protest naming the town freak Bob).

Not to mention that he has an automatic inflatable doll, no pump necessary. 

If anything I have written in this post makes any sense to anybody, it completely a figment of your imagination.

It helped me understand the man a little better so thanks to you and the other contributors. 

[Umaril The Unfeathered]

From what I've seen, logic and sense are not to be found in a Fulci film.  Watch the eye impalement scene in zombie and ask yourself why she didn't, oh, turn her head slightly, or move the splinter to the side, or any of a number of other things.  His films play out like nightmares, with a logic that can't be trusted and a lot of stuff that makes no sense.  I find some of his imagery and sequences of violence hypnotic and mesmerizing, but a lot of the other sequences and the films as a whole often disjointed and a little dull. 

I hear his earlier giallos are a lot more conventional though.

I agree, especially about the women never running away or squirming much, if at all, while being attacked.  Not a big fan of Fulci but Zombie is okay (the only Fulci film I own).

Zombie wasn't really much to understand. The dead rose and attacked the living and those that died from it got up and killed.  And yeah, it was a great movie.

While it was petty much a bandwagon film (in response to Dawn Of The Dead it managed to stand on it's own in terms of gore and shock.  In fact, it made the gore in DOTD (or any other film of the time) look like a cartoon show!

While not inspired by any originality, it did break ground in terms of gore FX.