Quando Alice ruppe lo specchio

I was actually very pleasantly surprised. I didn't go into this expecting much as i've never been a huge Fulci fan, but I do enjoy him, and as far as Fulci this probably had tighter editing and a more straightforward storyline than anything else I've seen by him. The 'twist' was obvious the entire time but it didn't make the film any less enjoyable and there were no plot holes- maybe a first for him? This film was less surreal than most and mainly focused on dark comedy and a simple crime tale, not much in the way of sets or cinematography, but it did what it set out to do, and with less stumbling than I've come to expect from the 'godfather of gore'. All in all a worthy watch if you can get your hands on the BluRay edition.

A really explicit and twisted film concerning the grisly happenings in which a series killer with a hidden agenda carries out a criminal spree . A violent shocker with level enough on vivid imagery and pure cinematic style in which a nasty murderer executing grisly killings by means of a chainsaw and other criminal methods . Lester Parson (Brett Halsey) is a cannibal psychopath who usually romances and after kidnapping and mutilating wealthy women, committing a series of heinous murders , carrying out serious cuts and beheading . Subsequently , disposing the rest of the unfortunate women in his backyard to his horde of pigs . The peculiar psycho-killer converces schizophrenically with himself via tape recordings of his own voice and along the way he acts as a cook by eating the remains for his dinner . He is also being tracked by Randy , a mean loan shark whom he owes money to after accruing bad gambling debts . For hell! .Depraved - Demonic - Diabolical - And Beyond!

Eerie and creepy thriller with full of killings , loathsome and lots of blood and gore , sexual violence , and abominable murders by means of a saw executed by an ominous psychopath . A typical Fulci butcher's tableau with plenty of explicit scenes of wicked violence , nudism , sheer sensationalism , grisly commerciality and no for squeamish . Here Lucio Fulci directs in his usual style filled with flaws , failures and gaps , but professionally made because being a nice artisan . It has flamboyant imagery , graphic gore and moody atmospherics . Stars veteran Brett Halsey proving an acceptable acting as a middle-aged gigolo who kills women and uses their body parts for trophies and for consumption. Halsey was a beefcake who emigrated to Italy and played a lot of B films , often billed as "Montgomery Ford" . Brett starred as several sword-and-sandal type heroes in including the spectacles ¨The Seventh Sword¨ and ¨The Avenger of Venice" . He also settled comfortably into the fashionable international spy , "spaghetti" western and Giallo genres with a slew of work including ¨Berlín , Spy in Your Eye¨ , ¨Espionage in Lisbon¨ , ¨The Hour of Truth¨, and ¨Kill Johnny Ringo¨. Being accompanied by a fine and attractive support cast of usual Italian B actors , such as : Ria De Simone , Sacha Darwin , Zora Kerova , Marco Di Stefano , and Maurice Poli .

The motion picture was middlingly directed by Lucio Fulci , and being entertaining enough . Fulci was one of the most controversial filmmakers in terror genre. Critics are divided over both the moral and talents of Fulci (1927-1996), who sometimes directed under the alias Louis Fuller. For some reviewers many of his flicks are extremely cruel and savage , yet their gory surface often concealing social, religious , or provoking commentaries or other thoughful , intelligent issues . Nevertheless , most of them considering his works have undeniably provided a considerable influence on the terror genre , creating decent efforts on low budget flicks . Standing out his ¨Don't Torture a Duckling¨ deemed to be one of his best pictures . And in the adventure genre with two financially successful Jack London 'White Fang' adventure movies in 1973 and 1974 which were ¨Zanna Bianca¨, and ¨Il ritorno di Zanna Bianca¨. Also during the mid and late 1970s, Fulci directed some 'Spaghetti Westerns' : ¨Four of Apocalypse¨ (1975) and ¨Sella d'argento¨ or ¨Silver Saddle¨(1978), and another 'giallo' ; ¨The Psychic¨ (1977), as well as a few sex-comedies which include the political spoof : ¨The Eroticist¨(1972) , and the vampire comedy ¨Young Dracula¨ (1975) , and the violent Mafia crime-drama ¨Luca the smuggler¨ (1979) . Furthermore , Sci-Fi and Fantasy genre as ¨Rome 2033: The Fighter Centurions¨(1982) and ¨Conquest¨(1983) . In 1979, Fulci's film making career successfully another high point with him, breaking into the international market with ¨Zombi 2¨ (1979), an in-name-only sequel to George A. Romero's Zombi: Night of the Lving Dead (1978), which had been released in Italy as 'Zombi'. And his big hit ¨New York Ripper¨ , at the time rated as a video nasty , due to it and why the excessive extra violence was heavily cut or prohibited in a large number of countries . With this film established Fulci as a gore director par excellence . Over the next three years, Fulci plied his trade with finesse and flair-play , rivaling even the popularity of his "opponent" the great Dario Argento, with such sanguine classics as ¨City of the Living Dead¨ (1980) , ¨Beyond¨ (1981) , ¨Manhattan Baby¨(1982) . These films are actually intelligently crafted, with sound commentaries on everything from American life to religion. And he went on his fall with lousy movies, but eventually Fulci at least found work in television . Rating : 5/10 . Average , only for Lucio Fulci completists .

For an 80 minute TV flick from Italy you could do a lot worse I'm sure. It's got a made for TV look. I'm guessing it was videotaped rather than filmed since it was made for TV. That is the main downfall in what is otherwise a pretty decent horror flick.

We have some top notch splatter here. Very disgusting and vile. Nothing pleasant whatsoever. But it never really takes itself seriously since it's a black comedy. Portions of the score are good and then portions are atrocious making this TV cheapie seem even cheaper.

Fulci does what he can with the budget and provides some interesting camera work and makes us laugh at some nasty stuff (interesting since Fulci didn't do too many straight up black comedies). As with many Fulci films, the ending leaves one with a feeling of 'WTF?' Which is exactly what we should expect from this king of horror.

Not a great film by any means but if you're a Fulci fan, pick it up.

Lucio Fulci is the kind of director who, years down the road, will achieve the stardom he deserves. As of now, he is pretty much infamous. His later works, especially post 1990, are really pretty bad. In truth, they are no worse than many early 90's American horror films, but the dubbing is so bad that it's hard to take Fulci's later work seriously at all, really. When possible, any 1990's Italian horror movie should be viewed in Italian with English subtitles. They are MUCH better that way.

"Touch of Death" is so funny in parts that I almost peed myself the first time I saw it. The woman's head in the oven, the car mauling, the baseball bat scene...the list goes on from there, trust me. It's got pretty decent gore, too. I'm sure Fulci focused a lot more effort on that than he did on the plot, which is not meant to be taken too seriously. "Touch of Death" is just a fun movie. It's not going to scare you, it might gross you out in some parts though! Watch it with all this in mind, and you'll enjoy it for what it is.

7 out of 10, kids.

Lucio Fulci, a director not exactly renowned for his subtlety, ill-advisedly tries his hand at black humour in Touch of Death, a made for TV movie about Lester Parsons (Brett Halsey), a psycho who seduces and murders rich widows in order to pay his gambling debts.

Starting off with a wonderfully gory scene in which the lethal lothario disposes of his latest victim via chainsaw, mincing machine and hungry hogs, Touch of Death starts promisingly enough, but Fulci soon loses control of proceedings, introducing a weird sub-plot involving a mysterious copycat killer and some heavy handed 'comedic' scenes. There are several more graphic murders which, in true Fulci fashion, are extremely violent and gruesome, but even the high level of bloodletting doesn't stop this from being one of Fulci's poorer efforts.

As I have found with many of his other movies, a comprehensible storyline is not exactly high on the agenda when Lucio is behind the camera. This film has many peculiarities which left me more than little perplexed: why didn't Lester dispose all of his victims using the dismemberment method seen at the beginning? Why are all of his victims either hairy or disfigured? What the hell is that ending all about?

Fulci is considered by many to be one of the 'greats' of horror cinema; I don't understand his popularity, finding the majority of the films of his that I have seen so far to be generally lacking both decent narratives and technical proficiency. Touch of Death certainly does nothing to change my opinion.