All language subtitles for Conquest 1983 1080p BluRay x264-OFT.mkv3

Well, hello, everybody, and welcome to
the audio commentary for Conquest.

My name is Troy Howarth. I'm the author
of numerous books on Italian cult

cinema, notably in this context a book
about Lucio Fulci titled Splintered

Visions, Lucio Fulci and His Films.

And I'm very happy to be here today
joined with... Nathaniel Thompson from

Digital and Turner Classic Movies. And I
would say that I'm wigging out about

recording for this film, but that would
be a terrible pun and I won't do it. But

I love this movie and I'm very excited.

Yeah, it is a weird one, as we're going
to discuss.

That's obvious pretty much right from
the get -go, with these kind of double

-exposed images, very hazy -looking
movie, as we're going to see.

And it'll be interesting when we see the
finished Blu -ray, what it actually

looks like, because up until now, this
has been kind of a difficult movie to

entirely decipher visually.

Yeah, and in other ways, but in good
ways, I think. It's a challenge. It's a

film that I think improves the repeat of
viewing.

I know a lot of people have a really
tough time with this film when they come

it the first time, and they say the plot
is indecipherable and it's hard to

follow, but it actually, I think, it
gets more and more interesting the more

go back to it, and you get used to the
look of it as well. I think it's a very

unique look, but we'll talk more about
the look of it later, of course.

Oh, yeah. Well, it's unique, and it's
certainly also very deliberate, and

something that...

You know, there's a tendency with a lot
of these movies, as I'm sure you'll

agree with me, to kind of condescend to
them a little bit and look at them as

kind of rip -offs, basically, of bigger,
better movies, which obviously is not

fair at all. One of the things that we
can say about Lucio Fulci is that from a

technical... perspective, certainly at
this stage in his career. Now, later on,

some of the later films were more
compromised, but the man knew how to

film that looked good, and he was a
terrific technician.

I mean, actors may have had their issues
with him, as I'm sure we'll get into

that as well.

Some of the volatility of the man on
set, he could be a little bit tricky,

say.

Famously so.

Oh, infamously. I mean, so many stories
that I've heard, and I'm sure we'll talk

about that too to a certain extent
interviewing people for Splendid Visions

the gamut from people who loved him to
people who absolutely hated him and I

understand that based on the stories
they told me but as to the

quality of the film the plot and so
forth what's interesting about it is

of all this is one of a relatively small
number of films that Fulci himself did

not have a hand in writing this was not
a project that he originated

As I'll discuss in a little bit more
detail, this was a film that kind of was

presented to him at a stage in his
career when he was looking to kind of

transition to something a little bit
different.

I think he had some rather grand and
ambitious plans for this film that

quite come to fruition because the movie
was just so strange and it didn't go

over well.

But he didn't have anything to do with
the actual writing of the film. But

what's interesting to me about watching
it is...

It reminds me more than any other Fulci
film. It puts me in mind of a Jess

Franco film in the way that it just
seems to sort of amble along.

And I don't mean that in a bad way. It
certainly, I wouldn't describe it as

necessarily being a super fast -paced,
action -packed movie. Although there

is...

a good bit of action crammed into it.

But it is a very dreamy movie, and it
does. I think ambling is a good word for

it. It just seems to kind of go wherever
it feels like going without any real

sense of a conventional kind of a
structure.

You can see there, again, about the
screenplay, the screenplay credits.

Fulci's name is conspicuous in its
absence, although there are some

technical names in the credits, as we'll
discuss. as well yes i think dreaming

is a good word for it and it's also it's
one of the very few italian sword and

sorcery films that i think you could
qualify as an art film uh as well there

aren't too many others although i think
iron warrior is kind of a cheaper

stranger even stranger version of that
but there are a few where they kind of

they use the genre in an odd way where
it actually becomes more of a mood piece

rather than a normal action or you know
or fantasy film

Yes, I would agree with that. And, of
course, a lot of this goes back to

basically the 1981 film by Jean -Jacques
Arnaud called Quest for Fire,

co -written by Gerard Braque, who, of
course, wrote or co -wrote a great many

Roman Polanski's best films and later on
co -wrote Phantom of the Opera for

Dario Argento, which not too many people
like, but you and I do. I do.

You and I happen to like that movie, and
hopefully we'll get a chance to talk

about it sometime in more detail.

But, you know, Quest for Fire was...

almost more of an anthropological type
of a film. It was a very serious attempt

to kind of go back to prehistoric times
and come to grips with that notion of

man discovering flame for the first
time. And I'm sure the more

well -versed scientific types in the
audience would find a lot of fault with

film in terms of its detail and so
forth. But I think it was kind of a

attempt to present something like that
on screen as opposed to the... typical

kind of caveman type films that we're
used to seeing and that we enjoy of

you know like the hammer uh prehistoric
movies uh one million years bc and one

dinosaur's world the earth and things
like that but Obviously, this ties into

the whole Filoni principle of Italian
genre cinema, which is that idea of a

streamlet, which is set into motion by
the success of a film.

Very often, not always, but very often
it is an American film or British film.

There's usually a film that comes out
that connects with an audience, does

well, and then producers...

sort of set about trying to make other
movies in a similar vein. So obviously

you think of movies like...

Dirty Harry, for example, back in the
70s and the big impact that had on the

Polizio Tesco films.

And I just have to comment here very
briefly this introduction to the

the evil, I don't know, sorceress, I
guess, Alcron, played by Sabrina Siani.

We're going to be seeing a good bit of
her.

In everything.

Well, except for her face, which is
interesting.

And we'll get to that at the end
because, you know, that's an interesting

element in and of itself.

But, yes, she's probably...

No.

you know, the sword and sandal films of
the 50s and 60s, although there are kind

of connections with the whole kind of
beefcake aspect, which certainly ties

this film, as I'm sure we'll get into a
little bit later.

I don't know if it's intentional or if
it just kind of comes with the turf, but

there is kind of a slight homoerotic
vibe in the relationship between the two

principal characters that we see.

but it's not a peplum film, certainly,
but Sword and Sorcery, I guess, is as

good a description as any. And during
this time, too, you also had things like

Deodato's Barbarians, for example, and,
of course, the wonderfully loopy and

very, very strange Luigi Cozzi Hercules
films.

Oh, yeah.

And I think you also have to look at the
context of where these came from,

because in the early 80s, the Sword and
Sorcery, genre was almost dead before

quest for fire because the sinbad
trilogy that harry often had done was

that was the flagship of those type of
films and sinbad the eye of the tiger

been kind of a disappointment and so it
kind of went dormant until suddenly you

had quest for fire pop up and then in uk
you had the hawk of flare you know

which is absolutely bonkers uh and um
and something that was just this flood

so conquest it you know it wasn't it
wasn't one film particularly you had

sudden rush you had kind of a burying
you had a sorcerer beast master all

films suddenly pouring out And so, of
course, then Joe D 'Amato, you know,

of course, I love to death, he does the
A Tour of the Fighting Eagle, which, of

course, spawns, you know, a horror film
series as well. And so it was just

something in the air, I guess. You know,
it's odd how these genres sort of come

in and out, but this tidal wave just
suddenly hit. I mean, you even had

like heavy metal.

Absolutely. Which had two sword and
sorcery segments, the Den and Tarnus

segments, and that right before this.

Dragon Slayer, Excalibur, it's all these
things just happening at once. And so,

not just Italy, but Roger Corman was
writing it as well. He had the film

Sorceress, the Jack Hill film, and Death
Doctor, and War and the Sorceress. So

it was kind of a magical time, I guess.
I remember when I was a kid and suddenly

you'd see all these posters just popping
up everywhere, and you're like, what is

this? You know, this is amazing.

Even cartoons, you had Fire and Ice.
Ralph Bakshi jumped in on it.

The Black Cauldron, I think, is kind of
an honorary, almost word and sorcery

film, kind of a Disney contribution to
it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. I should comment here, too, that
the scene that just unfolded, you know,

little bit of the old Fulci
ultraviolence there reminds me. Well,

since he anticipates the scene that he
did later on in a film, actually one of

the relatively few Fulci films that I
don't have any particular affection for

movie called Demonia.

Yep.

Yeah, well, you know, I mean, the
ingredients are there, but they're not

cooked.

But he tried.

Yeah,

well, he did. But, you know, the funny
thing about that is, of course, I'm

referring to the drawn and quartering
effect, the person basically being torn

half like that, which is done, I think,
fairly well in this film.

There's some very good makeup and
effects.

In this film, not all of them, perhaps.
Some of them maybe look a little dated,

inevitably. But there's some very good
gore effects. We saw scalping earlier as

well. And that's kind of typical of what
Fulci was known for during this period.

But, yes, in Demonia, there's a sequence
where a person is sort of wish -boned,

I guess you could say, tied to a tree
and torn apart.

could have been very effective but was
rather badly executed, unfortunately.

But here, this one I think works very
well. And that goes back to what we were

talking about before with Fulci's
professionalism as a filmmaker and his

to put really interesting and slick
images up on the screen and also in

a way that's very distinctive. I think
you can say with certainty that...

You could turn on a TV and not know that
it's a Lucio Fulci film, but if you've

seen enough of his movies, you're going
to recognize that style, you know, even

without seeing his name on the credits.

This is very strange stuff, too, here,
all this material with, I guess they're

supposed to be sort of drug -induced
delirium sequences here where she's

writhing around naked on, again, very
Jess Franco, like one of the, you know,

the literal floor show scenes that you
see in something like Venus and Furs or,

you know, one of the other Franco films
where you have...

Except here, he doesn't zoom in all the
way in on certain parts.

But nevertheless, similar kind of very
strange and dreamy thing.

You and I, you know, we can make these
associations between directors like

you know, obviously just based on the
movies that we've watched. But one

sometimes if somebody like Fulci was
even aware of a Jess Franco or, you

was influenced by anything that he saw
in his films or, you know, just what you

could call a happy coincidence.

Yeah. And, you know, the weird thing is,
as much as he gets pegged as someone

who is sort of a rip -off guy, mainly
because of Zombie, of course, because

became Zombie 2, I don't really see
Fulci as drawing that much influence

other directors that much as far as his
style goes.

He's kind of his own thing. But, you
know, he's not really much of a mimic.

No. For the most part. So I'm not really
sure where that keeps coming up from.

Even just Franco, the same thing. They
keep saying, oh, he's a hack, he's a

copycat. It's like, well, not really.

I mean, he's a pretty singular voice, I
think.

Franco wasn't copying anybody.

I mean, certainly there's nobody else
like him. And the same could be said of

Fulci. The problem, quote -unquote
problem with Fulci comes down to the

that obviously he was a, and this is not
to be used in a pejorative sense. It's

just a practical reality. He was a
journeyman, a filmmaker.

Mario Bava before him, and unlike Adario
Argento, who was able to establish

himself as a specialist.

in a particular type of film, or Sergio
Leone for that matter.

Fulci was obliged to kind of follow
whatever was popular at a given time at

box office. So he started off making
comedies, he made musicals, he dabbled

westerns. But importantly, I think that
in every genre that he worked in, he did

very good work.

And while it's easy to understand, for
example, Dario Argento used to get very

annoyed with Fulci because...

Fauci made movies that were...

quote -unquote similar to his own in the
early 70s. So Argento comes out with

Bird of the Crystal Plumage and The Cat
in Nine Tails, and then Fulci comes out

with Lizard in a Woman's Skin and Don't
Torture a Duckling.

Yes, they're JALO films, and yes, they
all have quote -unquote animal titles,

but to look at those films and compare
them, they are radically different,

very different in their intentions.

And one of the things that's interesting
is, of course, you know, The Fulci

-Argento battle wages to this day as if
you have to pick one or the other. I

certainly wouldn't pick one or the
other. I love them both.

But the fact of the matter is, 1982,
right

before, not long before, Fulci became
involved in this particular project that

we're coming to grips with as it
unfolds,

said to have marked the end of an era.

Argento came out with Tenebrae.

Fulci came out with the New York Ripper.

And they both kind of pushed the
envelope as far as you could as far as

stylistic aspects were concerned and
sort of meta aspects were concerned and

also the violence was concerned. And the
nudity, yeah, the sexualized violence.

Oh, God, yeah, definitely, very much so.
And, you know, Tenebrae obviously went

over much better than New York Ripper.

New York Ripper is still very
controversial to this day.

But it's interesting that they were kind
of united even there, that that marked

the end of really the classical Jalloh
period.

Both of them would go on to make more
Jalloh.

Fulci did Murder Rock after this, for
example, and Argento, of course,

into the 21st century.

But for all intents and purposes, that
was kind of the end of that particular

period of time. But again, they're very,
very different filmmakers.

You can't look at Fulci and say, he's
just copying Dario Argento in his films,

or George Romero, for that matter. His
films are very, very different from

George Romero's.

His zombie films are, you know, you
can't even really compare them except in

most broad brushstrokes.

Yeah, they both have a lot of blood.
That's about it.

Yeah, I mean...

And obviously, yes, it's true. A zombie
wouldn't exist if it weren't for Dawn of

the Dead. We know that. Right.

And, of course, Argento had a hand in
producing Dawn of the Dead.

So, you know, Dawn of the Dead comes out
in Italy as Zombie.

Then producers decide, well, we need to
make something else like this because it

was making a ton of money. So Zombie 2
comes into creation.

And Lucio Fulci wasn't even paid to
originally direct that. He wasn't the

director they had in mind. That was
actually...

Enzo Di Castellari, he was the first
director of the approach to do it.

And Fulci owed Castellari a big debt of
gratitude, really, because Castellari is

the one who said, this isn't really my
wheelhouse, but I think Lucio Fulci

do well by this, and he certainly did.

but Zombie was another Fulci film that
was relatively unusual in that he had no

hand in the writing, so Conquest is yet
another one. I think, unless I'm

mistaken, all the films that Fulci had
done in between Zombie and this film, he

had had a hand in writing, but these
were ones that were kind of, I guess you

could call them gun -for -hire
assignments, although I'd be very

read the script for Conquest.

just how strange it was on paper and how
much more extra weird it became with

Fulci at the helm.

I would guess quite a bit.

I would think so.

When you're talking about the difference
between Fulci and Argento, I think one

thing that separates Fulci is that he is
someone who, if you look at all of

Fulci's films, most people know the
horror films and maybe some things like

Contraband.

He's someone who worked in a lot of
genres, and if you watch a lot of them

of in a row, you can see how he really
enjoys sort of pushing the genre as far

as it will go. He actually takes genres
and he sort of makes it abstract, which

he definitely does with this.

I mean, this is almost a totally
abstract film, and I think the closest

this that he'd done before that was
probably Four of the Apocalypse, which

really wonderful sort of deconstruction
of the Italian Western.

It's barely even a Western by the time
he's done with it. It's broken up into

this kind of sort of dreamy nightmare.

But actually, the look of it, I think,
sort of anticipates this one. It's not

quite as diffused and stylized as this
is, but it's getting in that direction.

You know, it's very sort of a lot of
soft focus, and it's almost like you're

watching sort of a dream unfold through
that whole film.

But he's taking the thing just how it's
almost... He's sort of more focused on

the wasteland aspect of it. It's this
nightmare location where violence rules

and absolutely nobody is safe. Anyone
can die in that film, which is true here

too. Like you mentioned, this is a very
strangely constructed film. It's not a

normal A to B hero's journey type of
story at all. It keeps throwing

at you. Especially near the end, there's
a really big shocker.

Mm -hmm.

Which, again, I think is very far of the
apocalypse. So, you know, I think this

is very much a Fulci film. It's just not
the Fulci that you know from all the

films he did with Sergio Silvati and,
you know, those kind of films. It's a

different beast, but it is most
definitely Fulci.

Yeah, it definitely is. And, you know,
it's a film that, obviously, I don't

think too many people seem to be
lukewarm on it. They either really like

they really hate it.

Yeah. I know that Stephen Thrower's book
on Fulci didn't...

Give it much love.

I think, if I remember correctly, he
said something along the lines of, if

was the only Fulci film in existence,
nobody would mourn the absence of any

others.

That's sad.

Kind of, although in fairness, this
isn't the movie you're going to be like,

I want to introduce you to Lucio Fulci.

Oh, God, no, no. No, this is definitely
advanced studies Fulci.

Yes, yes. This is once you've gotten
through all the jally and all the major

horror titles.

Let's, you know, let's look at something
weird.

We're seeing something very weird here
with these mechanical birds and it's

very, very smoky. It must have been
murder on the set, you know, making this

film, not just for the actors, but for
the technicians as well, because it's

such a smoky film.

And there's also, as you say, a great
deal of diffusion, a lot of soft focus.

You know, something like this is almost
sort of a fashion spread from hell that

we're looking at here is this beautiful
naked actress sitting on her throne.

It's all sort of very fetishistic and
very strange.

Almost looks a little bit like a giant
egg, so it kind of puts me in mind of

alien environment, something like that.

This is, again, how much of this was in
the script.

Of course, another aspect of it, too,
how much of it was budgetary, because

there's also the reality that it could
be that they're trying to conceal the

fact that there isn't really a lot in
the way of scenery.

The closest...

Kind of antecedent I can think of in
terms of an Italian genre film that came

before this was Mario Bava's 1961 film
Hercules and the Haunted World, which is

another very sort of strange and dreamy
film.

I'd say a little bit more coherent and
probably more aesthetically accessible.

is along similar lines, and you get a
sense here, like you did there, that

probably didn't have a lot in the way of
sets to work with, so better just to

pump in all the fog and all the mist
that you can, and just kind of play up

a dreamy environment that it is.

And I should comment, too, this is our
leading man, George, or Jorge Rivero,

this guy here is Andrea Accapinti.

I'll have more to say about both of them
as we go along, and also about the two

actors that dubbed them on the English
trail.

I've never actually seen this film in
Italian before.

I don't know if it plays any differently
in Italian or not, but I kind of get

the impression that it's a movie that if
you stripped the dialogue away, it

really wouldn't matter much. Yeah, the
dialogue is so inconsequential for the

most part. You could almost just have
music running and pretty much get the

idea.

But Akepinti had just worked with Fulci
on The New York Ripper, so he's kind of

a familiar face.

Rivero, this was his only time working
with Fulci.

I think they make for a pretty solid and
likable team. I think Rivero in

particular manages to give a very strong
performance and helps to ground the

movie in some kind of reality.

Not that reality has much to bear on a
movie like this.

And this was actually their second film
together, technically speaking.

Because Lucky Pinty had had a little
tiny part in the movie Priest of Love,

D .H. Lawrence biopic, which also had
Rivero in it.

I wonder if that had anything to do with
them being cast together. You never

know. Yeah,

it's true. It's entirely possible.

Well, just by way of a little bit of
background, you know, from what I've

able to dig up, you know, the
particulars of this film are not

super easy to come by.

There hasn't been a lot of serious sort
of in -depth.

writing about the film down through the
years, it's always been seen as kind of

a minor Fulci film, you know, at best.

And I'm not going to argue that it's top
tier, but I do like it a lot, and I'm

glad that we have a chance to sit here
and talk about it. But basically, from

what I've been able to glean from other
sources, especially Stephen Trower's

book, Beyond Terror, back in May of
1982, Fulci was attached to a film

called Siegfried's Sword.

which was to have been produced by his
old friend Edmondo Amati.

Edmondo Amati had produced Perversion
Story and Lizard in a Woman's Skin and

the Apocalypse, amongst others. So
really he had been responsible for some

Fulci's best films.

and he was one of the producers that
Fulci actually respected, which wasn't a

typical scenario, as we'll discuss. He
didn't get along with the producer of

this particular film.

That project fell apart, unfortunately,
by June of 1982, at which point Fulci

agreed to do a two -picture deal with
Giovanni De Clemente, the producer of

film. The first of that little deal that
they had made was Conquest, and the

second was going to be a horror project
called Alibi.

When Conquest started, originally the
title was to be Mace the Outcast.

Of course, you know, Rivero's character
is named Mace, so that makes sense.

Shooting got underway around the middle
of October of 1982 and stretched into

late November.

Apparently, it was rushed through...

post -production pretty quickly because
there were some trade screenings around

January of 1983, which is, you know,
again, pretty quick turnaround.

Didn't go over well, which won't shock
us, but that necessitated apparently

post -production tinkering. Not entirely
clear on what happened during that

phase. I don't know if they did reshoots
or if they just went in and kind of

beefed up the special effects a little
bit.

But in any event, the Italian theatrical
release took place in July and August

of 1983.

Amazingly, it did manage to come to the
American marketplace, and I know you

have some information on that that you
might want to share with us.

Hard to imagine a film like this playing
on American theater screens, but it

did. As far as I can tell, around
February of 1984.

So what can you tell us about that?

Well, so yeah, just to fill in a little
bit more on the release background.

So this was actually first announced in
the American trades on October 20th,

1982, which was two days after they had
started principal photography.

It was announced by the film's world
sales agent at the time called the

Film Company.

And it was simply a big ad that just
said, a barbaric adventure into the

and fantastic with a huge splash for
Lucio Fulci's name.

This was back when Fulci was a big
selling point, even if you're reading

trades in L .A., believe it or not.

And the artwork on it was just, it was a
glowing arrow piercing a rock. Rocky

outcropping. He didn't mention anything
about the actors, nothing else. It was

just Lucio Fulci, Conquest, sword and
sorcery movie. Here you go.

So the film wasn't officially shopped
around in the U .S. until the American

Film Market, which they hold in Santa
Monica, California, just a few miles

where I'm recording this, actually, in
March of 1983.

And overseas would continue to keep
selling the film. Like you mentioned,

pulled it back from initial sales after
that.

And they would sell it again the next
year back at AFM in March of 84 when it

was screened and promoted as part of a
three -pack along with Antonio Clamati's

racing documentary Turbo Time and Jose
Antonio de la Loma's Killing Machine,

which also has Rivero in it. And if that
name sounds familiar, that's because de

la Loma and his son were also very
involved with this film in the writing,

assistant directing, producing.

Their names are all over the end
credits, you'll notice.

But he made a lot of films with Rivero.

So that was another vehicle that he
made. But those three films were

pushed around together.

Turbo Time obviously has pretty much
gone into the ether. I can't actually

a single person who's actually seen the
movie, even though it did exist.

But the film was picked up for the U .S.
rights by United Film Distribution

Company, which is UFDC, which is a very
familiar name back in the early 80s if

you went to the movies a lot.

They first announced their acquisition
on December 13th, 1983, with plans to

release it on 85 to 100 screens from
coast to coast, and they were going to

spend $150 ,000 on the film's media
campaign, which sounds like chump change

as far as movie marketing goes when it's
mega millions, but at the time that was

pretty good for an indie.

However...

So they had negotiated the deal. It was
actually purchased by the head of UFD at

the time, who was Richard Hassanine, who
had gotten it from the Overseas Film

Group's L .A.-based office.

He was the agent for Giovanni De
Clemente, who was the producer.

And at the time the film was sold, Fulci
was a big name in U .S. theaters. The

Beyond had gotten as much belated.

Practical run at Seven Doors of Death
from Aquarius, where it was cut to

but, you know, it was still the beyond
or what was left of it.

And Motion Picture Marketing's run of
Gates of Hell had just wrapped up in May

earlier that year when they bought it.
So, Fulci was big business at the time,

and they thought Conquest would be the
same, but really not meant to be.

As you probably guessed, it didn't play
remotely the number of theaters they

were planning on.

And the main reason for that is because
they ended up picking up a little film

called Sleepaway Camp right before that,
which ended up...

pretty much taking all the ad money from
the film.

So they released Sleepaway Camp in
November before the film came out. When

eventually opened, it was much later,
obviously, than what they were

planning. And so Sleepaway Camp got all
the love and all the ad money and all

the screens, and Conquest became
essentially an afterthought.

Also the fact that the market was very
super saturated with sword and sorcery

films at the time didn't really help.
They were fighting for screens, and it

much harder to book screens for Conquest
than it was.

for Sleepaway Camp, and so that wound up
playing much wider. I can attest

firsthand, I remember when that
happened, Sleepaway Camp actually played

widely for a slasher movie, especially
one that wasn't a big studio film.

So Poor Conquest kind of got left in the
lurch there and only wound up playing

about half the screens they were
planning on.

Although interestingly, if you did see
one of the original prints, which

originally, as you can probably guess,
it was cut to get an R rating. The

Wishbone scene in particular was pretty
significantly trimmed down.

It wasn't until later that we started
getting video versions from Mexico and

Japan and whatnot that we saw the full
cut of the film.

But it was one of the very first U .S.
releases that bore the new UFDC logo,

which you probably would have also seen
at the beginning of George Romero's Day

of the Dead.

They were kind of the George Romero
company. Dawn of the Dead was the

hit they had had and remained throughout
the company's history.

But they had also released things like
1990, The Bronx Warriors, Knight Riders,

Classic 1984, and Q.

But Dawn was the big one, and after Day
of the Dead, things kind of went

downhill, and they wound up being folded
into another company called Taurus

Entertainment. which is probably most
famous for horror fans as the company

did the U .S. release for Two Evil Eyes,
co -directed by, you guessed it, George

Romero and Dario Argento.

So everything comes full circle over and
over again here.

But Taurus is technically still around.
They did those awful sequels to

Creepshow and Day of the Dead out there,
but, you know, whatever.

So, yeah, that's the strange history of
the U .S. release of Conquest, and then

it hit VHS, and the rest is history.

Well, there you go. The Sleepaway Camp
connection is very interesting. One

wonders what Lucio Fulci thought of
Sleepaway Camp. I'm sure he had some

words to say about it after that.
Because this was, believe it or not, he

think this was going to be kind of his
ticket to another level of filmmaking.

Now, the films that he was doing in the
early 80s, primarily gory horror films,

that's what he became known for.

went to by choice it was it just kind of
happened once it happened he accepted

it it wasn't like he you know griped
about it a lot and you know was going

of his way to try and disassociate
himself from that sort of thing but

were not films that were generally very
successful in italy

Dario Ageno was one of the relatively
few Italian genre directors who made

that were very successful in Italy and
that also got theatrical distribution

throughout the rest of the world, at
least through the late 80s. Things

unfortunately, not for the better for
him after that. But he managed to build

a nice little business empire for
himself and was doing very, very well

the 80s.

Darker times came in the 90s, but, you
know, you can't ride the horse forever.

But like Mario Bava before him, his
films did better, you know, in the

international marketplace.

Movies like City of the Living Dead,
which was retitled over here as Gates of

Hell, for example, or obviously, you
know, Zombie, which was, you know, just

plain old zombie in the U .S. It didn't
need to be zombie, too.

They were much more successful here than
they were in Italy.

And I think Fulci was trying to get
himself to a place where his career, you

know, bearing in mind he's...

hitting middle age around this time.

He's really wanting to sort of keep up
with the younger guys, especially with

people like Argento.

And he's looking to sustain himself and
keep his career afloat. I think he was

also well aware of the fact that things
were changing in the Italian film scene.

The early 80s saw a big change with
regards to television.

television had a tremendously negative
impact on the Italian cinema scene. Most

people just started staying home and
watching for free instead of going to

cinema. So there were, you know, a lot
of Italian directors ended up going into

TV, including Fulci.

Argeno had dabbled in TV here and there
as well, but Fulci was obliged for a

period of time to make movies for the
small screen. Still incredibly gory

for the small screen, but he was doing
them nevertheless.

But people like Umberto Lenzi and
Lambert, and so forth, they were going

a lot.

And I think that Fulci saw this movie.

as an opportunity to kind of court a
little bit more of a mainstream success,

which is perversely funny to me because
obviously it's clear that he went out of

his way to make this as unfriendly for
the mainstream audience as possible.

This is a movie that I could see playing
very well for a bunch of stoned -out

college kids at 2 o 'clock in the
morning on a college campus.

But in terms of taking the kids to go
see the latest sort of sword and sorcery

movie, movie at the theater, with all
this rape and violence and scalpings and

people being torn in half and, you know,
everything's so diffused that you can

barely see what the hell's going on, you
know, was it almost kind of a self

-sabotage that he took it down this
road? I'm not altogether sure, but, you

know, things were definitely starting to
transition for Fulci during this period

of time and not in an entirely good way
as far as, you know, what was going to

happen with his career on the whole.

And it's a bit perverse, if you think,
because they're sort of aiming this for,

I guess, the You're the Hunter from the
Future crowd is what they were shooting

for, because that had gotten a big
studio release from Columbia right

this. But if you're going for that
audience and what you're delivering is

closer to like a Jodorowsky film, it's
in that realm. So I don't know why they

wouldn't promote it more as like a
midnight type film as well.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't
think, you know, I suspect if anybody

sitting in on the dailies when this was
coming through, and especially when, you

know, the first rough cut was presented
and everything, I suspect there were a

lot of people just sort of holding their
heads in their hands and just not

knowing what to do with it.

It was obviously a film that was aimed
at a specialized audience.

The people that get it, I hate to put it
that way, it almost sounds

condescending, but it's true. You either
respond to this or you don't. You

either appreciate it. for what it is or
you're just not going to be able to get

into it. And I know the first time that
I saw it, I didn't have the warmest

feelings in the world when I first saw
it.

A lot of Fulci's later films actually
really disappointed me when I first saw

them. It was only later on that I
started to look at them in context and

appreciate the arc and understanding why
his career was the way that it was and

why those later films were the way that
they were that I started to understand

them and appreciate them a little
better.

I will never come around to Demonia or
Ghosts of Sodom.

You say that now.

I say that now.

Maybe one day they'll put out a deluxe
Blu -ray of Ghosts of Sodom, but I don't

know that that will happen anytime soon.

Yeah, you know, but the others, for the
most part, I find them very interesting

and a lot more worthy than they're given
credit for, and that includes this

film. Now, this is a big -budget movie
compared to those later ones. This

actually, you know, there's some pretty
impressive scenery here. There was a lot

of location filming in Sardinia.

And, you know, with all the fog and all
the mist and everything else, but you

can still see that it's a movie that's
got a little bit of scope. It's not

entirely claustrophobic and hemmed into
one soundstage with just a few pieces of

scenery, for example.

And, yeah, the look of this film, you
know, is usually the big stumbling block

for people. But what's odd is I think in
a way it's almost ahead of its time

because if you look at a film like, for
example, last year we had the movie

Mandy. which people just went ape over
because they said it felt like they were

watching a live action heavy metal album
cover.

And it's like, well, that's what this
is. I mean, this is like watching a 90

minute prog rock album cover, you know?
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

So if you like Mandy, it's like this, I
mean, you could say this is like way

ahead of the curve almost because almost
any image in the film, you could freeze

that. I mean, like right here and there
you go.

We need to put that on the front of the
case. If you like Mandy, this is the

film for you.

But look, I mean, you've got these sort
of Chewbacca creatures here.

You know, are they aping Chewbacca? I'm
not sure.

But you have, you know, there are these
kind of weird sort of sci -fi and horror

elements that are in here. So you do get
a sense, it's kind of a everything but

the kitchen sink approach.

So let's put in some monsters.

Let's put in some gore. Let's put in a
little bit of...

Not really sex per se, but there's a
certain amount of eroticism involved

some of the, I was saying before, the
sort of drug -fueled vision sequences

where Sabrina Siani is laying on the
ground and sort of writhing around and

whatnot.

You know, there's a little bit of
everything, kind of something here for

everybody to appreciate.

But the very diffused look of it, the
very unusual look of it, you know,

this isn't what people are accustomed to
seeing. And I think that, you know, a

lot of viewers are kind. of trained over
the years to believe that there there

is a particular way a movie is supposed
to look and there's a particular way

that a story is supposed to unfold and
if it doesn't fit into that schematic it

is a failure and i don't agree with that
at all and i'm sure you don't either

definitely not uh this is why a lot of
these films i think that's why you know,

a lot of viewers gravitate to these
films because we get so tired of the

conventional mainstream approach, and so
to see something like this, which is so

utterly bonkers and off the wall, is
very refreshing.

I mean, say what you want to say about
the film, there's nothing else quite

it, even though it's part of a group of
movies, you know, that were saturating

the market at this time.

You know, you have all these, you can
toss into Conan the Barbarian and all

these other types of films as well.

You know, they all are part of a
particular movement, and yet this is the

duck of the bunch.

Oh, absolutely.

Since you mentioned eroticism, I think
it's curious that for some reason when

Fulci tries, when he handles things like
nudity and sexuality, and there really

isn't any full -on sexuality in this
film. I mean, there's sort of these sort

flickerings where you have nudity.

It's very removed, and a lot of his
films are that way. When there is

even in something like The Black Cat or
New York Ripper, it's definitely not

meant to be erotic.

It's almost anti -erotic in a way. I
think the only film I can think of

where he actually sort of succeeded in
creating a genuinely erotic air is

probably One on Top of the Other, which
is almost like an anomaly in his career.

Well, I would add in The Devil's Honey.

Yeah, well, The Devil's Honey, that's a
whole other beast.

Yeah. That's sadistic sexuality.

Yeah, that's dealing with S &M. As he
put it, with the loneliness of

sadomasochism. So it's a very somber and
sad film, but it does have its moments

that are genuinely erotic. Yeah.

Fulci wasn't a prude with anything,
really. I mean, that's one of the things

that really endears him to a lot of
people.

The people who love him love the fact
that he just didn't give a damn about

going where other people wouldn't go.

The ultimate example of that, of course,
is the splinter in the eye sequence in

Zombie. Most people would have cut away.

He taught that. He certainly went even
further than that in movies like The New

York Ripper, obviously, but there's a
question there. Did he go too far?

Not for me, he didn't. I understand what
he was trying to do, and I think he

pulled it off brilliantly, but a lot of
people find the...

The level of violence, especially
combined with the sexuality in that

should be very, very queasy stuff.

It's meant to be.

It's not an unintentional thing. It's
not like he didn't realize that people

were going to be provoked by that. He
liked to provoke.

And I think that's a constant throughout
his career.

If you go back to his really early
films...

that he was doing the early sort of rock
and roll musicals and comedies. They

all have their kind of anarchistic
streak to them. They're all kind of

their nose at authority figures and
things like that. But it wasn't really

he did a really fine Western with Frank
O 'Neill called Massacre Time, which is

also known as The Brute and the Beast.

that he really started to delve into
violence.

And he always seemed to have this
fascination, and we're going to see it

this movie as well. There's some
sequences later on where it's really

This fascination with, well, you can see
it right there, with the destruction of

the human body, kind of that emphasis on
the frailty of the human body and the

level of trauma that it can take.

He's almost like a little kid pulling
wings off of butterflies.

In a way, there's this kind of strange
fascination, which also, I think, in a

way goes back to his early training to
be a doctor.

I don't know how well -known that is
amongst a lot of people that Fulci

originally set out for a career in
medicine.

And the story that he always told was
that...

He was with a girl at the time that was
from

a well -to -do family, and she ditched
him because he didn't have any money.

And so he decided to go ahead and ditch
the medical study in favor of going into

film because he figured he'd make more
money that way. But then he said that he

ran into this woman later on when he was
working on, I think he was working on

An American in Rome, the film that Steno
directed with Alberto Sordi.

And he saw the girl getting out of a
limousine, and he went up to her and

out his hand, and she thought that he
was a beggar. So he said it didn't

do him any good, and he never got as
wealthy as he wanted to get. Although

period of time, he was doing very, very
well.

Through the 70s into the early 80s, I
think he had a very prosperous period.

And unfortunately, that all kind of came
crashing down right around this time,

actually. His health started to
deteriorate.

Unfortunately, he went through a very
bad period of time not long after this

movie, and the film started to suffer
accordingly.

Yeah, and this was kind of a strange
turning point in his career anyway

he had split from his longtime
screenwriter, and this is sort of where

tend to think of the classic Fulci
period as coming to an end. You know,

Manhattan Baby was sort of like the coda
to that.

And so you have to wonder if his health
hadn't deteriorated, where would he have

gone from there? Because you have things
like Murder Rock, for example, which I

think are very worthy films, but it's
obviously a bit different. The voice is

little different. The approach is a bit
different.

And so had he not had basically that
year in the wilderness health -wise, you

can only remember what could have been.

Yeah, that's true. I mean, Murder Rock
is interesting because in some respects

it's almost a kind of companion piece to
New York Ripper. They actually have

very similar thematic interests.

but it's almost like he was cowed by the
New York Ripper and all the

controversies that generated, so he
decided to make a giallo without any

So you have a movie where the murders
are committed with an ornate hat pin,

which is not the most colorful method in
the world, although it's different.

I really like Murder Rock. I think it's
a good film.

I think, unfortunately, for a lot of
people, the music is a stumbling block.

Although, again, I kind of like the
music myself.

But it's adorable.

You know, and that's not good for a
giallo, but yet at the same time it is.

And some of those songs really do, I get
their earworms. I get them into my head

and, you know, they just make me happy.

Keith Emerson, obviously a great
composer, did an extraordinary score for

Argento on Inferno, but Murder Rock,
probably not really one of his great

scores, but, you know.

Still, it's a much better film than a
lot of people give it credit for.

But then after that, through health
reasons,

he's having a bad time of it. He's not
able to work, although he very much

to and needs to because he has bills
that need to be paid.

And then he eventually comes back with
The Devil's Honey.

And from then on out, it's basically
making movies that are very, very

underfinanced. And an interesting
connection to this film and The Devil's

is actually the fact that apparently
they share the same cinematographer.

say apparently because the
cinematographer in question, his name is

Ulloa.

If you look at the credits on this film,
it's credited to Alejandro Alonso

Garcia.

To the best of my knowledge, that is a
nom de plume for Alejandro Ulloa.

Everything that I've found has indicated
that that's the case. I haven't been

able to find any other credits for an
Alejandro Alonso Garcia, so let's assume

that it's accurate.

If it's not, then somebody can top my
head off about it. But as far as I know,

Ulloa is the one who photographed this,
and Ulloa would also go on to shoot The

Devil's Honey. And much earlier, he had
shot One on Top of the Other or

Perversion Story for Fulci, which is one
of his most beautiful films. looking

films. Obviously, very, very good
cinematographer.

This film, you know, again, going with
the very strange aesthetic that it does,

people may not necessarily guess, you
know, what a world -class

he was, but if you look at a lot of his
other films that include, we did the

Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing Horror
Express, which is one of my all -time

favorite movies.

Oh, yeah.

Jeff Franco's Diabolical Dr. Z, and he
also did a bunch of Paul Nashy movies

like El Caminante, which I think is
Nashy's best film.

and Human Beasts and Night of the
Werewolf, amongst others. So a very good

cinematographer. I think there's some
very arresting imagery in this film, and

as usual, Fulci uses camera work very
expressively and very interestingly.

You can see here the usual zoom -ins on
people's eyes. He loved those close -ups

on people's eyes, and that's a stylistic
device that you see in a lot of his

movies. In fact, when I was this little
kid and didn't know who Lucio Fulci was,

The first full -length film I ever saw
was The Black Cat.

Oh, Lord.

They used to run that on the USA
Network, believe it or not, on Saturday

Nightmares.

A lot of noses.

Lots of noses. Well, you know what they
did, though, and I didn't understand

this at the time. I remember when I saw
it as a kid that every time they had

those close -ups, they were squeezed so
you could fit the eyes in. Otherwise, it

would just be close -ups of people's
bridges of their noses. And I couldn't

understand why everybody's faces were so
skinny.

I did not understand what that was all
about until much later.

But, yeah, Fulci, this is not one of his
widescreen films.

You know, this isn't. not in the 235
aspect ratio, but for my money.

If you want to talk in terms of people
who use widescreen really well, I'd put

him up there with Sergio Leone and John
Carpenter as far as use of the frame.

There's no wasted space in this either,
but this is obviously on a more intimate

scale, which is interesting because this
is a movie that has a lot of outdoor

shooting, a lot of locations.

It's kind of a movie that has a certain
scope and ambition in a way, so I kind

of wonder why they didn't shoot it in
235.

Yeah.

And it's interesting that you'll notice
when he does his scope films, he tends

to do some really fascinating things
with depth of field, for example,

especially if you look at something like
The Beyond or House by the Cemetery,

where it gets really extreme and
fascinating, whereas when he does films

are thought flat, like this one, it has
a bit of a different feel to it. This is

more like something like Lizard Woman
Skin, for example, or Four of the

Apocalypse, where it's more formally
framed.

It's more painterly, the way that he
shoots it.

He doesn't go quite as crazy with the
depth of field effects in this one.

Yeah, and as a stylist, I don't think he
tends to get the credit that's due to

him.

If you go back and look at a movie like
Perversion Story, he's doing things in

1969 that...

Brian De Palma got a lot of credit for
later on, you know, as far as split

screen is concerned and split diopter
and things like that. He's a very, very

interesting visual stylist.

I like the use of the foregrounding of
the grass here or the reeds, for

that kind of fixation on elements in the
scenery or elements within the frame to

kind of give it a little bit of extra
depth.

He had that very painterly sensibility.
You can see that in, you know, Pretty

much all of his films.

It's a little harder to see in some of
the later ones because they're a little

bit more sort of rough and ready, so to
speak.

But, you know, nevertheless, he was not
a hack.

And I really dislike it when I see him
described as such. I think it's easy to

dismiss. A director like Fulci, if
you've only ever seen a really butchered

of Gates of Hell or House by the
Cemetery, I seem to recall the House by

Cemetery, at least one transfer, the
reels were in the wrong order.

Yeah, the old veteran tape, yeah.

Yeah, that's right. That was how I first
saw it. And, well, you know, in a way,

can you tell? I don't know.

Wait, to the live again, what?

Yeah, yeah.

Very strange, although it still doesn't
explain why nobody bats an eye that

they're mopping up all that blood on the
floor at one point. But never mind.

I do it all the time. What are you
talking about?

Oh, well, you know, it happens.

It's just, you know, it's no big deal.

But, yeah, it's easy to see why if you
were watching really bad copies of

like that or even, you know.

Somebody who is renowned nowadays, like
a Sergio Leone, if you were going back

and just watching those panned and
scanned eyesores on TV back in the 80s

of Good, Bad, and Ugly and For a Few
Dollars More and so forth, the artistry

lost and the attention to detail in the
frame is lost.

And unfortunately, in Fulci's case, it's
been a long time coming that we've had

an opportunity to see

a lot of his best films being rescued,
but fortunately now they are being, and

lot of them are getting nice special
editions like this, and it's always

to have an opportunity to talk a little
bit about them and try to set the record

straight that he wasn't just this
imitative hack who pretty much just

what everybody else was doing and didn't
bring any of his own personality to it.

And it's interesting to see how much
love some of these films get now, just

beyond the ones that are, you know,
obviously the Beyond, of course,

became, you know, a classic thanks to
Tarantino re -releasing it. But films

this and Murder Rock, for example, you
know, when you say they're coming out on

Blu -ray, people are freaking out, and
people have actually grown to love these

films. Like, they're part of their DNA
now, which I think is fascinating.

And this is a side note, because that's
Winston Murder Rock, but I think one

similarity that's interesting is, since
he was following New York Ripper and he

decided to make a bloodless Jallo,

It's curious that he decided to take a
page from this film and make it far more

stylistically extreme.

New York Ripper is very naturalistically
shot. It's very gritty.

Whereas Murder Rock, I think, is more
like this. It's very diffused. And I

for God's sakes, in half the film, he's
flashing a strobe light right in your

face. It's really aggressive, which I
think is to compensate for the lack of

gore. He says, well, I'm going to
provoke the audience a different way. So

prodding you in your eye, not with
bloodshed, but rather just with the

look of the film itself, which I think
was an interesting choice.

Absolutely. Well, I've always thought
that Murder Rock was like he was taking

the antique shop murder scene in Bava's
Blood and Black Lace and expanding it to

feature length because it is that
flashing strobing light the whole way

And, you know, again, very deliberate. I
think, you know, it looks great. But

speaking of looking great, you know,
more emphasis on the kind of destruction

the body here.

the gross -out effects, and that's
something that he did very, very well.

I think, too, also because of his
background in medicine, that explains

it, that he has this sort of attention
to sort of seeping and oozing and sort

nasty, you know, kind of wounds and
things like that.

Franco Ruffini did the makeup effects on
this film, and he had actually worked

with Fulci already on City of the Living
Dead. He did some of the makeup effects

on that as well.

And he's another guy who doesn't tend to
get his due very much, but worked on

some interesting films. He did a very,
very good Damiano Damiani film called I

Am Afraid with Gian Maria Volante,
which...

If you haven't seen Seek It Out, it's a
great film.

He also did Sergio Martino's The
Scorpion with Two Tails, which should

confused with The Case of the Scorpion's
Tail.

Very different.

Very different, and I think most people
would prefer the 70s film, The Case of

the Scorpion's Tail, but whatever.
That's a big bet, yeah.

I would think so.

And he also did a film that you know
intimately as well, Lamberto Bava's

Fighter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Which also has an odd connection to this
film as well, in that Lucio Fulci was

supposed to make a film called Blast
Fighters, and that was largely

for his rift with Dardano as well. And
so, again, we can only wonder if he and

Dardano had stayed partners, or his
career would have gone after that. But

Fighters would have been a sci -fi film
that he would have made. Of course,

Fulci did make science fiction films,
which, again, are almost as crazy, not

quite as crazy as this film, but they're
definitely distinctly Fulci films.

Oh, yeah, definitely.

I think the funniest thing is that we
should probably talk about the score,

the funny thing is that Claudio
Simonetti, you know, who scored this

up doing, you know, there were two films
called The New Barbarians and The New

Gladiators that came out after this. One
was a Fulci film, the other was scored

by Simonetti.

And if you're not paying attention, you
can always confuse the two and think

that, you know, like, wait, why are
there two different films?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, well, speaking of Simonetti, he
obviously contributes a very good score

this film. It's one of the standout
aspects of the film that I suspect a lot

people who don't even necessarily like
the film like the soundtrack, which

entirely unusual.

He was interviewed for an upcoming book
that I'm working on about Dario

Argento's films.

which is to be called Murder by Design,
the Unsane Cinema of Dario Argento. Nice

little plug there.

And we asked him about working with
Fulci and what he thought of Fulci, and

basically said, couldn't tell you, I
never met him.

By the time the post -production got to
the scoring phase, Fulci had moved on to

Fresh Pastures.

I'm not entirely sure that that was
always the case with Fulci. I think that

would typically like to be involved.

But in this case, he had had a lot of
problems with Giovanni Di Clemente and

also with the Mexican co -producers.

Apparently there was some bad blood.

And in fact, Fulci, as I mentioned
earlier, was supposed to do another film

Di Clemente called Alibi.

And Fulci basically broke his contract
that he wouldn't work with him anymore.

And he got... sued by DiClemente,
although apparently DiClemente did not

Fulci didn't suffer anything as a result
of that lawsuit, but obviously they

never worked together again and there
was no love lost there.

Simonetti was picked to do the score,
obviously, because he was a big name at

the time.

He'd been part of Goblin, which shot to
tremendous success with the soundtrack

to Deep Red, Profondo Rosso, and, you
know, a rock star in the literal sense

the term. And this scene here, though,
just to interrupt briefly, looks very

much like something out of one of
Fulci's zombie movies.

Very atmospheric stuff here with these
kind of creatures coming out of the

water, very much...

Very much like zombie terrain.

He just couldn't escape that sort of
stuff, apparently.

But, yeah, Simonetti said that he did
not meet Fulci.

He never met Fulci, period, although he
did meet his daughter Antonella years

later.

basically worked with the producer on
scoring the film, delivered his music,

that was the end of it. It's a good
score.

It definitely works well for the movie
and helps to bolster the sense of

atmosphere.

It's not typical kind of adventure film
scoring, though, is it?

Definitely not.

It is almost more like kind of horror
film scoring in a way.

And it almost reminds me, it's almost
like Popol Vuh meets sort of Giorgio

Moroder meets Brian Eno meets Tangerine
Dream. It's very much in that mold.

And also it's interesting that Simonetti
was kind of in an odd place in his

career because he had left Goblin, you
know, the history of Goblin is very

tangled, but essentially sort of the
last real bona fide Goblin score to that

point had been Tenebrae, which was
actually credited to three of the

it's Goblin, you know, per se.

But Simonetti had gone off and had a
sort of a side career doing disco music.

which, of course, Disco died right
before this film came out. So he was

kind of finding his voice as a composer.

So it's not quite the Simonetti that we
know who jumped to the forefront with

Phenomena a year later. So if you listen
to this in New Barbarians, it's kind of

fascinating because you're hearing a
Simonetti that's not quite the Simonetti

that you know.

Yeah, that's definitely true. I mean, he
had left Goblin even earlier than that.

Obviously,

they did Deep Red and Suspiria and Dawn
of the Dead.

The Heroin Busters, the Castellari film,
did a great score for that. But then

there were a bunch of Goblin scores that
he wasn't involved in, like for the

Italian release of Patrick, for example,
or Intamination.

Yeah, exactly.

He wasn't involved in those.

There was a lot of bad blood between
them, and it pretty much remained so.

Even when they reunited to do Sleepless,
they didn't get along, and it was not a

happy experience, according to him. So,
yeah, at this point, he's definitely

coming. kind of finding himself, so to
speak, and developing his own sort of

signature solo style.

So this is not necessarily a
representative, emblematic score by him,

very good score, and it definitely adds
to the film. I wanted to mention this

scene, too, by the way. This is a nifty
little scene with the...

doppelganger. The villain has taken the
form of the hero.

And so we get this sequence, which kind
of reminds me a little bit of a similar

sequence in Mario Bava's Kill Baby Kill,
where Giacomo Rossi Stewart is chasing

himself through the scenery.

Except in that case, it's almost like a
cartoon. It's the same piece of scenery

over and over and over again.

Here, obviously, they're outdoors, and
it's an energetic fight sequence, but

there is something interesting about the
idea of this villainous character,

Zora, taking the form of the hero and
creating this kind of confusion, which,

you know, I don't know. Is it always
entirely clear who is who in this

or is it not meant to be clear? I leave
that to you to decide.

I wonder if there's a little dab of
Empire Strikes Back as well where Luke

Skywalker is fighting himself in the
cave dressed as Darth Vader as well.

That's true. That's true. I mean, that
was another thing that was very much in

the ether at the time. You know, the
success of Star Wars obviously inspired

whole slew of Italian science fiction
films as well.

So, Fulci did, as we mentioned before,
he dabbled in sci -fi. And around this

time, too, he had made a film called
2072 A .D. The New Gladiators, which...

It's an interesting film. It's
compromised by the fact that the budget

there for what they're trying to do, but
it's got a lot of good ideas.

Just to mention here, too, this
character, we never see his face, and

we don't even hear his voice on the
English track because it would be

but apparently played by a rather
distinguished actor by the name of

Martin.

And San Martin is probably best known to
Euro cult viewers for playing Inspector

Tanner in Jess Franco's The Awful Dr.
Orloff back in 1962. That was the...

the first sort of major Spanish horror
film.

He'd been around since the 1940s, and he
was in over 100 movies, well over 100

movies, obviously apart from working
with Jeff Franco on a couple of

You can see him in things like The
Colossus of Rhodes, which is Sergio

first official full -length film as a
solo director.

Just about everybody in Spain was in
King of Kings, so it's not surprising

in it.

But he also did Paul Nash's Beastman,
The Magic Sword, and José Ramón

Edge of the Axe. Perhaps appropriately,
his final movie was a remake of José

Ramón Larraza's best -known film,
Vampires, from 2015.

I read that he actually died at the age
of 98 just recently, as a matter of

fact, April 26th. So there you go.

Very prolific actor.

Anybody in the world could be under that
mask. I'm not going to lie to you.

There's no opportunity here for him to
stand out in the film.

But he is billed.

Obviously,

he is at least credited with doing the
film. But again, it's kind of a mystery

how somebody who was a little bit of a
name ended up playing that part.

We'll take their word for it, I guess.

Well, we'll have to, unfortunately.

I have nothing to the contrary to offer
on that particular topic.

I want to mention, too, about...

Andre Accapinti here.

Obviously, he's going to be departing
the film here in short order. I should

talk about him a little bit.

You know, he's kind of an interesting
guy. He's been active in movies since

late 70s.

As I mentioned earlier, he had been in
New York Ripper before this, so this was

his second time working with Fulci.

And he also played the lead role in
Lamberto Bava's

Jallo, Blade in the Dark.

He's in Miranda, the Tinto Brass movie.

Which is weird, because he's supposed to
be the lead in that, and he's only in

about a third of it.

Exactly, exactly.

But unfortunately, he's probably best
remembered for playing opposite Bo Derek

in Bolero, which earned him a Razzie
nomination as the worst new star. So not

very fair to him, unfortunately. But
more recent years, he's been working

successfully as a producer.

He's done everything from the American
version of...

funny game to Lars von Trier's
Antichrist, amongst other things. So,

he's had an interesting and eclectic
career.

He's actually dubbed on the English
track by an actor by the name of Steven

Luoto.

He's one of those voices that you know,
even if you don't know the name.

And if you're familiar with Al Capinti
in some of these other films, you'd be

forgiven for thinking that... That's his
real voice because he actually dubbed

him also in The New York Ripper and
Blade in the Dark as well as this movie.

he also did the voice for Mark Gregory
in those Enzo Castellari, you know, 1990

Bronx Warriors and Escape from the Bronx
movies.

And Christian Borromeo, he dubbed in
House by the Edge of the Park. A ton of

different movies. It's one of the things
I always like to try and...

mentioned in these tracks is the people
who did the dubbing because they don't

get their due. Obviously, they don't get
a screen credit, so you start to

recognize certain voices down through
the years.

certain voices become very heavily
associated with certain actors. I mean,

obviously, one that always comes to mind
for me is Nick Alexander with Al

Cliver.

You know, you'd be forgiven for thinking
that this Italian has a very thick

English accent.

It's still jarring to me when I hear Al
Cliver's real voice.

It is. I'm not used to it. It is. It's
very strange. And, you know, obviously

with these films, you know, there are...

sort of built -in caveats as far as the
dubbing is concerned. Sometimes the

dubbing is better than others.

I do think that at this stage, certainly
through the 80s, the quality of the

English dubs on most of these Italian
films was actually exceptionally good.

Just another note about Andrea Capenti,
because like you mentioned, he's going

to be departing soon, but he's a bit of
a fascinating figure in the Italian film

industry now because, as mentioned, he
was sort of kind of known as sort of a

pretty boy actor when he first started
out.

and his Americanized name on New York
River was Andrew Painter, which I just

find really amusing for some reason.

But he eventually decided that he wanted
to go into film production and

distribution, so he started his own
company, and he stole the founder and

CEO of it, called Lucky Red, and they
handle a lot of Italian films, but they

also handle things like Ridley Scott's
All the Money in the World, for example.

It's one of the more recent ones.

But they've put the money into films
like Open Your Eyes, for example, which

fantastic. A lot of Michael Haneke
films, like The White Ribbon, for

This Must Be the Place.

But he also made history because Luca
Pinti is openly gay, and he was the very

first film distributor to offer full
LGBT rights to all of the employees,

including maternity leave and child
benefits and that kind of thing. So he

quite the groundbreaker in Italy for
that.

Well, that's interesting. I didn't know
that. Yeah. So, yeah, put on him for

that one. Which I think brings us to the
other point we mentioned earlier, which

is the sort of odd homoerotic vibe that
runs through this film, but in a strange

way, because if this were a peplum, it
would sort of focus on the men's bodies,

but this doesn't really. Holstie, like I
said, even when he's trying to be

sexual, it's like the way that he shoots
the human body, it's very detached, and

he doesn't really focus on...

the men's looks that much.

If you look at like Miranda, for
example, it makes Roger Pinty much more

a sex figure than he is in this film
where he's just kind of a cute puppy

So there isn't really a normal kind of
sexual attraction in this film between

anybody. But yeah, there is this kind of
odd undercurrent. And he's got Rivero,

who's also...

Before this, he was a really big sort of
beefcake star.

I think his big international claim to
fame for mixing audiences that wound up

going wider was a film called The Sin of
Adam and Eve in the late 60s, where he

spends like about a third of the movie
butt naked.

So he wound up getting sort of a big fan
following there because they're like,

oh, my God.

So that was a big deal when he did that
film.

But Fulci doesn't really exploit that
with either of them, but he still has

kind of thing that's not really quite a
brotherly bond between them. It is,

especially when he...

I assume you've seen the films that are
going to ruin it, but when Ancavinte's

character dies and his essence
essentially starts getting carried over

burning him at the fire and sort of
absorbing his power, that's interesting

stuff.

So it's like they have this sort of
spiritual bond. It's not quite all

but it's not really quite friendship
either. It's something in between.

I'm not sure how you qualify it.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And, you
know, like you said, that is a big

difference with the Peplum films.
Obviously, the Peplum films, typically,

are much more scantily clad here.

I mean, you know, you've got lots of
leather and things like that, which, you

know, depending on your point of view,
that's a good thing or not. But

certainly, you know, there's...

It seems to come with the turf. It seems
to come with the terrain. And it's just

something that was very typical in the
Peplum films that there's always that

emphasis on, you know, clearly they went
through the trouble of getting these

people who had, you know, almost sort of
supernaturally extraordinarily well

-developed muscles and things like that.
They're not going to put them

underneath a lot of clothes and cover
them up. The idea is to sort of show

off as much as possible by having them
doing all kinds of, you know, feats of

strength. None more famous than Steve
Reeves, you know, with... with the

in Hercules.

So it kind of comes with the terrain. In
this movie, yes, it's definitely not as

foregrounded, but it's there a little
bit. I don't know. It could have been

something that the actors brought to the
table. I don't know. It might have been

something that Occupiente and Rivero
just amongst themselves kind of

as kind of a bit of business to kind of
give the...

to put a little bit more flesh on the
bone, so to speak.

That's entirely possible.

Or maybe it was something that Fulci
encouraged them to include as well. I

know for sure, but there is a sense of
they are sort of like brothers, but at

the same time...

there are these little bits of kind of
exchange looks between them.

And it definitely, it's there. It's one
of those things that, you know, film

theorists love to kind of, you know,
write dissertations on. You can go with

that and really develop that into
something if you want to, or if it's not

something that interests you, it's not
going to get in the way. It's just kind

of, it's there if you want to see it,
and it's not there if you don't, I

Yeah, it kind of reminds me of the
famous, well, now famous anecdote about

-Hur. where Gore Vidal and Stephen Boyd
realized they were kind of bored with

the material and so they invented this
whole sort of gay subtext for his

character in Charlton Heston but they
never told Charlton Heston about it so

you've kind of got two stories running
at the same time with one actor playing

it one way and the other playing it the
other way so it's like you can watch it

with the gay angle or not it doesn't
really matter either way but if you do

kind of makes the movie more fun and
just gives it an extra layer if you're

looking for it.

Oh, yeah, I agree. Well, of course, in
that case, too, you have, you know, very

conservative Heston, you know, finding
that out later on and denying it

strenuously and saying, no, that's not
true. And then Stephen Boyd, yeah, of

course, that's what we were doing. So,
yeah, it's funny how, you know, lack of

communication sometimes on a film set,
you know, people were playing very

different things. And, you know, Fulci,
his relationship with his actors in

general was ambivalent. I think some
actors really liked

him. Yeah, he's very inconsistent
depending from one actor to the other.

not across the board at all.

What's interesting, though, is a lot of
the people that I interviewed made a

point of saying, well...

He could be really nasty to people, but
he was never nasty to me.

There's a lot of stories about that.
And, of course, famously, because

wants to harp on the idea that Fulci was
misogynist, which I don't think is

entirely accurate. I think Fulci was
more of a misanthrope than anything

He was not nice to men.

No, he could be very mean to a lot of
different men, and a lot of men come to

very bad ends in his films, as we're
going to see here.

Poor Andre Accapinty.

Obviously, we're not spoiling anything.
If you're listening to us first, you're

just going about it the wrong way, so
you deserve to have it spoiled for you.

But it's just true that he was kind of
an equal opportunity sadist, I think.

But he was...

Let me put it this way. If he thought
you were taking it seriously and you

professional and you showed up and you
knew what you were doing and you didn't

cause trouble, he loved you.

But if you were a prima donna or if you
were lazy or if he got the impression

you only got the role because you were
sleeping with the producer.

then he would make your life a living
hell, and it just really depended.

Giovanni Lombardo Radice, for example,
was coming to City of the Living Dead

from having had a pretty distinguished
background as a theater actor.

Fulci was aware of that, and he
respected that.

Fulci respected the hell out of Richard
Johnson on Zombie. He knew that he was

an actor who'd done a lot of things on
stage and on screen, and he let him have

his head. He let him go and improvise
all those wonderful monologues about

everything that's going on on the island
of Matul.

most of which wasn't written.

Johnson was just kind of ad -libbing,
and Fulci loved it.

But if he had somebody who didn't know
what they were doing or who was causing

problems on the set, he would really lay
into them.

I think he also liked to test people,
and I had that happen with a lot of

I talked with, that they would kind of
start off on the wrong foot with him.

For example, Paolo Malco, who was in New
York Ripper and House by the Cemetery,

when he showed up in, I think it was
Boston, to do House by the Cemetery for

part of the location filming, Fulci was
very nasty towards him, very curt

towards him, and Malco eventually told
him, okay, I'm getting on the plane and

going back to Rome.

And Fulci liked that.

He threw it back at him. He let it be
known, I'm not going to stand here and

your whipping boy.

They ended up getting along beautifully.
As a matter of fact, Malco was his best

man at his, I think, his second
marriage, Fulci's second marriage. And

you know, great close personal friends
with him and remained very close with

him. So it wasn't that Fulci was, you
know, a horrible person that, you know,

was impossible to get to know or to
like, but he could be tricky. I don't

that I would have liked interviewing him
because I've heard some bad stories

about, you know, how changeable his mood
was. could be and uh you know depending

on what day of the week you caught him
uh even al cliver told me that that

was the type of person if you saw him in
public he would either greet you with

open arms or act like he had no idea who
you were.

He was kind of a tricky guy, but on the
set he demanded absolute professionalism

from everybody, including his crew, and
he was very loyal to his crew members,

and you'll see a lot of the same names
cropping up in his movies over and over

again because if he knew that somebody
was capable of doing good work, he would

hold on to them as best he could. On
this film, for example, you have

Tomasi as the supervising editor.

I'm not sure if that's a token credit
because of the Spanish -Mexican co

-financing, and they needed to credit a
Spanish and Mexican editor, and Tomasi

really did the editing. I'm not entirely
sure, but his name is on the film.

And all told, he edited 17 films for
Fulci between 1970 and his death in

so that tells you something.

Prior to Vincenzo Tomasi, Fulci worked a
lot with a female editor, speaking of

equal opportunity. female editor,
Ornella McKellie, who edited 16 of his

between 1963 and 1978.

So, you know, again, he gravitated more
towards the technical people, obviously.

Cinematographers like Sergio Savati,
editors like Vincenzo Tamati, composers

like Fabio Fritzi and Rizzo Talani.

Simonetti did this film, of course. This
was the only film that he did for

Fulci, but nevertheless.

A lot of the technical people he would
bring back again and again. The art

director on this film, too, is another
one that did a lot of films for Fulci.

That's Massimo Lentini.

He'd gone back all the way to Challenge
to White Fang in the mid-'70s and did a

lot of movies with him.

This was, I believe, the last film that
he did with Fulci. But he also worked on

The Beyond and The Psychic and a bunch
of really good films.

So, yeah, I mean, very loyal to his
crew.

as far as actors were concerned, if you
could deliver the goods and you didn't

challenge him or give him a hard time,
he could be very loyal to them as well.

You hear a lot of horror stories about
him on the set.

And I think one of the things about
him... Oh, I was going to say, one of

things that was also true about him was
that he apparently was a bit of a slob.

He was known for not really caring what
his appearance was like, and he was

known to often look as though he was
very rumpled.

But there was a very interesting
contrast there because he was a very,

-read intellectual man.

He was not stupid.

He was very well -versed in literature
and in art and music, and so he was a

music fan. As a matter of fact, early on
in his career, he had actually co

-written a couple of very popular songs.

And so he was a man of many talents, but
very well -read, very intelligent man.

He did not care what he looked like,
though. And he was always very super

-focused on what he was doing on the
set. So sometimes a bit lacking in his

social graces, I think, comes with that.

But, you know, people told me about how
he would just...

He would get so animated, he would just
be sort of slobbering all over the place

sometimes, or he'd dribble coffee out of
his mouth.

David Warbeck said that he used to like
smoking a pipe, and sometimes he was so

into what he was doing that he put the
pipe upside down so he'd always be

catching his shirt on fire.

You know, things like that. He was an
eccentric.

Clearly. And the people who liked him
liked him a lot, were very, very loyal

him. But some people did not like him at
all.

And obviously those people were the ones
who tended to only work with him once

or twice. They didn't get an opportunity
to really know him.

But a very blunt man, too. If you ever
see any interviews with him or read

interviews with him, you can't take
everything that he says at face value.

is a certain amount of embellishing.

in terms of what he says, but he was
definitely his own man, and he was

very, very proud.

And I think even though he would say, I
don't care what the critics think of me,

deep down inside I think he did. I think
he wanted his work to be recognized and

to be given a certain amount of
validation, which unfortunately was not

forthcoming. Like we were saying before,

there was just this tendency to dismiss
him as a hack because he was making a

certain type of movie, and most critics
just couldn't be bothered to really look

at the work. seriously and try to give
it some kind of a proper appreciation.

Yeah.

What's interesting is that, well, first
of all, I guess it wasn't toward the end

of his life, I think, that he realized
just how huge his fan following was in

the U .S. I'm glad at least he had some
inkling of that.

It's interesting that his name actually
was recognized in the U .S. to an extent

when this came out among film critics.
If you read the reviews, they're pretty

dismissive, but they definitely knew who
Fulci was. I guess they had to see a

lot of his films. But Hollywood Reporter
and Variety, for example, were very

familiar with him, even though they
weren't crazy about this particular film

whatever. But it is curious.

On a related note, since you're working
on a book on Argento, I think it's odd

that Argento...

became known very quickly as sort of a
major pop culture personality mainly

thanks to things like you know during
the darkness for example or later short

-lived show jalo but he's almost i hate
to try out the hitchcock comparison but

he almost did try to be like that sort
of a name that people would know and his

faith whereas doesn't seem like even
though fulci made cameos in his film um

here and there but it doesn't seem like
he really wanted to be that kind of

person do you have any idea why or

Well, I'd say, first of all, what a
missed opportunity for him not to have

played one of the Beastmen in this film.

You know, it is interesting.

There is a big difference in their
personalities, and you can see a big

difference in their personalities in
their films.

Fulci's films are fire and brimstone.
They're very passionate. Argento's films

are much more sort of studied and cool
and aesthetic.

They're both made very visually
interesting and frequently beautiful

very, very different.

And Argento...

up in this period as well, didn't really
do gross -out movies.

More so the movies he produced, like
Demons. Those were gross -out movies,

he didn't direct those.

His films didn't really go for that
until later.

Argento's later films are much more
Fulci -esque.

Well, Phenomenon, I think, is the first
one that felt very Fulci -ish.

Yes, there is that. That's true. That
was a movie that kind of went... That's

such an unhinged movie that was almost
an anomaly at that time.

But later on, movies like Mother of
Tears, for example, are very Fulci

some respects.

Not good Fulci -esque, but there is a
Fulci -esque component to that.

Fulci wasn't shy about being on camera.
Even earlier in his career, you can see

him as a young man in some of the films
that Fennel made, for example.

He has little acting roles in some of
those movies.

He showed up in a lot of his movies in
cameo roles.

Obviously, ended his career.

One of his last films, Cat in the Brain,
or Nightmare Concert, he ended up

playing the lead role in it, apparently
only because the actor that was

contracted to do it didn't show up.

At least that's the story.

I don't know if I buy that or not, but
that's the story he always told. I can't

imagine with anyone but Fulci in it.

Well, take him out of the film and it's
worthless.

I hate to say that, but that's what's
interesting about it because it's such a

grab bag of kind of clips from random
movies and not amongst his best films

either that if you took him out of it,
you know.

But I couldn't see a Mario Bava doing a
movie like that. I couldn't see him

putting himself on camera like that
because he didn't like to be on camera.

Fulci was not shy about that.

I don't know. I think he aspired to
establish that kind of a bond with

the audience, but he didn't quite. I
think it's partly a generational thing

an extent, because Argento was a young
guy, and he kind of had his finger on

pulse of what was popular at that time.

in terms of, you know, you can't imagine
Lucio Fulci going and licensing Iron

Maiden music to be in one of his films.

But Argento understood that. He
understood where the audience was at and

their interests were and everything, and
he just formed that connection. And by

going on TV and doing Door to Darkness
and, you know, kind of playing up that

Hitchcock comparison, even though
they're very radically different

he was able to establish a bond with the
audience. that Fulci was never quite

able to. I don't know that Fulci wasn't
interested.

I just don't know that he, well, it
could also just be the fact, let's face

the man was a little bit socially
maladjusted.

And it could be that he just didn't
quite understand how to play that and

capitalize on that, which is a shame.
But as you say, at this time, because of

the success of the films in the
international marketplace, he was a

commodity.

The bloom was coming off the rose around
this time, and things weren't going to

get any better anytime soon, that's for
sure.

But yeah, at this stage, he was still a
known filmmaker, but not to the

extent... But, you know, another thing,
too, Argento has that very unusual look,

doesn't he? He always kind of had that
kind of Edgar Allan Poe quality to him.

He looks like a guy who makes spooky
movies.

Lucio Fulci was just kind of an ordinary
-looking middle -aged guy, you know? So

I don't think that he had that going for
him either.

Also, we should probably mention that,
again, the plot turn that we've taken

here is highly unorthodox. I can't think
of too many other films that have tried

to pull this off.

at the risk of spoiling two really big
80s films that I hope you've all seen.

don't hate me if I've ruined it for you.
But the only other two films I can

think of around the time that pulls
something this audacious would be

Friedkin's Live and Die in L .A., where
you have one of your two heroes get his

head blown off ten minutes before the
end of the film, just like this one.

And then, of course, The Hitcher, where
you have your heroine gets killed right

before the end of the film. So I don't
know what was going on in the mid -80s,

but for some reason they decided they
were going to be really ruthless and

slaughter their main characters really
graphically before the climax of the

film.

Which, it's a bizarre choice, and I
think that's one reason why these films

linger with you, because they take these
sudden U -turns, and it's still pretty

shocking stuff.

I mean, you just don't think it's going
to happen this way.

Nowadays, very few filmmakers would have
the audacity to do something like that.

I can think of Scorsese, for example,
with The Departed, some of the things

happen in that film as you get into the
last act where people are getting their

heads blown off left and right, and it's
quite shocking, and it doesn't

necessarily go the way you expect it to.

This period of time, filmmaking was, I
think, a little bit more experimental

a little bit more willing to take
chances and take risks.

Whereas now, I dare say the big part of
the problem is everything is so

massively overproduced.

There's so much money on the line with
every single film that they just can't

afford to take those kinds of risks.

A movie like this could get away with
doing strange things, and let's face it,

as we're seeing here, as this bow is
going over the landscape, it's doing a

of strange things.

But there's not a lot of money to be
lost here, and I think the mentality

some of these movies, too, was that,
let's be honest, as long as there's

sales, they're going to make a little
bit of a profit.

And by having Fulci's name on it at this
time... It was a guarantee enough that

there was going to be some money, you
know, made in the process of selling

movie. So, yeah, I mean, it's not a
movie that got by on name value in terms

big name actors. Although, again, you
know, Jorge or George Rivero.

had had a certain amount of success and
was well -known. Obviously, in America,

it would have been relatively well
-known to audiences because he was in

Lobo for Howard Hawks and, of course,
Midnight Blue.

So those were films that he was familiar
with, audiences would have been

familiar with. But it was really more
sold as a Lucio Fulci film than as a

George Rivero film, for example, I
suspect.

And now even this ending here is also
not what you expect. You expect to have

this sort of long, satisfying final
demise for your villain, and it's not

what you get.

No, she turns into a dog. Yeah, it's
like, wait, what?

It's strange. I remember having to, you
know, even seeing it again, I had to

rewind it a bit and think, wait a
minute.

Did I miss something?

Sabrina Siani, I should mention, who
plays this character, and we're going to

getting a look at her face, but of
course it's not her face. The red

there probably helps obscure what looks,
frankly, a little bit like a joke store

mask, but nevertheless, a lot of the
effects and makeup in this film are very

well done. I like that contrast, though,
between the kind of beautiful physique

with the horrible face. It kind of
anticipates you a little bit. I guess

could say the Argento -directed Masters
of Horror Jennifer.

There's a lot of emphasis placed on
that, of course, based on a comic strip

that case. But she had been around since
the late 70s and had done a lot of

roles like this, which really required
her to walk around a lot without her

clothes on.

In addition to this movie, I think a lot
of people might remember her for the

Jeff Franco movie White Cannibal Queen.

which was also cannibalized itself for
another cannibal movie called Cannibal

Terror.

And, you know, she's an Umberto Lanzi's
daughter of the jungle and did a couple

of Joe D 'Amato movies, including a tour
of the Fighting Eagles. So, yeah, it's

kind of a familiar face in movies like
this. But, yeah, there you go. I mean,

the villains are reduced to animal form,
and that's...

all that happens to them, and it doesn't
seem that bad to me.

Yeah, it's kind of refreshing in a way,
because, again, like I said, this movie,

it never quite works the way you think
it will, and I think that's why a lot of

people either love it or hate it. I
mean, it is so off the beaten track that

really sticks in your brain, for better
or worse. I think very much for better,

personally. Oh, I would agree.

I mean, again, it's not top -tier Fulci.
I'm not going to argue that it's a

neglected masterpiece or anything like
that, but I think it's a very

film.

I think that it's a movie that, for many
years, it's suffered from bad

transfers, and now, obviously, with this
Blu -ray, people can actually kind of

see what's going on.

Again, I don't know how good the HD will
be able to cut through all the fog, but

nevertheless, you can kind of get the
impression of what's going on. It's just

good movie to put on and enjoy.

And just let the images wash over you.
It's a fairly immersive film in that

sense. If you can get into it, it's well
worth watching.

It's been a lot of fun sitting here
talking about it with you. It's

movie we both enjoy.

So, yeah, there you go. Very much.
Thanks for listening, everybody.

This has been great. And thank you,
Troy.

And thank you.