aka Quando Alice ruppe lo specchio, When Alice Broke the Mirror
Good or bad, I love Lucio Fulci's work. I actually watched TOUCH OF DEATH after CAT IN THE BRAIN-- one of Fulci's last (and one of his best) films that uses most of the great gore footage from TOUCH OF DEATH. I have to say, watching TOUCH OF DEATH after CAT IN THE BRAIN was like watching a really good movie trailer, then going to see the movie, and realizing that all the best scenes were in the trailer. Never the less, TOUCH OF DEATH isn't all bad, it has some good points. Seeing as though this is a Fulci movie from the '80's, I wasn't expecting much. It helps to watch a movie with low expectations sometimes.
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The star of the movie is Brett Hasley, infamous b-movie/TV actor who is also in Fulci's TASTE OF HONEY (which is a better movie IMO), DEMONIA, and some of you MST3K fans may remember him as 'Big Stupid' (Bix Dugan) from the GIRL IN LOVER'S LANE episode. Hasley plays a man named Lester Parson ("Like person, but not quite"), a sociopath gambling addict with a split personality, and a three time loser. He swoons ugly rich widows, kills them (he even eats one of them--in the bad way), and takes their money, only to gamble it all away—thus, he has to keep killing to get out of debt (thank god for debt consolidation companies!).
The beginning of the movie shows Hasley preparing a steak and eating it, even sharing some with his cat, all while pleasant classical music plays in the background. We soon learn that the steak comes from a dead woman's rump in his basement. We watch as he joyfully hacks off her limbs with a chainsaw, then turns her into ground chuck, and feeds the scraps to his pigs. A horrid description, but Hasley's nonchalant face makes it comical. Yes, TOUCH OF DEATH is a dark, dark…dark comedy. I for one can appreciate a dark comedy, if someone make something taboo, seem funny, I say go for it. The movie made me chuckle in a couple scenes. The 2nd victim, with her sideburns, moustache, and hairy moles on her boobs was some Farrelly brothers-esque gross-out comedy for sure. She was harder to look at then the gore scenes.
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Lester kills 3 women (the 2nd being the most brutal, and one of the scenes that appears in CAT IN THE BRAIN) and on the third, he slips up. A bum sees Lester dispose of the body. He ends up running over the bum with his car. Somehow the bum lives (the guy's torso was basically torn in two, how the hell did he live?--comedy!), and is able to give a description to the police. Lester has to change his appearance a couple times in the film to stay on the run. He ends up hooking up with a 4th rich widow, who is not that bad looking if it wasn't for a hideous scar/thing on her upper lip (it's pretty nasty). Lester keeps on playing the horses and losing and when he can't do that, he loses in a poker game---to his own bookie! The guy is a born loser, so you should be able to figure how he ends up.
TOUCH OF DEATH was a made for Italian cable TV movie, and it shows, big time. Fulci needs a bigger budget to make his visions truly come to life, and when he doesn't, you get movies like this, SWEET HOUSE OF HORRORS, and SODOMA'S GHOST--low-budget schlock. Still, the power of Fulci compels, and the acting talent of Hasley, keep this from being a complete shit bomb. The movie has some great gore, and actually, a half descent plot. With a little more time, effort, and money, it could have been a classic. It just seems like, Fulci kind of gave up in the 80's, and just made movies to get by---that being said, he was still a hell of a talented director, and even in his crappiest movies, he shines as a director.
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The movie does start strong with some brutal gore splatter. The opening chainsaw scene is gruesome, but the beating, and 'cooking' of the 2nd victim is one of Fulci's best. He first tries to poison her (one of the funniest scenes), but her drunkenness fowls up that plan so he decides to club her to death. He beats her head so brutally, her eye pops out, but she's not dead yet--comedy! She manages to run away again, but he catches her, then stuffs her head into the oven.
The next victim's death is lame, and she just gets choked to death--leading to the downward spiral of the film. The last half of the movie really flops, and it commits the #1 sin of Rev. Phantoms 10 Commandments of a B-Moviedom—Thou shall not be boring! Yes, I was bored in the last third, luckily it picks up at the end—only to fizzle out...godammit, Fulci!
Fulci's cheeky touches, Halsey's performance, and the goretopia of the first quarter of the film, still make it an hour, and a half well spent--comedy! Not Fulci's best by any stretch of the imagination, but I've seen worse (AENIGMA, I'm looking at you).
TOUCH OF DEATH trailer