shoesncandles

Let me start by saying that my initial review was uncharitable at best, and in a completely wrong context. Time to fix that.

If this had been my introduction to his work, or 'Don't Torture A Duckling,' or literally any of his movies but 'The House By The Cemetery,' I would have warmed to Fulci much sooner than I did. He knows his brand, and sticks to it like a pointy object to an eyeball in his signature style of gore. His footprint in the genre is undeniable, from 'The Dead Hate The Living' to the 'Terrifier' franchise. All that commands a certain level of respect, one I couldn't grasp the first time around.

You have to meet this thing where it's at: the work of a filmmaker so in his groove that he seizes the opportunity to go absolutely nuts. The movie is jam-packed with indulgent unrealistic "gore" effects, eyeball carnage, questionable plot points, an iconic Argento scene reproduced badly and for too long, all followed by an expectedly puzzling ending.

It's a decent setup, a woman inherits a hotel in Louisiana, and finds it's haunted. Bloody chaos ensues. A classic trope ripe for Fulci's maximalist approach to the genre. And boy does he deliver everything you'd expect from him.

The one paragraph I will leave in here is this: From a technical, traditional perspective, and looking at 'The Beyond' in a vacuum as I did at first, Fulci seems to have NO idea how to build tension or suspense. It's like he thinks that the longer he draws out the buildup to a kill, the more suspenseful it is, and the longer he draws out a kill, the scarier it is. In reality, all it does is leave you so bored with the buildup that you don't care about the kill anymore, and so bored with the kill by the time the character actually dies that you can barely remember how it's supposed to serve the plot...

...but having seen his giallo works, I can only conclude that this is on purpose. For some reason. It's not that he can't do these things, he did them quite well in 'Don't Torture A Duckling.' But when it comes to horror, he just ... chooses not to. I don't get it, but his hard-core fans regard it as part of the charm, in which case I have to say it does what it's supposed to in tremendous fashion.

I sometimes find the Argento rips annoying, but I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? It's certainly true of this movie and 'Terrifier'--watch them in chronological order and you'll recognize the scene I'm referring to.

All in all, I'm actually glad I watched this thing. It's not really my style, but it's given me an appreciation for the genre as a whole that I didn't have before, and for the legacy he left behind. I wouldn't have "gotten" the end of 'The Dead Hate The Living' without it. I wouldn't have enjoyed 'Terrifier' half as much as I did. It's made my experience as a horror freak richer.

I would definitely class it as essential viewing, which is why I've given it 8 stars--the two I knocked off are just pet peeves. If you know what you're getting into, it's a hell of a ride. If you want to apply 'Night of the Living Dead' standards to it... well. The sign says "Do Not Entry."

That second star is for Stephen, who was the one character that made this monstrosity slightly bearable. Not that he's much of a character, but at least his particular brand of idiocy is the sort that draws a grudging smile out of a horror fan. He certainly has the best lines of anyone in the movie. A car in a horror flick that can only go forty miles an hour is a new one on me, and kind of funny.

Also mildly hilarious is the fact that the convenience store is clerked by a Justin Bieber look-alike.

Apart from that, there is absolutely nothing to see here. The gore gets points for being the right color, texture and coming with a minimum of stupid slurpy noises... it LOOKS better than average, but the killer and the director screw it up by not really seeming to understand how a knife is actually used. (But then, I like for the execution in excessive gore to make SENSE if at all possible--helps justify it. What can I say, I'm picky.) People who only care about the blood'n'guts bit will like it well enough.

The plot is virtually non-existent; the heroine, while not unlikeable, has no personality and is impossible to give a crap about; the acting is god-awful even by horror's already-low standards; the characters' decisions are stupid even by horror's already-low standards... and possibly worst of all, the final confrontation with the killer sickeningly reminds one of the one in "The House By The Cemetery."

Nasty... just nasty.

That's right. You heard me.

Almost everything important in this movie happens off-camera. The problem with these "real-life" style horror flicks is that the presence of the camera has to be explained. The only way the makers of 'Infection' could think of to get a "real" camera into their movie was to use the dashboard camera of a police car. The problems with this choice should have been immediately apparent--the middle of a car's dashboard can't follow a principal character around. A police car can't bob and weave through buildings, can't hide in bushes, can't investigate strange sounds in an abandoned warehouse or flee to the roof and fail miserably at trying to escape via helicopter, can't do about 80% of the "required" activity in a successful zombies-are-coming-to-eat-you flick. It's just too limited. Even COPS doesn't rely ONLY on dashboard cameras. Why the makers of 'Infection' thought they could do it is beyond me. You're so desensitized to everything by the time hand-held cameras finally DO come into play toward the end, it doesn't even have an effect.

The "skipping" footage doesn't help matters. For the feed to cut out just when what IS visible starts to get good doesn't make it extra scary, it just makes it frustrating.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of "less is more." Best thing about 'Paranormal Activity?' The power of suggestion. But the power of suggestion ALONE is not enough to carry a good horror film.

Even with an "A for effort," I can only justify giving this flop three stars. Recommended only for those who can't handle the real scares in something like '*REC' or 'Paranormal Activity.'