Divina Obsessão

Lucio Fulci's name has become synonymous with gore; and that is unfortunate, as there's so much more to the great Italian director than just splatter flicks. The four pre-Zombi 2 Giallo films that Fulci made prove this, and there's enough other gems dotted throughout the man's filmography that go a long way towards proving it further; The Devil's Honey being one of them. This is a surprisingly restrained film considering the more famous Fulci flicks, although the lack of gore is somewhat made up for in nudity; as this film is certainly not short on that front. The first twenty minutes aren't a far cry away from being a porn film, and it's not until the first plot point that we realise Fulci does have actually have a story to tell. The plot follows a young man who has an accident (which is completely his own fault) and ends up on the operating table of Doctor Simpson, a man tormented by his nagging wife and questionable manhood. After the young man dies, poor old Doctor Simpson begins receiving irritating phone calls from a woman repeatedly asking why he let the man die. Before long, he finds himself the captive of the vindictive female.

It has to be said that the story plays out well, and while it's not exactly plot heavy; Fulci does a good job of keeping the sexual tension high, and that is highly beneficial since it's the main point of the movie. The film is bound to appeal to sadists and feminists alike, as much of the movie features the young women exacting her revenge on the man she blames for the death of her lover. The main intrigue comes from the relationship between the two leads, as although their acquaintance is based on hatred; they soon develop a perverse love for one another. Perhaps the most surprising thing about this film is the fact that the love doesn't come across as contrived! Fulci sets up the characters so well that it's easy to see how and why this relationship transpires as it does. The only real problem with the film is that Fulci spends a little too much time with flashbacks between the girl and her dead lover, and this takes the focus away from the girl and the doctor, which should always be kept at the forefront of the film. However, The Devil's Honey works well in spite of that and overall this little thriller is well worth seeking out! I'd also like to give a quick mention to the poem that the movie takes its title from, as like the rest of the film - it's rather good!

Lucio Fulci's films are not known for their great scripts, and indeed the storytelling in "Devil's Honey" is often sloppy and the ending is weak. They are known for their gore (almost completely absent here), and their directorial flair (some of which is present here). Of course this is a rather atypical outing for Fulci (his answer to "9 ½ Weeks", perhaps?), and it works mostly thanks to Blanca Marsillach's surprisingly good performance: she's a beautiful young woman with a perfect body who walks around in the nude a lot, but beyond her looks she gives more depth than you'd expect to her character, making her innocent and curious (and easily aroused!) at first, sadistic and vengeful in the second half (I loved those little smirks that showed how much pleasure she got from her power over her male captive), but always very human underneath. Although she is 3rd-billed, make no mistake: she is the star of this film (2nd-billed Corinne Clery has a relatively small part, but she DOES get fully nude as well!). This is why this erotic thriller is so much more "erotic" than "thriller": who wouldn't want to be captured by a woman like Blanca and become her plaything? **1/2 out of 4.

Also known as Dangerous Obsession,this movie was intended to be Lucio Fulci's comeback after more than a year of dealing with hepatitis. It's a return to the giallo (or at least sexually related drama) that he was creating in the early 70's instead of the gore that he'd become infamous for throughout the 80's, but when you're dealing with Fulci, you know you're going to get something certifiably insane and also something that doesn't fit into any set category.

The film opens on Johnny playing that tender, tender saxophone that the ladies love so much. And no one loves it more than Jessica, his woman, who runs into the booth to lick the spit off his lips rather than let him wipe it himself. Johnny responds by fondling her in front of the engineers and his band, who are all like, "Brah, you gotta get outta here with that noise." Instead, Johnny kicks everyone out and he takes her right in the middle of the studio, against her protests, telling her that he is her master and that everything he loves is in her. She argues that he doesn't want her, only a piece of her, and Johnny responds by playing sax music directly into her woman parts. Honestly, I don't even know if this is physically possible, but it's one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen in a movie. It's like Fulci was upset he couldn't just cut out someone's eyeball, so he decided to do the most ridiculous sex scene possible.

You know how you get jaded and say, "I've seen everything?" Well, I'm here to tell you that you haven't until you watch The Devil's Honey.

Unbeknowskt to our lovers, everyone was in the booth watching. They blame Jessica for distracting Johnny, so she leaves for the bar.

We cut to a Dr. Wendell Simpson (Brett Halsey, Return of the Fly, Demonia) being stripped of his scrubs after a successful surgery. He calls to tell Carol (Corinne Clery, who of course is Kala from Yor, Hunter from the Future), his wife, that he will be late. And why is he late? Because he's visiting Anna, a prostitute, a fact that his wife knows only too well. He's obsessed with work and finds it hard to concentrate on anything. Well, that is until she tries to fix a run in her stockings with red nail polish — something no human being has ever done before in the history of human civilization. The doctor responds by rubbing that red nail polish all over her face before taking her violently and quickly, then he pays her to leave, as she calls him a monster.

Honestly, Fulci stages a sex scene like he stages a spider eating off someone's face.

Carol catches the doctor leaving the prostitute's apartment, just as we move back to Johnny and Jessica on a roller-coaster. They're fighting, because there's a thin line between love and hate. They lick faces as the coaster goes up and down the hills, which is intercut with Caol lying in bed, unfulfilled as the doctor sleeps.

Just when you think Fulci is going to back off on the insanity, we have Johnny and Jessica on a motorcycle, where he forces her to fondle him while he races the bike faster and faster until they nearly hit a car.

Ladies — if you're into dudes wearing Cosby sweaters, tight jeans and brown leather, Johnny is the man for you.

They head back to their house, where they make love while Dickey from The Beyond barks outside their door. Afterward, Jessica sits outside, angry. Seriously, her mood swings seem like a red flag, but I'm 45 and not a famous saxophone player. I can see these things a little better.

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I've seen overall 30 Lucio Fulci's movies, horror and non-horror, and have to admit that Devil's honey did surprise me. Many people doesn't like this one, because it's so different than Fulci's better known splatter-movies, but I have to disagree with that. Even though movie differs very much maestro's earlier works like for example Zombie flesh-eaters, Beyond, City of the living dead or even notorious New York ripper, doesn't make it bad. Sure there's different kind of elements involved this time, but movie is still worth to watch.

Basically Devil's honey, as it is titled in most English language countries, is a story of a love and disappointment, which leads eventually to a kidnapping and a torture. It's a story of a disappointed young woman, who kidnaps a doctor who failed to save her boyfriend and who tortures the doctor to the limits to get her satisfactional punishment. There's some sadomasochistic elements involved too, because doctor falls in love with his torturer and starts to enjoy his punishment. Many people see this as a main thing in this movie, but it isn't. Although the story behind the torturing is very simple and little twisted (like many other Fulci movies too), sadomasochism isn't playing the leading role here.

I'll give Devil's honey 8/10 just because it's nice to see that Fulci can handle this kind of erotic thriller as well as his earlier horror flicks. recommended.

Devil's Honey, The (1986)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Bizarre film for Fulci sees him in more of a Jess Franco type of territory. In the film, a woman (Blanca Marsillach) loses her mind after the death of her boyfriend. Even though it was his fault, she blames the doctor (Brett Halsey) who was operating on him when he died. Soon the woman kidnaps the doctor and plans to torture him both physically and sexually. This certainly isn't the type of film you'd expect someone like Fulci to make especially during this period in his career. Throughout this decade we were getting non-stop violence and gore but that's all cut out here and in its place is non-stop nudity and bizarre sex scenes. The first twenty-minutes of this film features one sex scene after another and it appears they each get more and more bizarre. Fulci's THE NEW YORK RIPPER was pretty perverse but so is this film and that includes a scene where the boyfriend "satisfies" the woman by putting his trumpet up to her private parts and playing. The sex scenes never reach the hardcore stage but Fulci handles them pretty well, although he never quite reaches a full erotic mode. The biggest problem for me was the actual screenplay and the entire revenge aspect. One could compare this film to Franco's SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY but that movie worked a lot better because we understood the woman's need for revenge. That's not the case here for a couple of reasons. The first being that the man is a complete jerk to her so we really don't care when he dies. The second reason is because the woman is simply blaming the wrong person for his death. There's no way around that and it's hard to buy into anything she's doing because you simply don't agree with her. Halsey, a soon to be Fulci regular, does a pretty good job in his role but there's no question that the film belongs to Marsillach who really digs deep into her character. The two work quite well together and certainly make the film a lot better than it really has the right to be. The brisk 78-minute running time moves pretty well and the jazz score is quite nice as well. Fans of Fulci will certainly want to check this one out but others probably won't find too much entertainment here.