Touch of Death

Coming later in Lucio Fulci's career, 'Touch of Death' (aka 'Quando Alice Ruppe lo Specchio') is one of those movies that like most of his late work has come under some amount of critical drubbing, but are these negative comments truly valid or are they just the feelings of a dissatisfied few. I tend to think the latter but more on that after we look at the film itself...

'Touch of Death' follows the gory misadventures of subdued psychopath Lester Parson (played to perfection by Brett Halsey) as he goes about his business seeking out lonely desperate (and mainly hideously unattractive) women in the newspaper classifieds section whom he seduces, plies with booze then maims and slices before dining on their flesh! His brutal doings don't go unnoticed as he soon becomes victim to an extortion attempt by a local tramp and that combined with his growing gambling debts leads to some rash moves by the desperate unhinged loner.

With 'Touch of Death' we get one of Fulci's wittiest and most unnerving works with a wry and blackly humorous script and some extremely wild over the top gory scenes. Some critics - most noticeably Stephen Thrower in his excellent tome 'Beyond Terror' go as far to say that this is perhaps Fulci's worst work but I believe it to be one of his best. What the problem here is that many folk are making comparisons to Fulci's early work (say films like 'Lizard in a Woman's Skin') but at the latter part of his career Fulci had changed direction with his themes and attitude going for a more blackly humorous angle and pushing the boundaries of taste when it came to so called misogyny and graphic violence. There's nothing subtle here at all, just rich dark humour and overtly gory relentless action, perhaps the fact Fulci was working entirely selfishly to his own vision that the snobbish among genre fans didn't appreciate the change in direction?

In fact I would say that I couldn't find anything to fault in this gem of a movie. Fulci's script and direction are spot on throughout - clever, savvy and lots of fun in a guilty pleasure manner (though what's wrong with enjoying good exploitation cinema?) Brett Halsey is also fantastic in the lead role with such a carefree casual manner that would make you wonder that perhaps cannibalism and misogynistic violence are perfectly acceptable (I'm joking of course!) And so add to that the stunning graphic violence (of which there is stacks) you have a winning combination that is guaranteed to thrill 'most' horror movie lovers.

Much like EC Entertainment's 'Massacre' release this disc also came under some grumbling criticism from some corners of the image fixated fraternity but I was pleasantly surprised with the presentation here as the image whilst not perfect is decent enough for me. Though apart from optional audio tracks in English, French and Italian (with only Dutch and English subtitles) there's only a very small stills gallery to be had in the way of extras here.

But that said, 'Touch of Death' is a hilarious and tasteless Fulci gem that is well worth your attention. Ignore the critical rantings of the dissatisfied few; check out this gem now!

Review by Alan Simpson