basement, Liza meeting Emily along the road
woman, torn between two opposite forces, is lit-
and the introduction of Dr. McCabe and Harris,
erally scalped alive.
studying the corpse’s brainwaves. However, sev-
While McCabe finds out in the Book of
eral differences stand out, starting with the set-
Eibon a cryptic sentence about “how to open the
ting (according to production designer Massimo
door on the night of All Saints,” Liza is alone in
Lentini, the choice of Louisiana was dictated by
the hotel, which suddenly comes alive. “A suf-
practical needs). The blind Emily is not an am-
focated cry is heard, then a throttled shout. A
biguous, ghostlike presence but a real woman,
crackly music, as if from a nickelodeon, covers
Harris is much older than McCabe, and the vil-
all the previous noises. Candles light in candle-
lagers are hostile toward Liza. On top of that, a
sticks and electric lights turn off.”
couple of murder scenes that take place at the
Following Emily’s death scene, identical as
hospital involve two characters absent from the
in the film, John arrives at the hotel to pick up
film, a nurse named Katia and a priest, Father
Liza. He explains: “The man in room 36 had dis-
Francis, who are killed in the anatomy room by
covered that the door was in the hotel. He tried
the mysterious body (the nurse suffers from ex-
to open it, but they prevented him from doing
tended bleeding from her nose, ears, and mouth,
it. They erased all traces. Then, 60 years later,
a nod to a notorious scene in Paura nella città
without knowing it, Joe opened a breach… . Liza,
dei morti viventi).
we must close it.” “But what? I don’t understand!”
The Book of Eibon appears only on page
Liza objects. “The door! The door that unites
7 of the CSC script, when Liza finds it in room
the world of the living and that of the dead.”
1981: …E tu vivrai 69
The passage underlines the more conven-
he gets to see his image reflected in a mirror and
tional tone of Sacchetti’s script, which attempts
touches its ”cold and unyielding surface of pol-
to give an articulate explanation to the story’s
ished glass”) and possibly to Ray Bradbury’s
gruesome events—namely, Joe opening a breach
Something Wicked This Way Comes. It was ef-
while trying to fix the water leak, thus opening
fective, but evidently too expensive to work on
a passage between this world and the beyond.
the budget the director had to make do with. It
Moreover, McCabe behaves as a standard hero,
also shares light on the vexed question of the
with his intention to close the door to the be-
zombie climax, often labeled as a last- minute
yond. In the film, not only Liza and McCabe are
addition to please the German distributor Ale-
clueless, but Joe’s responsibility in disclosing the
mannia/Arabella, who had had a huge commer-
door to the beyond is never developed.
cial success with Paura nella città dei morti
McCabe and Liza go down in the basement
viventi and therefore granted an advance on
and eventually arrive at the breach. “McCabe
Fulci’s next zombie film. The director himself,
rests both his hands on the wall. The hands
in an interview published in the January 98
touch the wall. A flash. A blinding flash bedaz-
issue of L’Écran fantastique, seemed to deny the
zles McCabe and Liza. The wall breaks open
presence of proper zombies in the film: “L’aldilà
with a deafening rumble. Then, silence. And
is a tale of mystery where the dead are at the core
darkness.” A skeletal figure appears: Peter Sweick.
of the story, but they are not “aggressive” dead
They are now in the beyond. “A spectral light.
as in Zombi 2. They do some things, but totally
A dry, dusty land.” The dead come back to life…
dependent from the story, whose theme is very
The two protagonists run upstairs, only to
metaphysical but with some horror in it.”3 Ac-
find all the other zombie characters (Emil,
cording to Sacchetti, in fact, “originally the
Arthur, Jo, Martha) in the hotel lodge. They
movie had a different ending, without the zom-
manage to escape and reach the hospital, but the
bies (it’s not true that the Germans wanted it,
first person they find, Dr. Harris, has also turned
that ending was inserted by Fulci and the pro-
into a living dead. Other zombies show up and
ducer as a guarantee to sell the film in certain
surround them. With a gun “borrowed” from a
markets) and the real ending was in a strange
gun shop nearby, McCabe blows several zombies
place, a sort of dead zone, all white, similar to
to smithereens, and he and Liza drive away in
the one, all red, hypothesized by David Lynch
the night. On the road they notice an apparently
in Twin Peaks.”4 But this could only refer to a
empty amusement park, its lights shining in the
primeval draft, prior to both the aforementioned
night, and stop by. But the place is not empty at
storyline and the CSC script, which both feature
all: the eerie image of a wagon coming out of the
the living dead taking over; the latter includes
tunnel of love, with zombies on it, stands out.
plenty of graphic gore in the manner of George
Soon the park is filled with zombies. McCabe
A. Romero.
and Liza run away, “and they run, and run, and
Overall, the polishing done by Fulci and
run. But all the directions are blocked. Then,
Giorgio Mariuzzo enhanced the ambiguous el-
suddenly, they find themselves in front of a huge
ements of the story and discarded the most con-
mirror, and only then we get to see their images.
ventional ones. The choice of making Emily a
They are the images of two dead people. Liza
ghostly presence who traverses decades to warn
screams. Her scream echoes, long and endless.”
the protagonist of horrible events to come, gives
In the final image, the amusement park lights
her early appearance on the bridge—a startling
turn off, and darkness engulfs everything. A
moment where the Louisiana location dramat-
final line on the screen says “…e iniziò il regno
ically enhances the film—an otherworldly feel.
dell’aldilà” (…and thus began the realm of the
This can also be said about the beautiful scene
beyond).
in which Emily leaves the hotel in a hurry, and
The CSC script’s ending, close to Sacchetti’s
Liza realizes she hasn’t heard her steps, a moment
original story, is characterized by an explicitly
rendered by the direct
or with the repeated slow-
symbolic content, with the amusement park rep-
motion sight of the blind girl running away in
resenting life in the scriptwriter’s own words,2
utter silence. As in Quella villa accanto al
and has a similar tone to the definitive one, plus
cimitero, this leads to inconsistencies (if Emily
an explicit nod to Lovecraft’s celebrated short
is a ghost, how could she be slaughtered by her
story The Outsider (in which the narrator finally
dog?) which only add to the story’s fascination.
becomes aware of being a dead revenant when
But the director’s strongest choice was the new
70 1981: …E tu vivrai opening sequence, which brings to the story a
own self facing him, he leans against a wall, on
savage drive.
a cobweb- covered painting which portrays the
Regarding the narrative structure of L’aldilà,
villa … only to find himself trapped in a huge
Fulci had claimed that he wanted to “make a
web, outside the villa (…or inside the painting?).
movie about all the horrors of the world,” while
Here, Liza and John find themselves in an ap-
Sacchetti commented that it “was somewhat thin-
parently three- dimensional space which defies
ner, without frills in the plot, and deliberately so
the ordinary notions of tridimensionality: when
because it wanted to be a nightmare of emotions.”
they turn back, they see the very same landscape
In fact, the rhapsodic storyline isn’t particularly
that was in front of them, limitless and im-
thin compared to Paura nella città dei morti
mutable, with no spatial coordinates to rely
viventi. But what is interesting is the abrupt jux-
upon. It is one final act of horror that pushes
taposition of the ultraviolent set pieces with mun-
L’aldilà into the realm of pure abstract fantas-
dane scenes that go nowhere, plot- wise. Take, for
tique, leaving aside the zombies, the gore, the
instance, the transition between the morgue scene
gruesome murder scenes and the obscure events
with the death of Joe’s wife and Liza and McCabe
that preceded it. The final line—“E ora affron-
chatting and flirting in the bar, to the sound of a
terai il mare delle tenebre, e ciò che in esso vi è di
jazz combo, sharing their uninteresting life stories
esplorabile” (And you will face the sea of dark-
while sipping drinks, another moment not to be
ness, and all therein that may be explored)—and
found in Sacchetti’s script and one of the film’s
the eruption of Fabio Frizzi’s score (featuring
very best scenes. On the one hand, we have the
the participation of Goblin members Agostino
savage eruptions of violence; on the other, the un-
Marangolo and Maurizio Guarini), with its Latin
bearable lightness of existence, where time passes
chants, rolling drums and its operatic almost,
by immutable and implacable.
almost ecclesiastical intensity, makes it a truly
Whereas the CSC script takes place within
unforgettable moment.
the course of a couple of days and climaxes on
As MacColl commented,
the night of All Saints, the film has a more re-
I love the final scene in which we arrive in the world
laxed approach. But L’aldilà is no less daring than
of the dead, which was very poetic. I remember it
the Gothic horror films of the 960s, such as
was the last scene we shot, and as usual Fabrizio [De
Danza macabra (964) or Operazione paura
Angelis] was standing there, looking at his watch. It
(966), which liberally played with the notion
was a few days before Christmas… . I don’t know why
of time. The perception of space is misleading
they saved that scene for last, perhaps the set piece
as well: as Martin Avery discovers, the actual
was a bit difficult to build… . I just wanted to finish
planimetry of the hotel is different from the offi-
the movie and run home for the holidays, and I was
cial one, while Liza and Bob have very different
very worried about the contact lenses. They were
perceptions of Emily’s house (which to McCabe
made specifically for us, and nowadays they’d be to-
appears as a dilapidated ruin, whereas the
tally different, but then they were hard and painful
woman sees it as a cozy colonial house). And
to wear… . I later found out that the bodies in that
the climax plays with space and dimension with
scene were not professional extras, but mostly home-
less men who did the scene in exchange for a bottle
the same puzzling results as an Escher drawing.
of wine or something.6
In Inferno the final passage to another di-
mension is a mirror from which Death emerges,
The final, nihilistic coup de thêatre ce-
triumphant, into our reality, which it (or rather,
mented Fulci’s cult status abroad and won the
she) dominates. In Fulci, the transition happens
hearts of the younger Italian film critics, such as
in the opposite direction (between this world
Claudio Carabba, of the newspaper Il Giornale.7
and the beyond) and takes place abruptly and
Carabba’s appreciation for Fulci caused a sort of
arbitrarily. John and Liza, escaping from the
chain reaction: veteran film critic Tullio Kezich,
morgue, find themselves in the basement of the
in turn, in an otherwise condescending review
“Seven Doors” hotel, and from there within the
which underlined the film’s “banal content and
surrealistic beyond depicted in Zweick’s
gory bad taste,” noted its “effective and even el-
painting. It’s a passage almost as daring as the
egant filmic style.”8 When he was reported the
celebrated sequence in Operazione paura in
news that Positif and other French magazines
which Giacomo Rossi Stuart’s character follows
had started praising the director, renowned mil-
his own double through a series of rooms which
itant critic Lino Miccichè allegedly blurted: “For
all look the same. Unsettled by the sight of his
goodness’ sake, now let’s not start revaluating
1981: …E tu vivrai 7
Fulci too!”9 Such a stance was comprehensible,
position before twitching under the pressure of boil-
at a time when the gap between different gen-
ing blood.22
erations of critics was bringing new attention to
the works of filmmakers who had been previ-
Gans had his share of reservations on the result,
ously overlooked, if not ignored, such as Ric-
however, noting that “this complete rejection of
cardo Freda and Raffaello Matarazzo. In France
explanations, although likeable, prevents a re-
the situation was similar, with the young critics
newal of the much- ove
rused zombie theme… .
of the specialized press (such as L’Écran fantas-
This gratuitousness is also not relieved by the
tique) treating the film with far more attention
swiftness of the narrative, which is less paced
than the ones writing for highbrow magazines.
and structured than Paura nella città dei morti
La Revue du cinéma was particularly scathing,
viventi and doesn’t always hold its bad inclina-
calling L’aldilà an example of “vomitive cinema,”
tions toward ghost train- like staging… . In short,
blaming the “non-existent scenario … male act-
excess is preferred to that minimum of cohesion
ing at the limit of nullity and frightfully pompous
which was the true quality of Paura… . ” Gans
music,” and adding: “Nevertheless, the worst
ultimately judged the director’s new effort a far
thing seems to be the director’s blatant lack of
less convincing effort than Paura nella città dei
imagination, as he simply picks up ideas here and
morti viventi (which he called “a remarkable film
there from his fellow directors.”20
teeming with many aesthetic ideas very subtly
L’Écran fantastique devoted ample space to
linked”), and concluded: “Fulci tries to keep its
the film, but this time the response was rather
theme by sticking blindly to the recipes and in-
less favorable than earlier. In a five- page article
gredients of his earlier films and forgets to ex-
dedicated to L’aldilà and Black Cat, Christophe
plain them.”23
Gans launched in a comparison that might not
Released in Italy with a V.M.8 rating under
have pleased Fulci: “In the way Inferno pro-
the somewhat pompous title …E tu vivrai nel
longed and gave a new dimension to Suspiria,
terrore! L’aldilà (without suspension points in the
Fulci’s latest is presented as the second part of
screening certificate), the film opened on April
a horrific saga which will comprise no less than
29, 98. It did OK business, grossing about 70
seven, according to the number of the doors to
million lire, considerably less than Fulci’s
hell scattered over the surface of Earth and in
previous zombie films, but it was well- distributed
the director’s imagination.” Gans hypothesized
all over the world, including Hong Kong, Mexico
that the upcoming Quella villa accanto al
and the principal European countries, perform-
Italian Gothic Horror Films (1980-1989) Page 21