Voices From Beyond (Lucio Fulci, 1991) Director Of The Month Series 1.2

For the second week of Lucio Fulci month I decided to watch a film I recently purchased and had never seen. I've been cautious of Fulci's later films as frankly, they aren't well liked and aren't very good and I find those sentiments to ring true. I suppose I was cautiously optimistic that, maybe, just maybe, VOICES FROM BEYOND would help my overall opinion of Fulci's latter works. It didn't.

When a wealthy man dies a suspicious death from hemorrhaging, everyone around him is happy to see him go and to line their pockets with his money. Only his daughter Rosy still loves him and, with the help of her father's ghost, will discover the truth behind his death. What ensues is a lot of family drama, some corny and annoying voice over work from the ghost and one pretty damn cool scene that has nothing at all to do with the rest of the movie and ends up just being a dream sequence.

VOICES FROM BEYOND is lame, even by TV movie standards. It is impossibly slow, with wooden acting and a whole slew of unlikable characters. Hell, I'd go as far to say that the only interesting part aside from the one aforementioned dream sequence is the end credits which has a dedication from Fulci that reads "This film is dedicated to my few real friends, in particular to Clive Barker and Claudio Carabba." Now it is no secret that Fulci was difficult and unpleasant at times, more so than most other directors it seems but reading that dedication is sad in the fact that he seems very bitter in it and that the last years of his life weren't particularly nice to him, it seems that by the point this film had been made he was quickly becoming fed up and it shows in his work. VOICES FROM BEYOND is neither good nor interesting, it is something that only Fulci completists need to bother with and even then, you'd be better off not wasting your time.

See you in week 3 when a completely underrated Fulci film is the subject of discussion!