3/5 A lesser Fulci effort
  by Jeffrey Leach (Omaha, NE USA)
No figure in the horror film genre is as divisive as Lucio Fulci. After watching his films, viewers tend to move into one of two camps. One side hails Fulci as a master of terror, a man who upped the gore quotient in his films while creating wonderfully atmospheric pictures. For these people, Fulci is up there with the likes of Dario Argento as one of the best Italian horror directors. The other camp sneers at these claims, pointing to the plodding pace of his films, the use of extreme gore to camouflage plot holes, and the director's inability to draw good performances out of his cast as evidence of mediocrity. Initially, I enjoyed Fulci's films, specifically "Zombie," "City of the Living Dead," and "The New York Ripper" because I did not know any better. When I came on the scene, you went to Fulci to feed your gore cravings. What a difference a few years exploring the genre makes! While I will not go so far as to remove Lucio from my play list, I have seen enough of his films to realize he is not a cinematic genius. He is at best a competent director, at worst an abysmal one, and there are plenty of examples of bad filmmaking in this director's filmography. Welcome to "Touch of Death".

The movie introduces us to a sad, pathetic loser named Lester Parson (Brett Halsey). Old Lester has a big problem with the ponies, one that finds him constantly digging himself deeper into debt in order to satisfy his cravings at the racetrack. He also has a problem trying to pull off that cheesy looking beard, but that's another story for another day. Anyway, Parson loses so much money gambling that he must constantly borrow dinero from a local loan shark to cover his bets. You know what happens next: Parson owes so much money that the shark threatens to send a few bonecrushers over to Lester's place unless he pays his debts. Ooooh! Fortunately for our bearded hero, he hits upon an excellent plan that will not only pay off Luigi the Loan Shark but also fill his wallet to the brim with some walkin' around money. What's the plan? Simple. He pores through lonely heart ads in the newspaper, finds a suitable mark, and then homes in for the wooin' and the robbin'. Yep, that's right. Lester Parson preys on lonely old biddies, really ugly old dames too, and cleans out their bank accounts.

To insure the success of his nefarious schemes, Parson has to kill his victims. Unfortunately for them, Lester seems to relish sending these ladies into the great unknown. I offer as proof of this assertion one of the opening scenes of the film, the one in which we see Les firing up the old chainsaw in order to reduce one of his conquests to her component parts. Fulci makes sure we understand what's going on by letting the camera linger on the unfolding atrocity. And linger. And linger. Yecch! We'll see more violence later, including a nasty bludgeoning and magic with a microwave, before the movie judders to a stop. Too, Uncle Lucio makes Parson a cannibal--just as a lark, I'd imagine. Let's see, what else happens? Oh yeah: someone else seems to be ambling around mirroring Lester's atrocities, which makes our man a wee bit nervous. He's so nervous, in fact, that he spends some time trying to discover the identity of this nefarious culprit. He also spends a lot of his free time tape recording comments about his various activities. Did I mention the tape machine talks to our hero? Uh huh. Looks like Lester's a little light in the head as well.

"Touch of Death" isn't a stellar addition to the horror canon, but then again Fulci wasn't turning out his best work by 1988. His glory days came earlier, in the 1970s and early 1980s. This movie, while gory in spots, fails to capture the charm of his earlier outings. In those movies Fulci would spread the sauce from beginning to end. Here, we see a trio of heinous crimes--a bum run over with a car, the bludgeoning followed by fun with microwaves, and the chainsaw gag--and then the gore essentially disappears. Seeming to sense that the movie won't live up to expectations, Fulci lards the film with healthy doses of black comedy. See Lester try to stuff body parts in the trunk of his car! Har Har Har! See Parson grimace as he must romance his extraordinarily ugly conquests! Oh, my sides! Granted, smooching a gal with hairy moles or cold sores isn't my cup of tea, but it's not particularly amusing either. The funniest thing about "Touch of Death" involves nothing that appears in the film but rather the realization that Lucio made the movie for television. For television! Those wacky Italians! In what bizarro universe would a movie like this appear on television?

Considering the less than sublime quality of the film, it is somewhat surprising to see "Touch of Death" receive such an excellent treatment on DVD. I'm not talking about the picture quality, which isn't good by a long shot. It's the extras where this Media Blasters disc really shines. Included for our pleasure is a lengthy audio commentary from none other than the late Lucio Fulci! It is not actually a commentary in the traditional sense (he doesn't even discuss this film) but a sort of synopsis of Fulci's career spanning the time he spent as a screenwriter up to the arrival of his 1971 classic "Lizard in a Woman's Skin". Then we get comments from Fulci historian Paolo Albeiro and an interview with star Zora Kerova. Cool! Trailers, a still gallery, and a promo for "Touch of Death" round out the disc. Obviously, Fulci aficionados will want to pick up this disc. All other viewers should start with his classic stuff and work their way up to this one.

2/5 One of Fulci's worst, if not his worst movie
  by Dave. K (Staten Island, Ny)
By the time Touch of Death was released Italian horror cinema had pretty much seen better days. While there were some good films coming out and some talented filmmakers still going strong it seemed as a whole Italian cinema was running out of steam. And in the case of Lucio Fulci his career really wasn't what it once was.

The general conception even from the hardcore Fulci fans was he started to lose his touch around the mid 80s one can argue The New York Ripper was his last solid flick. From 1980-1982 Fulci made a total of 7 movies. That's a lot of films in a short span. By the time Touch of Death came out Fulci was far removed from the filmmaker he once was. This movie is one of the weaker efforts of his career. Fulci strays from his typical style, but also returns. A lot of people aren't aware that Fulci actually made quite a few comedies. And with Touch of Death he makes a horror/comedy.

Problem is the movie isn't very suspenseful and it's really not that funny either. In some of Fulci's movies there can be some unintentional comedy due to some of the poor dubbing. But Touch of Death all the comedy is done intentionally. The first half of the movie has some fairly decent moments. It's funny because it's just so idiotic, but once the 2nd half rolls around Touch of Death loses what little it had going for it.

Despite only an 80-minute running time Touch of Death does drag a lot. The 2nd half of the movie nothing really happens it's sort of the same scene playing out over and over again. At least the first half was semi-entertaining. While I wouldn't say it was good at least some of the comedy worked because it was so silly.

The screenplay was written by Lucio Fulci and it was very poor; the characters are boring and really lack. There really wasn't anything interesting about any of them. As director Fulci isn't really able to get much going. Like I said some of the comedy works because it's so dumb, but for the most part nothing really works. Quite honestly there is nothing Fulci about Touch of Death.

The final act is idiotic and really lacks any sense; Italian horror films a lot of the times lack logic, but Touch of Death doesn't have any. Of all the Fulci movies I have seen this one is my least favorite. There are a couple of fairly decent gore scenes, but the couple of gore scenes hardly help elevate this.

The cast wasn't really that good with the exception of a couple of the actors. Fans of Italian cinema should recognize Zora Kerova going under the name Zora Ulla Kessler and Fulci regular Al Cliver under the name Pier Luigi Conti. Neither one of them really stand-out here. And Brett Halsey who was the lead playing Lester Parson really makes for a boring main character. The viewers won't care if he gets away with his crimes or goes down. Halsey is in pretty much every scene, but lacks any onscreen presence.

Lucio Fulci even in his prime was hit or miss and sometimes within the same movie. Fulci isn't for everybody, but I think even those who don't like his work can agree it's better than his later work. It was painful watching Touch of Death; this movie was by a filmmaker I really liked and while I can very much understand why some dislike his work, for me he was an excellent director and despite moments of being incoherent who was able to create some good tension.

The hardcore fans will probably wanna seek this out because they are a fan, but I will say this really isn't a much see. For those who dislike Fulci I would advise you not to even bother.


5/5 Simply Must Be Seen
  by Fieval Years (San Antonio, TX USA)
At last a lost classic has made it's way onto DVD. For a Fulci fan this DVD is a true reward. The story and script combined result in a Black Comedy Masquerade. I really don't want to give too much away other than this movie is truly a must see. See it with a group of friends that know or don't know Fulci's work and you will be in for a night of humourous Italian Horror. For a fan of Italian Horror don't go into it expecting Suspiria or Zombi because this movie is nowhere near that in mood instead, go into the film expecting Dario Argento's The Card Player or Joe D'Amato's The Grim Reaper mixed with light Tarantino-esque wordplay and scenes (in particulary the newscasters and homeless man scene) and you will not be disappointed. Honestly, this film would rank as one of my top five favorite Fulci films.

2/5 Hit or miss, this one is a miss...
  by Don Cheeto (Bakersfield, CA)
...it started off pretty interesting, brutal gore effects as this guy starts chopping off a female body, then about two deaths later the movie just takes one big dump. We jump from one thing to another totally different, and you are left counfused as to what is the whole point of the story. This is not typical Fulci as there is humor implemented in some of the deaths which I found odd for a Fulci flick. There was just too much confusion here for anything to connect, and at the end I was a bit disappointed with this one. If you are a Fulci fan get it to add to your collection, otherwise steer clear or rent it only.

1/5 Avoid.
  by A. Griffiths (London)
This is just dreadful. I regret every second of the 80 minutes I spent watching this dreck. I think it's supposed to be a comedy, but I don't remember laughing much, except at a few blatant inconsistencies and downright glaring errors.

An unnattractive middle-aged man called Lester meets up with rich unnattractive middle-aged women via lonely hearts ads, and then murders them for the money he needs to feed his gambling addiction. That's the whole plot, and that's really all that happens. Along the way there is an attempt at intrigue when Lester starts to get phone calls from a mysterious stranger who taunts him about knowing his secret, but its so badly implemented, you may not realise what is actually supposed to be happening. The sequences in which Lester murders the rich widows are all quite brutal but also seemingly dressed up as comedies. One sequence has a woman bludgeoned with a wooden pole and then shoved into an oven. It's very cruelly depicted, but it is played out against blaring big-band waltz music, with Lester pulling faces and adopting comedy poses throughout. Another scene has the victim murdered while she constantly sings shrill opera songs...you have to see this to believe it!

Actually - you don't have to see it at all, in fact I strongly recommend you avoid this flop. Fulci does not seem to know which hat he is wearing and there's no evidence of any of the flair seen in his earlier career. One sequence stood out to me as particulalrly wretched: the revelation when Lester suddenly realises that he has no shadow. Fulci seems unable to think up any visual representation of this phenomena on screen, so from this point on he just films the actor as normal, shadow and all!! And thus totally blows the whole angle. Either he had zero budget for effects, or he just didn't care enough to think up any way of showing it. Whatever it was, that should give you a taste of how lame this whole project is. I couldn't even understand most of the film, and there certainly wasn't anything on screen worth looking at half the time. Even the ending was as flat as a pancake. A real dud.