Door into Silence
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- Release Date: December 1991
- Directed by: Lucio Fulci
- Written by: Lucio Fulci
- Runtime: 1 hour 27 minutes
The same year that he made Voices from Beyond, Lucio Fulci made what would up being his final film, Door into Silence. Produced by Joe D'Amato's production company Filmirage, the movie is one last entry in the line of direct-to-video films that dominated the final years of Fulci's career. Many people online have stated that this is one of the worst films that he ever directed. It was a curiosity for me, since it's long out of print on home media, and the copies you can find are expensive to come by. Having now bought and watched the movie, I can say that while it's not as awful as I was expecting it to be, it clearly shows that Fulci was sadly on his last legs as a director.
The movie follows a man named Melvin Devereux who attends the funeral of his father in southern Louisiana. Afterwards, he begins aimlessly wandering the back roads of the area, having odd visions and frequently encountering a hearse that he can never seem to pass. This meandering journey begins to increase his paranoia and have him question his very existence. While Voices from Beyond felt like a middle ground between Fulci's theatrical films and his later direct-to-video productions, this movie immediately looks and feels like something that would be collecting dust in the clearance section of a video store. The 16mm film stock is the worst-looking of this late period of films, looking even more cheap than something like The Sweet House of Horrors did. The colors are all very washed-out, and many scenes feel like a soap opera because the camera and character movements are simply too fast and smooth. It also makes the same mistake that Demonia did, where the netting in front of the camera lens is visible in a few shots. While that only happened maybe four times in Demonia, I counted at least ten occurrences in this movie. The cinematography is extremely sloppy all around, and while it does feature some of Fulci's trademark zoom-ins and handheld camera sequences, it seems like very little care was put into the filming of this thing. The box cover may say "From the director of Zombie and The Beyond", but it just doesn't feel like the same director was behind the camera here.
In addition to the poor cinematography, the editing of the movie is also very sloppy. Many cuts between shots are done in the middle of an action that is going on on-screen. For example, a dream sequence might zoom in on an object or sign on a car for a few frames, only to cut to the main character waking up. Many of these sequences feel unnatural and like they weren't given enough room to breathe, as there's never enough time to let the audience take in what is important or surprising before cutting away. My pick for worst editing in the movie is a car chase sequence between Melvin's car and the hearse that he keeps seeing. All of the shots of the cars in action are simply sped up to make it look like they're driving fast, and it's so poorly done that it just looks like a chase scene from something like the Benny Hill Show. To make things worse, another car chase later on in the film features the exact same footage being reused, just edited in a different order to make it seem like it's new footage. It's an incredibly cheap technique that just puts the lack of budget on full display.
All of that being said, there are a couple of good things in the movie as well. It was shot on location in Louisiana, and while there are way too many sequences just showing a car driving around, they at least show off some great scenery. There are lots of shots of dense woods, swamplands, rivers with old bridges across them, and so many other rural treats that show off the beauty that the area has to offer. I always appreciate wilderness shots in films, and many of the locations make me want to take a hike through them. In addition, some scenes feature a jazzy, saxophone-heavy soundtrack that feels right at home in its New Orleans setting. The music does come out of nowhere in a couple of places, but it's still nice to listen to. Sadly, that's about all I can think of when it comes to positives here. It may look and sound nice in a few spots, but this was a bit of a rough sit.
While not as painfully bad as something like Manhattan Baby was, Door into Silence is a pretty disappointing end to Lucio Fulci's directing career. It's poorly made, poorly paced, and features absolutely none of the spark that made his classic films so beloved. I could see its plot working well as a 30-45 minute episode of something like The Twilight Zone, but as is, it's a drawn-out slog that took me three sittings to get through. After this, Fulci would never direct again, and passed away in 1996 while in pre-production on a collaboration with Dario Argento called Wax Mask. It's sad to think that his legacy ended with such a dud, but part of me likes to remember that he was pushing through his illnesses to continue making the art that meant something to him. All of the many flaws aside, I have to respect the man for giving it one last try.