Guest Author - Andy Boxall

AKA: When Alice Broke the Mirror and Quando Alice ruppe lo Specchio.

Director: Lucio Fulci
Starring: Brett Halsey, Ria De Simone, Al Cliver
Region 0, 81 minutes, uncut EC Entertainment release.
Out Now

Lester Parson is a hopeless gambler who pays for his expensive mistakes by murdering women he picks up through ‘lonely hearts’ adverts and stealing their money. As the murders escalate, Lester’s mania convinces him that someone else is committing the crimes and framing him for it. Made in 1988, this odd effort from the master of gore, Lucio Fulci, is a very strange little movie indeed.

The DVD cover for Touch of Death promotes it as a violent and gory look into the mind of a viscous killer, kind of like Fulci’s own New York Ripper or William Lustig’s Maniac. The cover art shows a shapely woman about to face a shadowy man armed with a blood-stained knife in an almost supernatural setting. Well, none of this is even vaguely accurate. Touch of Death is actually an unfunny black ‘comedy’ interspersed with some very violent deaths, all mixed up with lots of wandering around not actually achieving anything.

When it’s time for some gore, Fulci rarely holds back. Not even 10 minutes into the film Lester has chain sawed a victim apart, minced her up and fed her to his pigs! Later you get death by Mercedes, death by feeble looking stick and death by oven (a la Absurd). Linking these set pieces together is a mismatch of ‘comedy’ moments such as Lester’s efforts to drug his victim and him trying to persuade a dead body to sit up straight in the front seat of his car. As you can see, we are talking about the pinnacle of high-brow comedy here, and if Fulci were still among us, he would surely be up for a guest spot on Saturday Night Live.

Taken at face value, Touch of Death is just another bad entry into Fulci’s rollercoaster career. Look a little deeper and it is actually rather more offensive than you first think. Fulci seems to want the audience to root for the killer and lines up a succession of ugly, irritating women for him to off, as if these poor women deserve nothing more. Horror can go in this direction occasionally without becoming too much, but Touch of Death wears its colours with pride. The woman with more facial hair than the fully bearded Lester is a shock to the eyes though!

It seems pointless to mention the stupid plot devices (the man repeatedly run over by the Mercedes miraculously survives to give the police a description of the killer) and the blindly obvious twist- that- isn’t ending, as nobody will be watching this unless they a) share Lucio Fulci’s strange sense of humour or b) are a serious Fulci fan and cannot miss any of his dubious classics. If either of those are you, chances are you will like it, if not then watch Zombie Flesheaters or The Beyond instead as they are both far more accessible to the average genre fan and a LOT better than this!

The Disc:

For a film made in 1988, the print used looks as if it was made 10 years before this. There are lines, colour drainage and what look like stock changes in certain scenes, making Touch of Death far from EC’s greatest hour. The menu is dreary, there are no extra’s except for a stills gallery which only shows stills of other manufacturers DVD/VHS covers of the movie and the subtitles are littered with random capital letters and some suspect grammar.

Watchers can select an English, French or Italian soundtrack along with the aforementioned subtitles. The Italian track has a slightly different score and certainly sounds better than the dubbed English track. With the Italian dialogue you also get to hear Lester’s laugh, which is the funniest thing in the whole movie!

Conclusion:

Touch of Death does have it’s small plus points. Brett Halsey, who plays Lester Parson, is great fun. He really tries hard at the comedy and does actually raise the odd smile with his sly looks; there is also a cool poker scene where Lester loses even more money. The movie is a unique and intriguing little oddity that most will dismiss, however some may enjoy its offensive, quirky charm and chuckle at the poor but gory effects. That Lucio Fulci, he certainly was a strange one.

Additional:

Fans of the great Lucio Fulci will doubtless be aware of his 1990 feature Cat in the Brain, also known as Nightmare Concert. This mish-mash of Fulci’s gory greatest hits features several of the more splattery sequences from Touch of Death. Whether you view this as a recommendation or not is up to you!