Touch of Death

"Touch of Death" is the story of Lester Pearson, a down on his luck gambler whom starts seducing wealthy women with various deformities, then killing them off for a prie fixe lunch of human flesh and cash for his horse racing betting debts.

Fulci has an oft tenuous grasp on his plots, but this has to be the most ridiculously over the top entry in the canon. Though the gore is the usual splatter spectacle (the best of which effects wise is probably the scene where the blackmailing vagrant is run over with Lester's car), it's housed in too goofy of a context to be scary.

After several of the least politically correct murder scenes in film (a bearded lady meets death in a microwave, an inexplicably opera singing widow who solos in her sleep is interrupted by being strangled)and some darkly comic body disposal (complete with silly cartoonish theme music), Lester realizes he has a larger problem than lady killing. An imitator is leaving incriminating evidence at the scene of his crimes that points to Lester. Before long, his picture, modus operandi and DNA genetic code (?!) are being broadcast on the nightly news. Will his latest target ("Cannibal Ferox"'s Zora Kerova) find out before it's too late?

The final twist makes no logical sense and shoestring budget shows, but "Touch Of Death" is a mindless guilty pleasure of Fulci poking fun at himself that will entertain his devoted fans.

A moody, middle-aged gigolo (Brett Halsey) kills off women after he gets bored with dating them and uses their body parts for trophies and for consumption.

Though many fans are divided, generally "Touch of Death" is regarded as a better latter era Fulci film. The overdone black humor touches, "unconvincing" gore effects and baffling ending does turn off some fans. While it is true that some of the film is hard to follow because we are unsure how much is madness and how much is reality, this really is a solid effort from Fulci. And for me, the gore may be unconvincing but still unsettling.

Where does this fit in his overall canon? Not top three, probably not top five, but I would still have to say it is firmly on the top half of Fulci's works. Certainly superior to "Cat in the Brain", which has gotten much more exposure over the years.

Lucio Fulci is the kind of director who, years down the road, will achieve the stardom he deserves. As of now, he is pretty much infamous. His later works, especially post 1990, are really pretty bad. In truth, they are no worse than many early 90's American horror films, but the dubbing is so bad that it's hard to take Fulci's later work seriously at all, really. When possible, any 1990's Italian horror movie should be viewed in Italian with English subtitles. They are MUCH better that way.

"Touch of Death" is so funny in parts that I almost peed myself the first time I saw it. The woman's head in the oven, the car mauling, the baseball bat scene...the list goes on from there, trust me. It's got pretty decent gore, too. I'm sure Fulci focused a lot more effort on that than he did on the plot, which is not meant to be taken too seriously. "Touch of Death" is just a fun movie. It's not going to scare you, it might gross you out in some parts though! Watch it with all this in mind, and you'll enjoy it for what it is.

7 out of 10, kids.

For an 80 minute TV flick from Italy you could do a lot worse I'm sure. It's got a made for TV look. I'm guessing it was videotaped rather than filmed since it was made for TV. That is the main downfall in what is otherwise a pretty decent horror flick.

We have some top notch splatter here. Very disgusting and vile. Nothing pleasant whatsoever. But it never really takes itself seriously since it's a black comedy. Portions of the score are good and then portions are atrocious making this TV cheapie seem even cheaper.

Fulci does what he can with the budget and provides some interesting camera work and makes us laugh at some nasty stuff (interesting since Fulci didn't do too many straight up black comedies). As with many Fulci films, the ending leaves one with a feeling of 'WTF?' Which is exactly what we should expect from this king of horror.

Not a great film by any means but if you're a Fulci fan, pick it up.

I was actually very pleasantly surprised. I didn't go into this expecting much as i've never been a huge Fulci fan, but I do enjoy him, and as far as Fulci this probably had tighter editing and a more straightforward storyline than anything else I've seen by him. The 'twist' was obvious the entire time but it didn't make the film any less enjoyable and there were no plot holes- maybe a first for him? This film was less surreal than most and mainly focused on dark comedy and a simple crime tale, not much in the way of sets or cinematography, but it did what it set out to do, and with less stumbling than I've come to expect from the 'godfather of gore'. All in all a worthy watch if you can get your hands on the BluRay edition.