A Tale of Two Blockbusters
I’ll admit it: I get nostalgic for my family’s Friday-night trips to our local Blockbuster Video. While people bemoan its existence as a beastly corporation that homogenized the video-rental experience, no two stores were completely alike. It was also the first place I ever saw a VHS copy of Lucio Fulci’s The Gates of Hell.
For all the perimeter shelving devoted to new Hollywood releases (with a few indies sandwiched in-between), there were obscure titles to be found on the “old movie” racks. I first watched Last House on the Left as a rental from the White Street Blockbuster in York. This location also had copies of Joe D’Amato’s Beyond the Darkness (under its U.S. title, Buried Alive), Vampire Hookers, the elusive Texas Chainsaw Massacre: A Family Portrait, and even the Vidmark edition of Fulci’s The New York Ripper.
There was another Blockbuster a bit further down Route 30. My dad took me there less often, even though the store was bigger and better-kept. Their horror section had obscure titles like 7 Doors of Death (the U.S. title for Fulci’s The Beyond, complete with the EC comics-style cover art).
During one of our rare visits to this location, I caught sight of the Paragon VHS of The Gates of Hell. I knew little about the movie, but the sun-faded display box intrigued me. With images of a woman menaced by a pick; a priest hanging from a branch; and two characters surrounded by the living dead, my imagination went wild.
Needless to say, my dad disapproved of this selection. Between the title and Blockbuster’s “17 Plus” sticker for potentially objectionable films lacking an MPAA rating, I returned it to its respective place on the shelf.
First Impressions
A few years later, I found myself at Suncoast Video in Lancaster. Even though their prices were mall-gouging, I was always taken aback by the depth of the store. At the time, their selection of movies and memorabilia was unmatched.
In fall of 1999, I found myself perusing their ample horror section, and stumbled across a VHS copy of The Gates of Hell (on the Creature Features label). At $9.99, I took a chance and blind-bought the rental I’d been denied. I was 18 at the time, so my dad would’ve had little recourse toward my purchase.
Putting the tape into my VCR carried the nervous, giddy sensation of being exposed to something heretofore unknown. During this pre-streaming era, the unknown sometimes paid off, but just as often disappointed.
On my first watch, I hated The Gates of Hell.
As I was weaned largely on American horror, with its cliches and three-act narrative structure, I was baffled at Fulci’s effort. Where was the plot? Why did the “zombies” squish people’s brains? And what was the aftermath with the guy who killed local “messed-up kid” Bob (Giovanni Lombardo Radice)?
Up to that point, I was accustomed to movies making a certain amount of narrative sense. Frankly, my young mind knew of no other way for movies to be. (And I think I’d seen Dario Argento’s Suspiria at this juncture, so I’m not sure where my vitriol toward Fulci was coming from.)
Something Unclassifiable
But after that inauspicious introduction, something strange happened: I became obsessed with The Gates of Hell.
While the Creature Features VHS wasn’t the greatest quality, often succumbing to murky darkness in the nighttime scenes, most of Fulci’s grotesque imagery and dust-swept mood remained visible. There was something to that mood and atmosphere, something unclassifiable that appreciated as I watched the film more and more.
During this time, I was prone to experimenting with the contrast on my RCA tube TV. I once drained all color from the picture, put the movie on mute, and watched The Gates of Hell to the accompaniment of one of Cleopatra Records’ many Goth compilations. While I didn’t reach any Room 237-style revelations watching it this way, it made for a unique experience all the same.
I keep going back to this experiment, as I think it led me to a breakthrough with the movie and Fulci. This method forced me to view it as a stream-of-consciousness string of images, and in that way, it actually worked.
When I stopped banging my head against the lack of narrative cohesion in The Gates of Hell is when I started to appreciate it.
Squeaking Open the Gates
In early 2000, the Lancaster Suncoast started stocking hard-plastic clamshell editions of horror films. The company responsible was Anchor Bay, and one of their titles was City of the Living Dead (one of the aliases for The Gates of Hell). As a nerd squeaking open the gates of his own burgeoning interest in horror outside of the American multiplex, I marveled at the proclamation of a “widescreen presentation” and the “features” listed on the back of the case.
I consider Anchor Bay the forerunners of the boutique-label craze, maximizing the potential of VHS at a time when the medium was slowly being phased out for DVD. On an aesthetic level, the oversized cases were instantly recognizable on a stuffed shelf, making each title a thing of collector excitement.
Being able to see more of Fulci’s imagery on the Anchor Bay tape, my respect for the movie grew. I didn’t love it, but realized how remastering could unlock audiovisual traits that were hidden previously.
Over the years, I’ve also owned the Anchor Bay DVD, the Blue Underground Blu-ray, and, most recently, Scorpion’s pristine Blu-ray. The film has become one of the constants in my collection, one I will always own in some form.
As I’ve aged and exposed myself to an ever-wider range of cinema (domestic and international), the seemingly random elements of Fulci’s storytelling have grown more endearing. If you were to ask me today whether I prefer clean-cut narrative resolutions or endings that leave room for interpretation, I will almost always opt for the latter. There’s something to be said for an experience that intrigues and satisfies for 90 minutes, and leaves you with enough narrative and character meat for greater contemplation.
Our nightmares are exhibitions of the random, and leave emotional imprints even if we can’t remember the actual content. Lucio Fulci operated in a similar manner, and for that, I will always love The Gates of Hell (even if I didn’t love it from the start).
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Jonny Numb
Jonny Numb (aka Jonathan Weidler) has been in hibernation since the first goddamn week of winter, but still co-hosts The Last Knock horror podcast with Billy Crash. His writing can also be found at 1428 Elm.
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(The Gates of Hell movie poster from MPM.)