Review of Four of the Apocalypse (1975) by Alex R — 17 Jul 2008

Really, the only thing stopping me from loving this film more is the awful 70s lite rock soundtrack, which is light years away from the brilliant music in Fulci's other work, especially The Beyond (though some of the soundtrack, blending a kinda western sound with a kinda funky feel, was quite good actually).

Other than that, count this one as a pleasant, pleasant surprise, as Fulci imbues the story with a warmth and humanism I'm almost certain one will search for in vain in the rest of his mostly cruel, sadistic, nihilistic catalogue.

Still, it's a Fulci movie, featuring gallons of fake blood, hooded vigilantes exterminating the Sodom and Gomorrah lot of a small prairie town, the torture by skinning of a gunman, and (accidental) cannibalism.

But what's really fascinating, again, about this movie is the way Fulci uses his penchant for the grotesque, strange, and exaggerated in the name of telling a human, even sentimental story about four prison mates' and their journey to find a new life.

A scene, for instance, where schizophrenic Bud runs naked through a cemetary greeting all the ghosts he meets, or the celebration by a small town of hardened criminals when the first child to come to their fledging town is born, are images that I think may never leave my mind.

It's a strange, wonderful film, something like a more terrestrial, literal, and subtle El Topo (I couldn't help but think of that masterpiece when Mexican baddie Chaco, with crosses seemingly painted under his eyes in blood, betrays the others by drugging them with a hallucinogen) that is certainly not perfect, but it is perhaps this imperfection and ambiguity, like its protagonists, that makes it so endearing.