PopHorror Let's Get Scared
So, what happens when a legendary director, who is renowned for being one of the “godfathers of gore” no less, makes a Mafia/Crime Thriller? Being an ardent fan of Italian maestro Lucio Fulci, and never having seen Contraband, I was curious as Hell to check out the shiny new blu-ray release from Cauldron Films.
Contraband Synopsis
“Naples, Italy: an idealistic cigarette smuggler, Luca, runs into problems when a sadistic drug dealing gangster from France decides to muscle his way into his operations. As he tries to wipe out the competition, all Hell breaks loose and the bodies start piling up!”
With forays into both the giallo genre (Don’t Torture A Duckling) and a “kind of” crime thriller (the gleefully sadistic New York Ripper), it only makes sense that director Lucio Fulci (City of the Living Dead) would do a mafia flick. Contraband is his hyper-violent ode to both Coppola’s The Godfather and his beloved homeland.
Have a look at the trailer!
Luca (Fabio Testi; The Big Racket) has a lucrative business running cigarettes and booze up and down the coast of Naples. Aside from the occasional run-in with the local police, nobody really gets hurt. After a tip off to the police, a fire at a stable, and the (very Sonny Corleone-ish) death of his brother, Luca suspects rival gang leader Don Scherino (Ferdinando Murolo; Assignment Terror) is responsible.
After a foiled attempt at revenge, Luca learns that a vicious French drug kingpin, Francois the Marsigliese (Marcel Buzzuffi; The French Connection) is intent on eliminating any threats to his plans. Against the pleading of his wife Adele (Ivana Monti; La Bella di Mosca), Luca embarks on a vendetta, enlisting the help of a semi-retired mob boss along the way.
Fulci, always one to push the envelope of what can, and can’t be, shown on screen in his horror genre work, likewise stretches the boundaries with Contraband. The viewer is treated to all manner of blowtorched faces, exploding machine-gunned heads, gang rapes, and point blank shootings (all courtesy of FX whizzes Germano Natali; Deep Red and Roberto Price; Body Count), all done in the exceptionally gory way that you’d expect from Fulci.
Frequent collaborator Fabio Frizzi (The Beyond) lends a hand with a pulsing, effective score, and the cast, none of them strangers to the “crime thriller” genre, all deliver the goods with solid performances. And, of course, Lucio himself pops up (with his ever present pipe) as a machine gun wielding enforcer.
The transfer, a 4K scan of the negative, looks great, with traces of noticeable grain that one light expect from a modestly budgeted film from 1980 (despite the warning on the sleeve, I didn’t notice any significant drop in picture quality throughout). The very period correct artwork on the clear snapcase, features a reverse side with the Italian title and alternate art and stills.
Special features include: new interviews with the cast (notably Monti, who turned in a killer performance here), archival interviews, and commentary with film experts Bruce Holecheck, Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson. The requisite stills gallery and trailers round out the extras.
Contraband – Final Thoughts
With a surprisingly complex plot that, despite it’s very quick pace, never gets muddled under it’s own weight, Contraband is an underappreciated gem in Fulci’s body of work.
With something to offer fans of straight horror, splatter AND mafia aficionados, Contraband is a solid, entertaining film the delivers the gory goods with a very ambitious, mature plot hidden in there.
Cauldron Films’ Blu-ray release of Contraband is available now from DiabolikDVD.com and other fine retailers.
