Lucio Fulci, the master of the soft-core thriller, is back with… wait, what? Let’s start over, shall we? Lucio Fulci, the Italian maestro of the viscerally dangerous and compellingly disgusting, dips his toe into—for me, that is—uncharted waters with The Devil’s Honey (1986), a melodramatically erotic piece resurrected by Severin Films for a packed Blu-ray release. This is not your dad’s Fulci. (Unless he had a special drawer…)
Johnny (Stefano Madia – Body Count) is a successful saxophone player carrying out a torrid love affair with his girlfriend, Jessica (Blanca Marsillach – Flesh + Blood) when he is felled in a motorcycle accident. The doctor who performs the surgery, Wendell Simpson (Brett Halsey – Return of the Fly), botches it and Johnny dies. Jessica does not take the news well, kidnaps Wendell, and submits him to various humiliating violent and sexual acts while he’s tied up like a dog, all the while dealing with memories of Johnny that aren’t as pleasant as she remembers.
The fourth member of this sordid rectangle is Wendell’s wife, Carol (Corinne Clery – Moonraker), who leaves him in disgust for his proclivity towards ladies of the evening, and besides Jessica’s own personal anguish, shows how Wendell and Johnny are seen through the female eye in general. (They’re pieces of shit, is what I’m saying.) So it is that The Devil’s Honey acts as a conduit for dealing with grief and anger filtered through a sleazy, grimy Eurotrash lens.
This side of Fulci was lost on me before now; of course, he’s never shied away from nudity in his horror films for gratuitous or other reasoning (Don’t Torture A Duckling [1972] uses it to show the fears of the pubescent male), and in The Devils’s Honey he tries to have it both ways. The romance between Johnny and Jessica is often shown to be torrid (never more so than in a jaw-dropping opening scene where the bell of his saxophone and her privates meet in an orgasmic dance), and her frequent nudity while taunting and torturing Wendell is an extension of her dismay and power over him.
But by this point in his career (and following near death from hepatitis) any semblance of subtlety and nuance is lacking; perhaps this is just my attunement to his horror films, which aren’t exactly low-key to begin with. In other words, your enjoyment of The Devil’s Honey will depend on your affection for Fulci at his most melodramatic. Regardless of the final result, he must be commended for breaking away from his usual output and offering a unique addition to his body of work. I know I won’t forget it anytime soon.
Always commendable is Severin Films’ commitment to unearthing curiosities such as this, and they once again provide the viewer with a bounty of sinful riches, including:
While all entertaining, my favorite of the features is Fulci’s Honey, which takes a deep dive into films closer in tone to this one, such as One on Top of the Other (1969), and others like Duckling that tackle heady targets like the Catholic Church. It really does give a broader view of Fulci’s influence on Italian cinema, and it is a treat to see glimpses of his work in other genres.
Without the horror to offset the lurid ludicrousness (but hats off to Marsillach, who gives a brave and raw performance), The Devil’s Honey doesn’t quite work for me. However, I’m so glad that Severin Films has brought this long-lost Fulci film to the masses in an uncut, remastered form overflowing with enlightening features that show him the respect he deserves, and that he most certainly earned.
Movie Score: 2.5/5, Disc Score: 4/5
Scott Drebit lives and works in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is happily married (back off ladies) with 2 grown kids. He has had a life-long, torrid, love affair with Horror films. He grew up watching Horror on VHS, and still tries to rewind his Blu-rays. Some of his favourite horror films include Phantasm, Alien, Burnt Offerings, Phantasm, Zombie, Halloween, and Black Christmas. Oh, and Phantasm.
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