For April we’re examining the work of the notorious Italian director Lucio Fulci. Fulci had a career that spanned five decades, wherein he tackled disparate genres—comedy, Spaghetti Westerns, musicals, erotic thrillers—but he remains best remembered for his horror films and gialli. His are not just any genre entries, but some of the most shockingly gory to ever induce a seasoned horror fan to wince at the mayhem. A cited influence on filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino and Eli Roth, Fulci’s fanbase has only grown as horror fans have spent decades proselytizing his body of work.

April Fulcis is sponsored in kind by Messed Up Puzzles and Left Bank Books. All who register and attend an event will be entered to win a registration prize: we have two Fulci puzzles in the Messed Up Puzzles line and one copy of Kea Wilson’s novel We Eat Our Own from Left Bank Books to give away. You’re entered once for each night you attend, so any one person can be entered up to five times if they attend all five April Fulcis events. (Current Webster University faculty and staff are not eligible to win. Prizes will not be shipped outside of the United States.

Each film is available to watch on streaming services or VOD. Watch each film ahead of time and then join us every Thursday evening for an in-depth discussion. 

On Thursday, April 22nd, at 7pm, Aaron AuBuchon, Associate Dean of the School of Communications at Webster University, will discuss

The House by the Cemetery

(Lucio Fulci, 1981, Italy, 87 minutes)

The final film in the Gates of Hell trilogy, The House by the Cemetery finds young marrieds Norman (Paolo Malco) and Lucy (Catriona MacColl, who appears in all three Gates of Hell films), young son in tow, leaving New York City for a creepy manor called Oak Mansion in the town of New Whitby. As with the cemetery of City of the Living Dead and the hotel in The

Beyond, Norman and Lucy unwittingly find themselves on the site of a suicide, and its cursed past may have made it another of the seven gates of hell.