Review by Tristan Bishop
The masters of the classic Italian horror film were never confined to just one genre. Dario Argento, arguably the most dedicated of the horror directors, also made westerns early in his career. Mario Bava made westerns, sci-fi and peplums (historical muscle man films) even after astounding the world with his official debut Black Sunday, and Lucio Fulci was no different, as Contraband proves. In fact, Fulci worked in a variety of genres from the 1950s onwards, from spy films to comedies, before eventually entering the horror/giallo field with One On Top Of The Other (1969) and A Lizard In Woman’s Skin (1971). Even after the worldwide success of Zombie Flesh Eaters in 1979, Fulci made the occasional foray outside of the genre which made his name – notably the post apocalyptic sci-fi The New Gladiators (1983 – ripped off by Stephen King for The Running Man) and Conquest (also 1983), an attempt to jump on the Conan The Barbarian bandwagon. Even when working outside the horror genre, however, Fulci knew what made his films successful – buckets of gore. Contraband, on the surface a straightforward Mafia revenge flick, contains more of the brutal red stuff than most of today’s horror upstarts could dream of splashing across the screen. Thankfully those indefatigable miscreants at Shameless have now issued this on DVD in a totally uncut print, so fans of the Maestro’s horror hits can appraise it for themselves.
The plot starts in the harbour of Naples, where smuggler Luca (Fabio Testi, a mainstay of the Italian crime flick) evades a police raid by blowing up a boat and faking his own death. Suspecting an informant, Luca and his brother Mickey take their concerns to their Mafia-connected boss. The same night, someone sets fire to Mickey’s stables, killing his prize racehorse. But worse is yet to come. On their way back from the stables they encounter a police roadblock which turns out to be fake, and the ‘cops’ open fire, killing Mickey. At Mickey’s funeral, symbolically carried out in the Naples harbour, Luca vows revenge for his brother, and goes after Scherino, a mob boss he suspects of ordering the hit. Unfortunately it turns out that Scherino had nothing to do with it, and there may be new bosses in town. Can Luca fight the rival gangsters, whilst avoiding the police hot on their tails, and can he protect his long-suffering wife and young son whilst he does it? Or will the whole thing end up as a grim bloodbath with no-one’s innocence left intact?
Well, yes, it’s the latter, let’s face it. But then you’ve probably already guessed that. And, to be fair, Contraband, despite being a lot more cogently plotted than Fulci’s more famous horror work, is hardly a masterpiece of story-telling. The performances are standard of Italian exploitation too (although the English dub on offer alongside the original Italian audio is superior to most), but that’s not really what you come to a Fulci film for, is it? We’re here for the rough stuff, and boy does Lucio deliver on that front. The film features an unflinching close-up Bunsen Burner torture scene, stabbings, a truly nasty rape and bullets riddling throats, heads, stomachs and pretty much every conceivable part of the human body. In fact, there’s as much gore on show here as in any of Fulci’s classic period horrors (in fact it was made right in-between Zombie Flesh Eaters and City Of The Living Dead), and, due to the realistic tone of the film, it feels even nastier and grittier than any of them. New York Ripper might be the closest of Fulci’s other films in tone, although here the debated misogyny of the director is only evident in the one aforementioned scene.
The technical credits of the film are a real who’s-who of classic period Fulci too – the wonderful Fabio Frizzi on music (sadly not one of his best, but a passable funk bass and bongo motif), Vincenzo Tomassi on editing, and the great Sergio Salvati working the camera, so fans of their Euro exploitation will know they are in safe hands here, and of course there are the traditional godawful disco scenes (with terrible music and even worse dancing) and bottles of J&B on display. Fans of 70’s/80’s ephemera will also have a field day here – Testi wears an amazing fur coat at one point, and the late queen of Italian sexploitation Ajita Wilson is seen playing a game of Pong for a split second (as well as flashing various bits of her anatomy).
I last saw Contraband on a VHS under the title The Smuggler (one of seemingly dozens of titles it has been released under) back in 1996, and many of the gruesome images have stayed with me for nearly twenty years, although I couldn’t remember any of the plot details. In fact, I’ve had trouble recalling them after watching it again last night, but it doesn’t really matter, because if you want a rough, no-nonsense Italian crime flick with the violence and sleaze turned up to 11, you’ll do no better than Contraband. Thank you, Shameless!
Contraband is out now on DVD from Shameless Screen Entertainment.
Visit http://www.shameless-films.com/ to learn more.