Lucio Fulci! Ahhh the man was great and he left us way too soon. I wish I had the chance to meet him at least once before he passed on. It is a shame that he only made it to the states once where he was truly appreciated and adored by fans across the U.S. His only trip to the states was not exactly a great one either. It just so happened to be during one of the worst blizzards to hit New York City in quite some time. So as you can imagine only the very dedicated fans made it out there. Among them was Mike Baronas. When he missed out on his chance to grab an interview with Fulci he figured he would just be back soon.. Not but a couple months later Fulci passed away. This is what drove Baronas to venture across the globe and interview tons of people that were involved with Fulci in one form or another. The product of all those interviews is Paura: Lucio Fulci Remembered Vol. 1.

When I first heard of this project I was absolutely elated. I am a huge Fulci fan and I also love documentaries. Well after listening to another review online I quickly discovered that this was not a documentary. No this is more like a video directly to Fulci about how he touched so many people while making his films. In fact some of the people look right into the camera as if talking to Fulci and let him know that he is missed. It's quite like those wedding videos that are made for the bride and groom.

I have honestly always thought that Fulci had a really bad reputation with everyone he ever worked with. I was under the impression that he was a tyrant on set and treated most of his cast very harshly. But with this, I learned it actually quite the opposite. It seems like he just had a very warped sense of humor that some people just did not get. As a matter of fact I think there is only one person on this entire DVD who seems to still hold a real grudge against Fulci after all these years. I won't name names as you can find out for yourself.

As I said above it is not really a documentary. The DVD is actually broken up into three sections, Peers (14), Accomplices (19) and Victims (55). Some of the people interviewed include John Morghen, Catriona MacColl, Michele Soavi, Lamberto Bava, Bruno Mattei, Umberto Lenzi, Ruggero Deodato and tons more. A lot of the interviews are in Italian with English subs so be prepared to do a lot of reading. But something else that I really enjoyed about this disc was that you could either play them all or just watch one or two. Personally I think this really boosts the DVD because if you just want to listen to the actors or directors you know, you can.

I also wanted to touch on one particular interview that was held with Dakar. Many of you will remember him as Lucas in Zombi 2. It is one of the most touching interviews in the bunch because not only can you tell that Mike and his partner Kit brightened this mans day by bringing back such happy memories for him but unfortunately he would pass on not to long after it was done. So in hindsight it is one of those moments where you can really see him having a grand time with his guitar, near tears, talking about a grand time in his life.

If I really had to pick out anything on this disc that I thought needed a little work it would be the authoring of the DVD. Now I just have a standard TV set but some of the graphics were cut off and sometimes the subtitles would be as well. But those are really small things that in the end didn't bother me that much.

I highly suggest that any Lucio Fulci fans out there should pick this up. Everyone else should also give this one a look into who Fulci really was and not just believe what someone on the net has said about him. Hear it from the people who worked with him. After listening to all the people you can weigh in on what kind of person you really think he was. Currently you can pick up the DVD at Paura Productions official website. Bring on volume 2!

- Luke Franklin