** Lucio Fulci was renowned for his gore-soaked, entrail-laden spaghetti epics, held in particular regard by some of us, accustomed to watered- down, assembly line slashers and their endless line of sequels as the totality of the horror flick experience. Dreamy and incoherent as well as repulsive & palpable, Lucio's movies are an acquired taste. To accuse him of being liberal with narrative is putting it lightly. In the world according to the maestro, insane strokes of bad luck strike with the disfavor of a sadistic god; guard dogs rip your throat out, cellar walls collapse onto hell-mouths, and jealous father's power drill craniums with demented glee. It's a mad, mad world of grisly freak accidents, usually of the supernatural variety & mankind is little more than playthings. Such a uniformed unconformity to the strictures of plot and even common sense have been used as ammunition for criticisms, but I find his wacky gutter-surrealism charming. I've had enough cookie cutter story lines and half baked scare tactics to last a lifetime. Unpredictability & restraint will never be an issue with a Fulci film and we should be glad. House of Clocks is like this. Three thugs decide to rob an elderly couple's estate and end up murdering the occupants when it all goes haywire. However, when the hundreds of clocks adorning the mansion begin running backwards, time itself begins to unravel and the victims return to life, turning the tables on their accosters with interesting results.
Logic is conservatively adhered to throughout this scattershot tale, and Fulci has his usual schlock gore on hand to spice it up, though not nearly at the strength of his earlier classics, sadly. Though clearly upper tier output from his awful final phase, the inspired nihilistic vision of the early 80's just isn't there. Unfortunately too, the photography has a hazy indistinctness which apparently is a trademark of his later work, but that's small potatoes compared to the horrible dubbing which saddles the actors with ill-suited voices (like a lot of Italian genre movies) that over and under accentuate sentences constantly and sound like parodies of their respective characters.
The real delight of this bizarre little ditty is the elderly duo, presented as polite, thoroughly insane geriatrics. These are your kindly grandparents filtered through the Italian sleaze ethic: upon graciously accepting the resignation of their maid, the old lady casually picks up a wooden pole and impales the woman, twisting with glee and watching her intestines un-loop .She then tosses off her gardening gloves and sashays out of the greenhouse(!?). Such throwaway moments of off-the-wall tastelessness (the screen writer also penned House on the Edge of the Park) ensure House of Clocks is, if you can stomach the slow-pacing, a decent time killer. But there are no earth shattering gore operatics here.
Logic is conservatively adhered to throughout this scattershot tale, and Fulci has his usual schlock gore on hand to spice it up, though not nearly at the strength of his earlier classics, sadly. Though clearly upper tier output from his awful final phase, the inspired nihilistic vision of the early 80's just isn't there. Unfortunately too, the photography has a hazy indistinctness which apparently is a trademark of his later work, but that's small potatoes compared to the horrible dubbing which saddles the actors with ill-suited voices (like a lot of Italian genre movies) that over and under accentuate sentences constantly and sound like parodies of their respective characters.
The real delight of this bizarre little ditty is the elderly duo, presented as polite, thoroughly insane geriatrics. These are your kindly grandparents filtered through the Italian sleaze ethic: upon graciously accepting the resignation of their maid, the old lady casually picks up a wooden pole and impales the woman, twisting with glee and watching her intestines un-loop .She then tosses off her gardening gloves and sashays out of the greenhouse(!?). Such throwaway moments of off-the-wall tastelessness (the screen writer also penned House on the Edge of the Park) ensure House of Clocks is, if you can stomach the slow-pacing, a decent time killer. But there are no earth shattering gore operatics here.