The first time I saw Nightmare Concert (on a washed-out 5th generation copy) I couldn't believe my fucking eyes. Old Lucio really swing the chainsaw in this sucker of a movie, assaulting his viewers with a vengeance, making up for all those toothless movies he forced upon us in his last years. Almost every single scene is filled with someone being killed in extreme detail. Of course we then learned that the film consists of choice bits from other people's movies with such nice titles as Bloody Psycho and Massacre, mixed with the best parts from his own work of recent years (Touch of Death, The Ghosts of Sodom etc).

Plotwise the film is part autobiography, part therapy session, full-time sex and violence. Fulci plays himself, a director on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Haunted by visions and nightmares he seek up a funny psychiatrist (Kennedy). The psychiatrist then in turn take advantage of Fulci's state of mind to commit some horrible murders, making Fulci believe that he may have done them.

It is a bit unclear exactly why Fulci made this film. One gets the feeling there is some kind of statement being made here, or at least a point, that horror directors are bound to be affected by their work. If the director is plagued by nightmares and has demons on his mind he must let it out on film, so the film becomes a reflection of its director and vice versa. Eh... well, okey, Mr. Fulci. Whatever you say. Probably true to some degree and in some cases. But to me Nightmare Concert feels more like a cynical give-in to the audience's demands for more gore and splatter, rather than some kind of personal cinematic exorcism. It also feels more empty and more pointless than many other Fulci efforts because of it. The non-stop violence quickly become tedious and effectively erases any substance there may be. Fulci look weak, tired and bitter when he wanders around without direction, imagining one pathetic thing after another. And the scene, although borrowed from Mario Bianchi's The Murder Secret, when Fulci in his delirious state of mind sneaks up upon Jessica Moore in shower and stabbs her like the maniac he is a little too explicit and gloating and set in this context it almost feels like some kind of personal expression reminiscent of some of the more misogynistic parts of New York Ripper. Fulci is definitely in bad need of a shrink here.

That said, Nightmare Concert isn't without merit. There are some intriguing and ironic twists here and there, especially when Fulci goes berserk because he is filmed by a crew doing a documentary about him. Suddenly it is he who is followed by a gloating camera. And when the female journalist then is brutally killed by Fulci in one of his fantasies she says that she loves to be butchered by such a famous horror director. The film would definitely have benefitted from more of such black humour. Or at least from a more distinct use of it. Ultimately though, Nightmare Concert's biggest merit is, in my eyes, that one gets to see a bit behind the scenes of Fulci World, with some of his trusty co-workers playing themselves. And if you're a fan and hasn't seen the film you do have missed something. Not something good, but something special at least.

© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.