The Devil's Honey (1986)

Lucio Fulci's films are not known for their great scripts, and indeed the storytelling in "Devil's Honey" is often sloppy and the ending is weak. They are known for their gore (almost completely absent here), and their directorial flair (some of which is present here). Of course this is a rather atypical outing for Fulci (his answer to "9 ½ Weeks", perhaps?), and it works mostly thanks to Blanca Marsillach's surprisingly good performance: she's a beautiful young woman with a perfect body who walks around in the nude a lot, but beyond her looks she gives more depth than you'd expect to her character, making her innocent and curious (and easily aroused!) at first, sadistic and vengeful in the second half (I loved those little smirks that showed how much pleasure she got from her power over her male captive), but always very human underneath. Although she is 3rd-billed, make no mistake: she is the star of this film (2nd-billed Corinne Clery has a relatively small part, but she DOES get fully nude as well!). This is why this erotic thriller is so much more "erotic" than "thriller": who wouldn't want to be captured by a woman like Blanca and become her plaything? **1/2 out of 4.

Devil's Honey, The (1986)** 1/2 (out of 4) Bizarre film for Fulci sees him in more of a Jess Franco type of territory. In the film, a woman (Blanca Marsillach) loses her mind after the death of her boyfriend. Even though it was his fault, she blames the doctor (Brett Halsey) who was operating on him when he died. Soon the woman kidnaps the doctor and plans to torture him both physically and sexually. This certainly isn't the type of film you'd expect someone like Fulci to make especially during this period in his career. Throughout this decade we were getting non-stop violence and gore but that's all cut out here and in its place is non-stop nudity and bizarre sex scenes. The first twenty-minutes of this film features one sex scene after another and it appears they each get more and more bizarre. Fulci's THE NEW YORK RIPPER was pretty perverse but so is this film and that includes a scene where the boyfriend "satisfies" the woman by putting his trumpet up to her private parts and playing. The sex scenes never reach the hardcore stage but Fulci handles them pretty well, although he never quite reaches a full erotic mode. The biggest problem for me was the actual screenplay and the entire revenge aspect. One could compare this film to Franco's SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY but that movie worked a lot better because we understood the woman's need for revenge. That's not the case here for a couple of reasons. The first being that the man is a complete jerk to her so we really don't care when he dies. The second reason is because the woman is simply blaming the wrong person for his death. There's no way around that and it's hard to buy into anything she's doing because you simply don't agree with her. Halsey, a soon to be Fulci regular, does a pretty good job in his role but there's no question that the film belongs to Marsillach who really digs deep into her character. The two work quite well together and certainly make the film a lot better than it really has the right to be. The brisk 78-minute running time moves pretty well and the jazz score is quite nice as well. Fans of Fulci will certainly want to check this one out but others probably won't find too much entertainment here.

"The Devil's Honey" is definitely one of the rarest and possibly also the strangest movie Lucio Fulci has on his impressive repertoire. And even though it must be very appealing to fans of the man, I certainly wouldn't advise to move heaven and earth in order to purchase a copy of this film. Although not at all bad or boring, this is an extremely atypical Fulci-movie and the complete lack of gore and zombie-action is likely to disappoint people that only know Fulci from films like "City of the Living Dead" and "Zombi 2". "The Devil's Honey" is more like an erotic melodrama and it seems like Fulci took this opportunity to insert as many bizarre sexual fantasies as humanly possible in one screenplay. Especially during the first half hour, this film brings forward some of the oddest sex scenes ever, including sex with a saxophone (very creative!), sex with red paint (weird!), sex on the roller-coaster (exciting!), a threesome in the movie-theater (too strange for words) and sex on a motorcycle (don't try this at home!). We follow a young couple with an extremely healthy sexual appetite as well as a frustrated surgeon who regularly visits prostitutes in order to escape his boring marriage. All their lives interfere when the young man is involved in a banal accident and the surgeon isn't able to save his life. The slightly insane girl Jessica personally holds Dr. Simpson responsible for her lover's death and decides to kidnap him. Her plan is to kill him but, of course, they start a passionate sexual relationship instead. Like other reviewers pointed out correctly, it's very interesting to see how Lucio Fulci – universally known as the director of gorehound movies – is also capable of bringing an intense, non-graphic thriller. His directing is solid and straightforward, although he does waste too much time on pointless flashbacks and unfinished sub plots. The music is good & atmospheric and, perhaps the best thing, the chemistry between the girl and the surgeon comes across as very realistic. Nothing like the average Italian horror film, this movie reminded me most of artistic portraits like Paul Verhoeven's "Turkish Delight", Annaud's "L'Amant" or Catherine Braillat's "Romance X". Not as stylish perhaps, but also revolving on individuals struggling with sexual issues. Be warned!

I've seen overall 30 Lucio Fulci's movies, horror and non-horror, and have to admit that Devil's honey did surprise me. Many people doesn't like this one, because it's so different than Fulci's better known splatter-movies, but I have to disagree with that. Even though movie differs very much maestro's earlier works like for example Zombie flesh-eaters, Beyond, City of the living dead or even notorious New York ripper, doesn't make it bad. Sure there's different kind of elements involved this time, but movie is still worth to watch.Basically Devil's honey, as it is titled in most English language countries, is a story of a love and disappointment, which leads eventually to a kidnapping and a torture. It's a story of a disappointed young woman, who kidnaps a doctor who failed to save her boyfriend and who tortures the doctor to the limits to get her satisfactional punishment. There's some sadomasochistic elements involved too, because doctor falls in love with his torturer and starts to enjoy his punishment. Many people see this as a main thing in this movie, but it isn't. Although the story behind the torturing is very simple and little twisted (like many other Fulci movies too), sadomasochism isn't playing the leading role here.I'll give Devil's honey 8/10 just because it's nice to see that Fulci can handle this kind of erotic thriller as well as his earlier horror flicks. recommended.