in the hotel the production had booked for them, it was because they got on well together—Chris- tina Engelhardt would later call Meg Register her “soul sister”—but also because they weren’t earning enough to go out to a restaurant. Lucio Fulci refused to talk at length with anyone, except his daughter and Brett Halsey. It appeared quickly that, as Aronin predicted, the opening sequence would require more time to shoot than the sched- ule could afford. Some dialogue was rewritten at night, new scenes were added, others cut. Christina Engelhardt confirms that the atmo- sphere was a bit weird, and wasn’t helped by an incident that happened early in the shooting schedule: “I had a major car accident while be- ing transported from the set to our hotel. The driver from the production was high and speed- ing. I begged him to slow down—instead he went faster, and acted like a mafia goon. He took me, himself and three other actors rolling down a steep embankment. We were lucky to get out alive... and it was my birthday, turning 30... I guess I wasn’t supposed to end that way. I found out there was no insurance on the film, so I didn’t get paid for any medical expenses. Then the production got mad that I complained about it and didn’t even pay me for my role in the film.”
December 8, 1989
It is now an hour-and-a-half—or two—or more (but not much) since we had the accident. Should my memory fail me later, I would like to put down the sequences as I recall them. It was a beautiful day at the site. There were several threats of rain that only manifested themselves in sprinkles. But the time we spent doing the “dead” scene in the ambulance was quite nice. After we were done, Pascal and I stayed at the site until after lunch—and then for a bit. At last it was time to go. A light rain fell. There were five of us in the car—an Audi 500. Pascal was in the front passenger seat. In the back, Christina was sitting to my left and Justine to my right. The driver’s name was Enzo. He was going a bit fast. Zuchero was on the tape machine. The dial on the tape machine read TAPE. Christina was resting her head on my shoulder. She had made a few jokes about our being dead. We came to a hill, on the down side, and the driver didn’t slow his pace. At one point, he slightly lost control and we swerved. It didn’t seem to faze him. In two seconds more, we went into another swerve and he lost control.
The actors, shattered, sought and found ref- uge in a man’s house. There were no serious inju- ries, just a few cuts, but that was quite enough for all concerned. Pascal Druant, who always refused to use a seat belt but had done so on this day on a sudden impulse, vowed he would never drive again without buckling up. Christina Engeldhart was furious. Grady Clarkson was shocked.
December 8, 1989
We had crashed into an orange tree on the property of some people who have a stand there. Someone brought us alcohol to put on our cuts. Justine was reluctant to take it because it burns, but we persuaded her to do so. The man got the key to a house across the road—an old farm house. He let us into it, and when he opened the window to the musty room, and the room filled with the afternoon sunlight. The light revealed an old framed print on the opposite wall. Christina saw it first. It was of an Angel in pink, helping two children to cross a broken bridge.
In spite of the car crash, the filming contin- ued, though not without difficulty. Fulci lost his nerve more than once because of problems aris- ing from the lack of money. The budgetary con- straints are most notable in the execution of the special effects shots, some of which are nothing more than embarrassing. Fulci, as we can see in the making-of documentary (available on Shriek Show’s DEMONIA DVD), seems to lack interest in parts of his own movie. This is especially notice- able while the shooting of the infamous quarter- ing is taking place. It is as if the director knew there was nothing he could do to save this part of the film. He surrenders the scene to his special effects teammates Elio Terribilli and Mario Cicarella and, under the crude light of winter, the body looks like what it is: a dummy on a forest ground. Fulci looks in another direction.
To save time, Fulci remembered the ways his old master Alfred Hitchcock used when he was under the threat of a producer with artistic preten- sions. He decided to edit the movie in the cam- era, without allowing the coverage necessary for others to edit the footage together in any way other than he has chosen. Even this radical technique was not enough to enable him to follow the sched- ule, so Fulci spent most of his time shouting at his actors. As Grady Clarkson remembers, the dif- ficulties had no effect on Fulci’s vitriolic humor: “I do recall, at one time, that Fulci, ever screaming, said something to me and called me Sir Laurence
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