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Italian maestro Fabio Frizzi has composed more than 100 scores over the course of his 50+ year career, including features, shorts, and television, but he’s most well known for his work with Italian horror legend Lucio Fulci. Intermittently since 2013, Frizzi has paid tribute to his late friend and frequent collaborator with a live band dubbed Frizzi 2 Fulci.
“Fulci started to give me this heritage, and I try to use it in the best way,” he told me at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, MA on September 17, where he was being honored with the Coolidge After Midnite Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the genre. The evening also included a Frizzi 2 Fulci concert and a midnight screening of Fulci’s Zombie.
The show kicked off with the first-ever live performance of a track from Frizzi’s previously unannounced Zombie composer’s cut. He recently revisited The Beyond for a similar treatment — its composer’s cut is coming to theaters this fall — and it’s fascinating to hear the composer rework his music after more than 40 years. As memorable as the original Zombie score is, the new snippet may be even better.
For the live show, Fabio Frizzi alternates between keyboard and acoustic guitar, along with occasional vocals and conductor duties. He’s joined by guitarists Riccardo Rocchi and Francesco Saguto, bassist Roberto Fasciani, drummer Federico Tacchi, and keyboardist Alessio Contorni, who also plays flute and harmonica as needed.
As you might expect, the band went on to play cues from several of Frizzi’s collaborations with Fulci: Zombie, The Beyond, City of the Living Dead, Murder to the Tune of the Seven Black Notes, A Cat in the Brain, Manhattan Baby, Four of the Apocalypse, and Contraband (during which each band member played a brief solo).
Not unlike John Carpenter’s recent foray into live shows, Fabio Frizzi has breathed new life into the old material with his band, turning many of the compositions into full-blown rock jams. Curated film clips and images were emblazoned on the big screen behind them as they performed.
Frizzi also sprinkled in selections that weren’t from Fulci movies but are certainly in the same vein, including a medley from Cadabra Records’ audio adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Picture in the House and tracks from three recent short films: Beware of Darkness, The Weeping Woman, and Saint Frankenstein.
After a remarkable 10-minute suite from The Beyond, Frizzi and company brought the hour-long concert to an end with music from Lamberto Bava‘s Blastfighter. On paper, closing with a non-Fulci track may seem a bit odd, but the anthemic rock jam made for a high note to end on.
Following a brief intermission, Coolidge Corner Theatre Director of Special Programming Mark Anastasio presented Frizzi with the Coolidge After Midnite Award. “These awards have gone to guests that have come back time and time again to be with our audiences, and that is an important part of midnight film culture,” he started. “We are gathering here in this place together and experiencing the films that we love as a community.”
Lloyd Kaufman, William Lustig, and Adrienne Barbeau were previously honored, but Frizzi is the first composer to receive the award. Anastasio noted, “I think that everyone in this room, especially after what we just experienced, knows wholeheartedly that music is such an important part of filmmaking. A lot of the emotion that you get from watching films comes from the scores that are composed for them.”
Fabio Frizzi accepted the award with a smile plastered on his face, proceeding to reminisce about Zombie. English is his second language, but he had no problem articulating his love for working with Fulci — first with his trio Bixio, Frizzi & Tempera and then more notably as a solo artist. Although he previously scored giallo movies for Fulci, Frizzi considers Zombie to be his first attempt at horror. “It was the beginning of four, five, six movies of great importance in horror.”
Fulci allowed Frizzi to try new things, but the process wasn’t always easy. He shared a fun anecdote about the first time he saw the notorious sequence in which a woman’s eye is impaled on a splinter of wood. He asked editor Vincenzo Tomassi to replay it and tell him where it was edited to ensure it was a special effect rather than real. He also mentioned that seeing Fulci on screen while playing A Cat in the Brain was like being with him again.
Although the Coolidge is known for 35mm repertory screenings, Zombie was presented via DCP. Thankfully, Blue Underground’s recent 4K restoration is beautiful. From the opening closeup staring down the barrel of a gun to the apocalyptic final shot of zombies shambling across Brooklyn Bridge, the level of detail is astounding.
Released as a sequel to Dawn of the Dead in its native Italy, the 1979 zombie film is perhaps Fulci’s most well-rounded horror effort. It’s an impressive feat for a movie to have a single iconic moment, but Zombie boasts at least three: the aforementioned eye gag, the Jaws-inspired zombie vs. shark scene, and the worm-infested zombie rising from its grave that serves as the film’s poster.
“When I saw Zombie, I remained without words,” Frizzi recalled, praising Fulci’s direction, the cast, and the special effects. “I think it’s a magic movie. It’s one of those movies you can see 100 times and every time there is something new that you can discover,” equating it to his personal favorite film, Blade Runner.
Frizzi is aiming to bring his Zombie composer’s cut on tour in 2023. If you’ve ever found yourself appreciating a film score, you’ll want to devour his live show like one of Fulci’s flesh eaters.