Melvin Devereux (John Savage) is a contemptuous career man, unscrupulous and focused solely on professional success.
While visiting his father's grave at the cemetery, Melvin comes across a funeral and is approached by a girl (Sandi Schultz) who claims to know him...
When the man sets off on a journey for an important work commitment, a series of disturbing incidents plague his journey: a road closed due to damage, a wobbly bridge, a muddy puddle. Once he has overcome all these unexpected events, Melvin encounters a hearse blocking his way. Every attempt he makes to get past it is futile, as the driver deliberately blocks him from overtaking.
Meanwhile, a new appearance by the mysterious woman encountered at the beginning prompts Melvin, who has been stranded due to a carburetor failure, to visit a mechanic...
Meanwhile, on several occasions, the hearse appears before Melvin's eyes. In a strange circumstance, he has the opportunity to read the names of his wife and son on a wreath of flowers placed inside...
From this moment on, the man, partly under the influence of alcohol, becomes obsessed and frightened: he tries (always in vain) to reach the hearse, intrigued by the fact that everything inside the coffin suggests that it might contain... Melvin Devereux...
Meanwhile, the clock still shows the same time: 7:30 p.m.
Probably the director's most personal (the only one with a subject and screenplay written by Fulci) and heartfelt film, Le porte del silenzio is a work of remarkable narrative depth.
One of Fulci's best films, certainly the best the filmmaker produced in his later years.
It is significant that this is his last work, created while he was in poor health.
Not a drop of blood for a film that certainly cannot be classified as pure horror, but rather a drama with multiple “interpretations.”.
John Savage gives a magnificent performance as a lost and believable career man who has fallen into the vortex of alcoholism and mystery. According to statements made by Fulci (which appeared in Michele Romagnoli's book L'occhio del testimone), the actor—perhaps this is where his almost impressive identification with the role lies—was actually an alcoholic...
A dark, pessimistic film, tinged with melancholy that accompanies the viewer from the very first images and guides them, without interruption, along the “unknown” path of life and death. In the late afternoon, marked by a leaden sky and roads full of obstacles, the last act of existence unfolds for an ordinary man: no one can escape the laws of nature, and when existence reaches its “twilight,” when the fatal hour strikes inexorably, there is no escape...
There are some slight similarities (perhaps not entirely coincidental) with the film from the Lucio Fulci presents series, Non avere paura di zia Marta (directed by Mario Bianchi), in terms of the temporal setting of the story: the film proceeds backwards in time and the end coincides—chronologically—with the beginning...
The story of the film's distribution is incredible: when Fulci made a “mature,” refined, and meaningful film (which even the harshest critics would probably have praised), paradoxically, it was destined to be forgotten.
Aired more than ten years ago on one of the first digital pay-TV channels, Fulci's best work remains unreleased to this day, having never even been distributed in theaters.
And the regret grows when we think about what Fulci could have accustomed us to if, even in the past, he had been allowed to work in total freedom and with such prominent actors as John Savage.
The only film by the director to be released under a pseudonym, H. Simon Kittay, for the foreign market.
Review by Undying1
