88 Films: Beatrice Cenci (1969) - Reviewed

Images courtesy of 88 Films

Decades before fashioning himself the moniker of being Italy’s ‘The Godfather of Gore’, writer-director Lucio Fulci across his oeuvre was a malleable jack-of-all-tradesman with far more creative range than his acolytes who have only ever seen Zombie give the man credit for.  Between films like Don’t Torture a Duckling, Four of the Apocalypse and Contraband, he was adept at many disparate genres from the giallo to the spaghetti western to the poliziotteschi.  Never of all places did I expect to find him working in the sumptuous split-diopter heavy costumed historical period drama.  But in 1969 in one of his finest and most unexpected efforts to date, Fulci unveiled the true crime murder conspiracy tragic drama Beatrice Cenci co-starring giallo regular Tomas Milian and Adrienne La Russa.  While not shy on the graphic violence or nudity quotient, it contains an elegance and panache not visible in his later more utilitarian workmanlike pictures.  Say what you will about Fulci’s filmography which, yes, did veer increasingly into sleaze in later years ala The Devil’s Honey.  But for as low as that one went, Beatrice Cenci also entitled The Conspiracy of Torture for its 1976 US theatrical release reached unforeseen heights.

 
In a break with linearity, jumping into flashbacks four years prior to 1599 as the Cenci family awaits their fates in the court of law, Beatrice Cenci tells the saga of Francesco Cenci (Georges Wilson) a wealthy nobleman and landowner.  Beneath his prowess and success however, all of his neighbors and his immediate family hate him, particularly his daughter Beatrice (Adrienne La Russa) whom he sexually abuses.  Confiding in her mother she intends to enter into a convent to escape him, word gets back to Francesco who promptly imprisons Beatrice in a basement dungeon of their castle.  As the story leaps between the past and present day with Beatrice and her lover Olimpio (Tomas Milian) currently imprisoned and undergoing torturous interrogations, we soon learn following another sexual assault Beatrice and Olimpio have conspired with a local bandit named Catalano (Pedro Sanchez) to take out the bastard Francesco once in for all in a kind of brutal Julius Caesar-like group ambush replete with a graphic vista of knives being stabbed into eye sockets.

 
An ensemble tragedy largely grounded in the present day as characters slated for execution reflect on the events that led them to their imprisonment and sentencing, Beatrice Cenci follows in the footsteps of Witchhammer or Witchfinder General while predating Ken Russell’s recently rereleased The Devils by a few years.  From its sumptuous split-diopter heavy cinematography by The Cat o’ Nine Tails cameraman Erico Menczer to a wholly affecting orchestral score co-authored Silvano Spadaccino and Chimes at Midnight composer Angelo Francesco Lavagnino, Beatrice Cenci from top to bottom is Fulci outside of the box.  As a purely technical piece of filmmaking, there’s a classiness to the proceedings unbecoming of his usual output.  Other than some of the grisly tortures and violence in the midsection, you wouldn’t know this was a Lucio Fulci film unless told so beforehand. 

 
Tomas Milian, a mainstay of the giallo scene as well as the spaghetti western, plays a difficult part of a character being horrifically emasculated onscreen in between flashbacks of sharing the bedside with the titular heroine played by Adrienne La Russa.  La Russa is best known for her work on the television show Days of Our Lives but here is shouldered with a weight most actresses wouldn’t want to take on and yet she prevails underneath all of that heaviness.  Georges Wilson’s career goes back to films like The Longest Day but even after his villainous turn here as the abusive patriarch he’d work with Fulci again in Don’t Torture a Duckling.  Not to mention the supporting ensemble players like John Bartha, Mavi and Pedro Sanchez making up the cast of inspectors and excellencies. 

 
Previously released on Blu-ray disc in 2019 via 88 Films in the UK as part of their ongoing The Italian Collection release plan, Beatrice Cenci came out in a 2K restored edition from the original 35mm camera negative with extensive additional color correction undertaken.  That edition was all-region, came with an audio commentary by Troy Howarth, interview with actor Antonio Casagrande and a video interview with Stephen Thrower.  It also included reversible sleeve art featuring newly commissioned and original poster designs.  Now circa 2026, unless I’ve read otherwise, 88 Films is rereleasing that same 2019 edition again only this time directly into the US featuring a collectible slipcover, reversible sleeve art, a black amaray case and lobby postcards.  Outside of the reprints I couldn’t tell you what’s different about this release but for someone who missed out on the 2019 disc, this was nevertheless still a splendid disc release of one of Lucio Fulci’s finest efforts in his filmography.  If nothing else, this reprint comes housed in a slimmer amaray case so more shelf space for the win.

--Andrew Kotwicki