Sodoma's Ghost
Sodoma's Ghost
| 30 May 1988 (USA)
Sodoma's Ghost Trailers

The spirits of Nazis who were killed by bombs while having an orgy return 50 years later to terrorize a group of six teens who stumble upon the house of their death site.

Reviews
revival05

I think it all boils down to passion and driving force, the key thing that made Lucio Fulci the unique director he was and many of his movies absolutely fabulous. I can't really think of any director in the history of cinema who was so much about commitment and motivation. Maybe Edward D. Wood Jr, and that's an interesting comparison. While Fulci went straight on, seemingly against any possible sensibility and good advice, he had a style and a vision and an inner logic that somehow made it all work, albeit not for neither a traditional mainstream nor art-house crowd, whereas the same thing drove Edward D. Wood Jr to becoming known as the worst director of all time. It is a strange fine line though, because Ed Wood could certainly have made Sodoma's Ghost.When Lucio Fulci made movies he didn't just make a movie, it seems to me. With a history of both medical school and art criticism, I imagine him as this Leone-tempered butcher with a knack for art and a mind that's all happy trigger. The kid is going to get his brains drilled out, don't ask questions, it's not over the top! What do you mean you can't puke out your intestines!! I say it so it must be so! His creativity seems to have been radically set at random, he could to the silliest movies and still squeeze in some kind of more or less profound message and he could jump into whatever project that seemed reasonably interesting. Murder to the tune of the seven notes, "that sounds great! I want to make that movie!" Of course, when he pulled it all together, he made movies that, apart from being simply awesome, also totally challenge how we label art and genre in cinema. The Beyond for instance, is simply a great movie, but I can't really label it as anything else; A wonderful movie that could only have been created by a very specific and unique vision, executed with passion and driving force. And that was Fulci's trade and that's the reason that most of his movies are interesting, entertaining or at least positively watchable, if you appreciate him.That is also the reason why Sodoma's Ghost is a tragedy to watch. I don't know all that much about Fulci's life, so I can't speculate too much, but obviously he went downhill during the 90's and, if you follow the reasoning I presented just now, it must have been a mental fallback as well. Fulci's career was that of an explorer's and it seems logical that after being done with horror he could have ventured off into something else. True, all his later movies are more interested in more or less classical Gothic motifs, but it just isn't strong enough. Specially in the case of Sodoma's Ghost, which has got to be Fulci's weakest effort, and this is the key word here, 'weak'. On paper, Sodoma's Ghost has every chance to be a great Fulci movie. A nazi ghost in a cursed house infiltrates the minds of a bunch of kids on the road, making their own weakness their doom. It paves the way for his trademark pessimism, the eerie surrealism, clever gore and the classic Fulci theme of the human eyeball and "who sees what". I can even accept the hokey ending, which I won't give away. And once in a while, we are talking seconds or bare minutes of film, a splinter of a good thing appears. The first sequence is the only true good scene in the movie, but there are others involving our charismatic nazi ghost that float somewhere around the interest mark, but it never becomes worthwhile because you can so strongly sense the movie being simply dead.I never thought I'd have to say this about a Fulci movie, but the actors and their dialogs are crap. Who are these people? Maybe acting in Fulci movies in general isn't more "bad" than "melodramatic", but the people in front of the camera in Sodoma's Ghost look like random people picked up on the street. They read lines and make one or two attempts at acting, but what's worse is that Fulci has not given an attempt to make this movie worthwhile for anybody. "It's almost dark" the kids say upon arrival to the house, yet it's obviously daylight! They can't escape from the house - because they just can't! When the characters talk, you find that you barely comprehend the words they are saying, as said by these actors, because it is so stale and rudimentary that you begin to wonder if you shouldn't clean the house instead. One of the kids lay dead on the floor, the others mourn him. Minutes later they are cracking jokes by his corpse, which by the way is magically starting to fry. For a good part of the movie he lies around, they pass him and should see his oozing corpse, but not until they have to do they see his gory presence laying there in plain sight.There is not a single eyeball zoom-in in Sodoma's Ghost, and while some might think that is fan bigotry, I think it really is just an example of dead passion, or a way of thinking that this really isn't a Fulci movie at all. In fact, it ain't much of a movie at all! It consists of scenes, yes, but I think Sodoma's Ghost is more recorded data than a proper movie. There is not any point of reference given to make anybody understand the coherence of it, not in theme nor in plot, and as a director Fulci comes off as a dying animal in this movie. The shots seem barely finished, the movie barely cut together and you know, on a pure quality level, Bruno Mattei did better movies than this.

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bloodshed666

definitely one of the last and very bad attempts from lucio fulci to come up to his heights in the 70ies & early 80ies. very poor, one of his poorest films. makes me a little sad because I really love this man and find movies like don't torture a duckling, the smuggler, zombie flesh eaters, the beyond, house by the cemetery & paura really big masterpieces.the whole script doesn't fit, many things just don't make sense, no gore, no suspense, not thrilling,... - and man, this ending, just a big joke - I am pretty sure they run out of money or time, must be... but why I am commenting is because I find the title very interesting. "the 120 days of sodom" is a book by the marquise de sade and pier-paolo passolini in his similar named movie "saló - the 120 days of sodom" set the story and some excerpts of dante to the nazi-occupied salo in italy 1943 to show the continuity of sexually orientated torture in situations of superiority and dictatorship. could be that all this inspired fulci to a story of orgiastic nazi-ghosts coming back terrorising some kids with sex & violence and giving the movie the title "the ghosts of sodom".

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HumanoidOfFlesh

Lucio Fulci's "The Ghosts of Sodom" is so dumb that it's very difficult not being at least a little entertained by it.A group of kids arrives at the old Nazi mansion and soon they are haunted by Nazis from the past."The Ghosts of Sodom" must be among the worst films made by Italian horror maestro Lucio Fulci.There is almost none of the Fulci magic left.The film is also pretty boring and filled with unnecessary dialogue.There is plenty of nudity,so if you like them sleazy you won't be disappointed.No gore to speak of apart from some nice shots of decaying corpse.The film is quite rare and hard to find,so if you like Italian horror give it a look.4 out of 10.

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Phroggy

This one is extremely inept, and Fulci has lost everything that was his style. Nothing makes sense in this classical haunted-house story chock-full of "Dumb-teenagers-gets-killed" clichés. Avoid it.

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