88 Films has issued a beautifully packaged Blu-ray edition of Lucio Fulci’s classic Beatrice Cenci (1969). Known in some circles as The Conspiracy of Torture, this historical-based film helped set in motion much of the seventies and beyond for Fulci. Backed with some enticing new extras, this slipcovered Blu-ray will be highly prized for Fulci and Italian film fans. Order now from MVD.
I was a much younger man the first time I saw Beatrice Cenci on grey-market VHS in the nineties. I think my copy came from Midnight Video, although I wouldn’t swear to it even on the rack. While this torture-based drama contains some truly horrific and bloody moments, Beatrice Cenci was a bit shocking to see without a lot of context back in the day, as it was so different than the Fulci we thought we knew.
Personal favorites are personal favorites, usually for a very personal reason. As Lucio Fulci’s legend has continued to rise these past few decades, Beatrice Cenci has been mentioned repeatedly as Fulci’s own preferred title in his long filmography. As Stephen Thrower points out during his excellent 33-minute interview on this new Blu-ray, Beatrice Cenci was in fact the favorite film of Fulci’s wife at the time, who tragically took her own life shortly after this was released. With the information in mind, it isn’t hard to understand why Fulci held this particular title especially close.
Telling the often-told, often-filmed tale of Italy’s Cenci family, Beatrice Cenci was unlike anything else in Lucio Fulci’s filmography up to that point. As far removed from the comedies he’d been making, this is a darkly intense, serious work about religious and political corruption. Fulci controls every frame with a distinctive and varied style, showing off everything he’d learned in the sixties.
Written with frequent collaborator Roberto Gianviti, Beatrice Cenci is perhaps the most serious film Fulci ever made, along with Don’t Torture a Duckling. Both films take dead aim at organized religion and open fire. Also, like Don’t Torture a Duckling, Beatrice Cenci is a rural, sweaty production where it looks like everyone is overheating. This earlier film especially, as the character’s sweat becomes a near secondary character.
Beatrice Cenci is a deliberately brutal-looking film. Cinematographer Erico Menczer does everything he can to bring the unpleasantness out in every frame. This is not a pretty film, to say the least. Fulci designed this to look hot and harsh, and he succeeds. After all, this is a film centered on abuse, hypocrisy, and perversion. Beatrice Cenci’s plot and themes demand an ugly presentation, and Fulci delivers.
Fulci plays around a lot with form and technique throughout Beatrice Cenci. It is almost like he is teaching his own film school behind the camera here. This is an odd film, nearly over-directed at times, but regardless, Fulci announced himself as a major filmmaker throughout this incredibly dark production.
The big star that appears in Beatrice Cenci is Tomas Milian, however, it is the bewitching Adrienne La Russa, as the tragic and sainted title character, that controls the film with an underrated performance, both brave and haunting. For the most part, the ensemble here mostly disappears in the film, which works perfectly well for Fulci’s brutalist tale.
Compared to the incredibly colorful and wonderfully entertaining Giallo, Gore and Horror classics he later made, Beatrice Cenci is devoid of any kind of fun. With that in mind, it is easy to see why this film hasn’t been embraced in the same way as the Maestro’s later films. Regardless, this is not only an important Lucio Fulci film, but it is also arguably his first great one.
Whether Fulci would have felt as strongly about the film if it hadn’t been his wife’s favorite will never be known. Beatrice Cenci is not Lucio Fulci’s best film, by a long shot, but this is still an admirable and fierce piece of cinema deserving of a larger audience.
Considering the legend surrounding Lucio Fulci, it is wild that Beatrice Cenci took so long to arrive on Blu-ray. 88 Films 2K Restoration From The Original Negative is a solid one with great natural grain, although keep in mind again that this film is designed to look as earthy and harsh as imaginable. We get both English and Italian language options, along with a new Troy Howarth commentary track. We also get a new interview with actor Antonio Casagrande and that great chat with Stephen Thrower. While not as loaded up as other Fulci classics, this is a great release of Beatrice Cenci and is highly recommended.
-Jeremy Richey, November 2026-
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