What The Hellfire happens in the ending - the boy runs to the man and woman in the cemetery and suddenly scream NOOO! and a huge black crack screws up the shot of the boy running to them - HUH??? What does it mean!!! Stupidest ending of all time, but the movie still rules my TV screen...
shareI don't have my handy dandy little collection of books on italian cinema with me right now, but I can tell you what Fulci himself basically said about the ending.
He was in the cutting room with the editor finishing up the movie. They were joking around (possibly drunk) and pulled a "hey, wouldn't it be funny if . . ." gag. They liked it and left it in the final print. The scene was actually shot with the boy running up and hugging the two survivors, then fade to black. Fulci then goes on to explain how every reviewer and fan tries to attach a deep philosophical meaning (and they have, believe me) to explain the final shot. He laughs and implies that we're all suckers.
That's basically what he said, but if you guys wanna be b1tches about it, I'll dig up my books and type it out for ya.
sorry, did not see your response before I replied... but yeah, fightceramics is as close to the mark on that one as anyone is going to get. Fulci pretty much gave variants of the exact same story in differnt interviews to both Fangoria and the book "Spaghetti Nightmares".
share[deleted]
According to interviews with Fulci, what had happened was in the editing room, one of the frames at the end of the movie of the boy running accidently split apart creating a weird effect. In one of the outtakes, Katriona MacColl had started screaming. They decided to combine the split frame of the boy running with the outtake to create a nightmarish effect. Originally, the film was suppose to have a happy ending, like waking up from a bad dream, but Fulci decided to go with that ending instead.
share[deleted]
Not to be a dick but that doesn't really make sense. Sure there was maybe an alternate happy ending. But you have the reaction shot of them looking scared and the kid running up all crosseyed. So..
shareThe boy was a zombi, going to attack the man and woman. His teeth are semi-bared when the shot freezes, maybe he's going to bite them. His sister could've infected or killed him when she was killing her parents.
She must've got him somewhere which is covered by his clothes for the rest of the film, maybe he took a while to die or something which is why he's not zombing out until the end.
He doesn't look like a zombi, becuase his corpse is fresh.
That's how I read it, but it having been decided in the cut makes sense. I like it, I'd've been disappointed by a happy ending.