The dead shall rise and walk the earth. In 1980 City Of The Living Dead (aka Paura nella città dei morti viventi) was released making it's mark on the zombie scene with some of the most well executed zombie films for it's time. There is enough gore and sense of dread in this film to support a dozen others.
Add this with with one of the creepier atmospheres ever established in film making and you have one of the best early zombie movies ever to be created.
Writer and Director Lucio Fulci ( The godfather of gore who brought us such great films as Zombie, The Psychic, The Beyond and many more.) brings us to the town of Dunwich, where this nightmare takes place. Starting with a priest hanging himself from a tree in one of the most dreadful looking creepy cemeteries, thus opening one of the seven gateways to hell. (A common theme that plays out in a handful of Fulci films.)
Jerry (Christopher George) plays a reporter who after some strange occurrences realizes the death of father Thomas has opened this portal to an undead dimension. While hunting down the tombstone of the Priest he meets Mary (Catriona MacCall who also had roles in two other Fulci films The Beyond and House by the cemetery), a self proclaimed psychic who is also investigating the same strange occurrences. After finally locating the sought after grave of the priest in an underground lair, they find themselves at the epicenter of a colony of undead dwellers triggering a race to stay alive and close the gates to an emerging living dead hell.
The film was most impressive for an array of reasons one being the incredible job Fulci did in creating a dreary yet realistic setting with the use of blue lighting and collegiate shot sequences. Fulci has a way of exploiting human fears and putting them on screen, in a sense, watching one of his films is almost like watching someones nightmare play out right in front of your eyes.
There are a ton of excellent special and practical effects that leave you speechless including a kid geting a drill through the skull, a maggot wind storm using real maggots that completely cover the actors, and the most infamous scene where a girl throws up all of her intestines in which the actress had to regurgitate a plate of tripe to get the shot (her boyfriend in the car with her is the great director Michele Soavi). It's not wonder why a lot of actors had a problem with shooting some scenes on Fulci's movies, and some went as far as calling him a misogynist. Fulci's films do not always make sense and can be a bit confusing ( especially the ending of this film which has stumped fans for years) but he always manages to bring to audiences his true intentions...to scare the hell out of them.
Also bringing in some disturbing effectiveness is the talented composer Fabio Frizzi who also worked with Fulci on The Beyond, Manhattan Baby and Contraband. Fabio's score for this film did nothing but compliment the eerie effect of this film from scene to scene.
Once again, thanks to the greatest DVD company Blue Underground, we got a great DVD release of City in 2000, presented in widescreen format. The disc does not contain too many extras but the film looks pretty good.
Lucio Fulci was one of the most dedicated directors in the genre and goes the extra mile to bring a sick reality to his films, so even the most die hard, iron gut horror fans should be prepared to cringe.
Rating: B
Reviewed by Adam
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