Paura nella città dei morti viventi (1980)

Directed by Lucio Fulci [Other horror films: Una lucertola con la pelle di donna (1971), Non si sevizia un paperino (1972), Il cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco, ovvero: Dracula in Brianza (1975), Sette note in nero (1977), Zombi 2 (1979), Gatto nero (1981), …E tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà (1981), Quella villa accanto al cimitero (1981), Lo squartatore di New York (1982), Manhattan Baby (1982), Murderock – Uccide a passo di danza (1984), Aenigma (1987), Zombi 3 (1988), Il fantasma di Sodoma (1988), Quando Alice ruppe lo specchio (1988), La casa nel tempo (1989), La dolce casa degli orrori (1989), Un gatto nel cervello (1990), Demonia (1990), Hansel e Gretel (1990), Voci dal profondo (1991), Le porte del silenzio (1992)]

Known best as City of the Living Dead, this Lucio Fulci film is one that I’ve been looking forward to for a while. I’ve only seen it once, and it’s been over ten years since that occasion, so this is one I definitely wanted to revisit. As it stands, though, I think the movie is just okay.

Lucio Fulci is a director that I appreciate, but a lot of the work I’ve seen from him doesn’t generally impress me too much. I quite enjoy The Beyond, and both Don’t Torture a Duckling and The New York Ripper are hella fun, but sometimes his films don’t hit the right spots, and while I enjoyed bits and pieces of City of the Living Dead, this is a good example of that.

Overall, it’s probably more cohesive in my view than The House by the Cemetery, which is a positive. I sort of liked the final ten minutes – the final scene leaves quite a bit up to interpretation, but given this is the first of the Gates of Hell trilogy, I can dance to that tune. The base story isn’t bad, and I did like how it took an hour for Carlo De Mejo and Christopher George to finally meet up.

It’s the gore here that’s of primary interest. There are a few disturbing scenes here, but the sequence in which a poor woman regurgitates her organs has to be one of the most sickening scenes I’ve seen in recent times. The special effects are decent – sometimes the brains look a bit bleh, and the power drill scene seemed a bit janky, but City of the Living Dead did have enough gore to keep things moderately interesting, not to mention the maggot showers.

Also, despite the name, it’s sort of hard for me to see this as a zombie movie. Sure, zombies appear, but it’s nothing at all like Zombi 2 – here, the zombies teleport, crush someone’s skull, take some of their brain matter, and move on. It’s a much more supernatural take on zombies, which fits in with the tone of the movie, and definitely felt unique, but it’s sort of hard for me to fully enjoy it.

One thing I did enjoy was the sequence in which a woman wakes up in a casket after having been buried. People thought she was dead, of course – they weren’t being dicks. It’s a tense moment, as another character is slowly walking out of the cemetery, occasionally stopping, as he thinks he hears banging and screaming from a grave behind him. It’s stretched out wonderfully – at times, it feels like he’s actually leaving the cemetery, and the buried character, behind. That was a quality tense sequence.

Christopher George (Whiskey Mountain, Graduation Day, Day of the Animals, Mortuary, Pieces, and Grizzly) was okay, but I can’t say I thought he had a lot of character. In fact, I think that holds true for a lot of the performances here – Carlo De Mejo, Janet Agren (Rat Man, Eaten Alive, and Panic), Catriona MacColl (The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery) and Giovanni Lombardo Radice (Cannibal Ferox, Cannibal Apocalypse, and House on the Edge of the Park) were all fine, but none felt well-developed, especially in Radice’s case, as he felt like such a random character.

Obviously, different people have different takes on Fulci films. I know some people who rather love this particular movie. For my part, though, it feels somewhat confused, the plot not particularly well thought out, the finale somewhat impressive, but again, nowhere near as great as The Beyond. I still enjoy this more than The House by the Cemetery, but I do feel it’s a bit below average, at least with having seen it twice.

6.5/10