Cast:
Lucio Fulci
Writers:
Lucio Fulci (story and screenplay), Dardano Sacchetti (story and screenplay)
Stars:
Christopher George, Catriona MacColl, Carlo De Mejo
Movie:
Lucio Fulci followed up his blisteringly violent walking dead classic, 'Zombie' (1979), with 'City of the Living Dead', the first in his unofficial 'Gates of Hell' trilogy.
When Father Thomas (Fabrizio Jovine) hangs himself in the cemetery of Dunwich, the town's populace is thrown into great jeopardy, as this blasphemous act signals the opening of Hell on Earth. Soon grotesque zombies begin to appear, with strange, ungodly powers - teleportation/levitation - all controlled by the undead spirit of the priest. A man so evil he can make someone cough up their own intestines, through nothing more than his evil, demonic stare. Hoping to close this Hellish portal is reporter Peter Bell (Christopher George) and psychic Mary Woodhouse (Catriona MacColl). Together they must travel to Dunwich to seal the doorway, before All Saints Day, when the spirits of the dead will overtake the living.
The beginning of a wonderfully creative period for Fulci, that would see him take the zombie genre into an even more visceral, frightening place. He would later contribute two more entires to the genre with his masterpiece 'The Beyond', and the undead, slasher hybrid, 'House by the Cemetery'. This would also be the first of Fulci's collaborations with actress Catriona MacColl, who became his muse for a regrettably short, but wondrous period. Here MacColl gives a brilliantly committed performance as the tormented psychic, even getting the movies most infamous, terror-filled moment. After her character is mistakenly buried alive, Fulci turns her escape into a harrowing, nail-biting ordeal, as her rescuer decides to break open her coffin using a pick-axe that narrowly misses her head with each freeing strike.
Like a lot of Fulci's work there are people who will never appreciate the craftmanship of his films. Admittedly they do contain some crudely filmed elements, and seem needlessly violent towards women, lacking the balletic beauty of Argento. What Fulci does have over the competition is the sheer willingness to get past all these low-budget trapping, and move forward with his inventive ideas, no matter what the outcome. Whether all of them work or not doesn't matter, personally I find 'City of the Living Dead' to be one of his most enjoyable offering, and one of his most underrated.
Rating:
If your're willing to surrender to the strange world Fulci has created you will certainly be in for a Hell of a time.
Rating:
