His name is a whispered legend. Lucio Fulci comes from a time when Italian horror was making waves in the genre. We are introduced to hilarious voice-overs and some over-the-top kill scenes from movies like City of the Living Dead. Movies that could easily be considered schlock, and these movies are adored by many. Fulci’s name is legendary because of his imagination and H.P. Lovecraft tributes. His movies involved the living dead in ways we hadn’t seen before. They were murderous, bloodthirsty killers who would ruin your day and make you feel the worst pain ever before eating you. City of the Living Dead has kills that still make me cringe.
Synopsis
In the small New England town of Dunwich, a priest commits suicide by hanging himself in the church cemetery which opens the gates of hell allowing the dead to rise. The recently deceased begin coming back to life with a thirst for blood. The people the town know and love have now become muderous ghouls. Peter (Christopher George), a New York City reporter, teams up with a young psychic, named Mary (Catriona MacCall), to travel to the town where they team up with another couple, psychiatrist Jerry(Carlo De Mejo) and patient Sandra (Janet Agren), to find a way to close the gates before All Saints Day or the dead all over the world will rise up and kill the living. Led by Sandras cryptic visions that haunt her, the team must fight for the survival of humantiy.
Lucio Fulci directed the film while co-writing the story and screenplay with Dardano Sacchetti.
A Blast From the Past
City of the Living Dead has scenes that were equal with George A Romero as the years went on. However, what Romero had was the idea to show the progression of the corpses as time went on. We see them turn from pale to blue, to aged and gross. With Romero, you also had gore from being eaten alive instead of drilling into someone’s head. Fulci had the skill to make the dead look completely terrifying in a realistic way.
The movie lays on the perfect depiction of what it looks like between the recently deceased and those who come out of the ground. This is what makes zombie movies so brilliant to me. I am not interested in an action-packed, fast-moving, shoot ’em up style of zombie movie. They don’t run, and they don’t build walls of the dead as if they were capturing a castle. They are dead, hollow shells of who they used to be. The zombies are fueled by the craving for flesh alone.
In The End
I am not saying these types of movies are “perfect”. The film is drawn out and badly dubbed. That’s why I love it so much. City of the Living Dead spaces out its kills throughout the movie so as not to make it either overproductive or dull. This film is perfect for sitting back and relaxing if you are a psychopath. You can’t help but laugh at the situation at hand. I mean, you can watch people being pelted with maggots, and that should sell this film right away. It is a must-see for any fan of the glory days of the zombie film, before a video game-based movie opened the door for a barrage of terrible zombie movies. You won’t be able to help laughing. The movie has evolved through name changes and alter egos and still stands strong today.
