City Of The Living Dead

City of the Living Dead (Paura Nella Citta Dei Morti Viventi) (1980)

Runtime: 92 minutes

Directed by: Lucio Fulci

Starring: Christopher George, Catriona MacColl, Carlo De Mejo, Antonella Interlenghi, Giovanni Lombardo Radice

From: Several Italian companies

The realization that I hadn't viewed anything on Shudder in too long made me realize I should actually use it while I am subscribed for the moment, right? With Fulci, I suspected it wouldn't be the most logical of movies yet I would have something to discuss and it would be best to see the first in his Gates of Hell trilogy.

I can say that at least the general idea of the plot is logical. A priest commits suicide in the town of Dunwich (one of several Lovecraft nods) and this opens the Gates of Hell. As several characters in the town deal with everything going bonkers-chiefly a psychiatrist and one of his patients-a psychic sees this in a vision so she and a journalist travel to the New England town. Getting into the details and how one scene moves to the next... it's best if you don't focus on that or such details as the implication that morticians in New York City apparently don't use embalming fluid. Expecting logic in a Fulci movie-or a decent number of other contemporary Italian genre films-is a mistake as that is not what the focus is on and instead its strengths lie elsewhere.


For the director, naturally the highlights are the atmosphere and how graphically visceral it was... and boy was it ever. Dunwich becomes rather windy once the Gates of Hell are opened, for example. Furthermore, such substances as thousands of maggots are seen & if you ever wanted to see someone literally puke up their guts... such things are the highlight rather than the acting on display or how the plot progresses. Even the ending is rather daffy, although again that has been experienced on quite a few occasions in the past while viewing Italian genre pictures. It's easy to see why many will be over the moon with this experience... I will say it was good and a good time for the wacky, peculiar experience it was.