City of the Living Dead
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- Release Date: August 11, 1980
- Directed by: Lucio Fulci
- Written by: Lucio Fulci and Dardano Sacchetti
- Runtime: 1 hour 32 minutes
- Series: Gates of Hell Trilogy
City of the Living Dead is another entry in the long list of films that I found through The Cinema Snob. I first heard about it years ago when Brad Jones offhandedly referenced it in a review, mentioning "the scene where the woman vomits up her own intestines," and that description got me curious enough to check it out. Its title may make you think that it's just another run-of-the-mill entry in the Italian zombie film subgenre, but it's way more than that. Lucio Fulci was apparently inspired by the writings of H. P. Lovecraft to create a film about supernatural forces destroying a small town, as well as incomprehensible evil from a realm beyond Earth. The result of this inspiration is a nightmarish experience that goes way beyond what typical zombie films are like, and stands as one of the best Italian horror films of its era.
The movie is about the gates of Hell being opened in the small town of Dunwich after a local priest hangs himself in a graveyard. Living after death and with the power to teleport and reanimate corpses, the priest begins to raise the dead of Dunwich to eventually bring about the end of the world. In contrast to Zombi 2's more straightforward zombie storyline, this movie has a much greater emphasis on dream logic and surrealism. The supernatural angle of this story features zombies that aren't just reanimated corpses looking to eat. They're reanimated by the forces of Hell, and simply trying to kill anything they look at. I've always loved how crazy the scares are in this movie, with very little explanation given for them. Zombies frequently teleport from location to location, thousands of maggots randomly blow in through a window, and shards of glass fly into a wall and cause it to bleed. Any awful thing can happen when you're confronting the forces of Hell, and that makes for a very unique and unpredictable experience when it comes to zombie films.
Easily my favorite aspects of City of the Living Dead are its atmosphere and special effects. Almost every location in the movie is oozing with dense fog and shadows, and this makes a perfect backdrop for the nightmares that are going on. Fabio Frizzi's score of programmed drum loops and synthesizers has an ominous, dreamy feel to it that helps set the mood so perfectly. Introduzione is a great example of this. In addition, the film's practical effects are a perfect testament to how gooey and gross Italian horror films could be at the time. All of the zombies aren't just rotting; their flesh is slimy with decay and covered with live maggots and worms. Zombies frequently rip the backs of people's heads off and take their brains with them, and this shows off some fantastic gore effects. Easily the most infamous gore scene in the movie features the ghostly priest causing a woman to bleed from her eyes and throw up her intestines. Not only does the actress cry fake blood from her eyes, but the vomit was accomplished by having the actress actually spit out real animal guts before switching to a fake head. It's a stomach-churning scene, and easily my top highlight from the entire film. Whenever I tell people about this movie, that's usually the first scene that I like to show them out of context. Needless to say, that has led to some fun reactions in the past!
City of the Living Dead is a must-see for anyone looking to get into Italian horror films. It's a wild and original ride that shows off some of my favorite gore effects of the time. After this, Lucio Fulci would further explore the idea of the gates of Hell on Earth in The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery, and his horrific imagination would only get crazier from here!