Post by slayrrr666 on Feb 1, 2006 11:36:00 GMT -5
"City of the Living Dead" is Lucio Fulci's underrated masterpiece.
**SPOILERS**
A priest, Father William Thomas (Fabrizio Jovine) hangs himself in a local graveyard, setting off a weird chain of events. This causes psychic Mary Woodhouse (Catriona MacColl) to die of fright, which seems suspicious to Sheriff Russell, (Robert Sampson) who is investigating the death. Mary's friend Theresa, (Adelaide Aste) also a psychic, agrees to help him in the investigation, but warns him not to ignore the ancient writings, which have predicted such things would come true. The story catches the attention of Peter Bell, (Christopher George) a reporter, but is turned away before he can get anything on the story. The town where Father Thomas died is experiencing a series of bizarre events that may have supernatural causes. After rescuing Mary from premature burial, Peter is informed that the gates of hell have been opened and that he has to close them before All Souls Day, where the dead will come through and invade the living. Another death brings Peter and Mary together as Peter and his friends Gerry (Carlo DeMejo) and Sandra (Janet Agren) come to the realization that Father Thomas has raised the dead and have come back to infest the town.
The Good News: For all the flack that Fulci gets from his films not being to linear, this is actually a pretty easy film to follow. At no point in the film did I have trouble understanding what was going on or why anything was happening. Considering that most of his films have been plagued with this rumor, I think this is a great accomplishment. As with most Fulci films, though, the emphasis on this movie is on the gore, and what a bundle we have in this one! We get a woman bleeding from her eyes, a skull ripped open to expose the brains, vomited up organs through the mouth, the infamous drill through the head, and numerous bite wounds as well. This is only the tip of the iceberg, as there are numerous other gory bits, as the worm-infested carcasses, rotting corpses, and other such things that I wouldn't want to reveal for the unexposed. The vomited organs and the drill are the two scenes that everyone talks about from this film, and they are the most gruesome and even worse, both look totally realistic and are handled with bloody bravado. To me, that is all a film needs to be recommended, but one other great factor helps this film truly become a recommended flick: the film has a very high suspense factor. To truly describe how well the suspense in this film works would leave me to ramble over the number of words I'm allowed to use in this review, but let it be known that every single tactic is used: heavy doses of fog, disappearing and reappearing corpses, strange, supernatural incidents, music, setting, and even camera movements are used. The best sequence is the woman vomiting, but for a completely different reason. A couple is making out in a car, when the woman hears a strange noise. The man turns on the headlights to appease her, but in the distance there appears the vision of Father Thomas hanging on a rope. This sends them both into hysteria, and then suddenly Father Thomas disappears. He then appears again next to the car, setting off the bloody scene. There is more involving every other type of suspense, it is simply scarier than what has been before.
The Bad News: There are two main complaints: this is billed as a zombie movie, but the zombies are in only two scenes with a total amount of screen time of about a minute. That isn't a zombie movie in my opinion. They needed more to do than just simply show up, even if their appearance is incredibly atmospheric. To watch the hands pop up slowly out of the ground with the same theme playing as "Zombie 2" in the background. The other thing is that the few times where we think are zombies, they simply appear and disappear at will. They seem to pop up and transport all over the place. This is a new change to zombie films.
The Final Verdict: With absolutely no zombies and a new idea for tackling them, this may disappoint some hard-core zombie fans. Gorehounds will have absolutely no problem with the movie, and will eat it up. Sensitive stomachs and conservatives need to stay extremely away from this.
Rated UR/NC-17: Extreme Graphic Violence and very mild language
