City of the Living Dead

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

Synopsis:

The suicide of a priest unlocks the Gates of Hell in the small town of Dunwich, New England. A reporter, a psychic and a psychiatrist team up to close these Gates before All Saints Day and the end of civilisation as we know it.

I recall renting this film back in 1983 at age 14. My first introduction to Fulci was with Zombi 2 (or Zombie Flesheaters as it was called in the UK). I liked the hardcore violence and the atmosphere that Fulci conveyed in that film and similarly, “City” had this in spades. Like The Beyond, Fulci's standout example of genre-busting horror (also starring MacColl), City has a rough storyline that is easy to follow. But, it is mainly a series of dreamy images. Fulci manages to weave genuine periods of tension punctuated with gore-spilling images of death that any gorehound will get a kick out of.

Lucio Fulci has been compared to Sergio Leone and although any decent film historian would laugh into his hand at the mere suggestion, there are interesting parallels with Fulci's fellow countryman. Needless to say the crop of Italian horrors ended up being called "Spaghetti Horror". Surprise, surprise!

Fulci's direction is unusual, at times with some odd editing. For example, during the beginning séance, we get a wide shot of the characters sitting at a table and then a close-up of a character's eyes, then a close-up of another character's eyes. This can be quite unsettling on a large screen HD tv. This direction is a style that Fulci also used in The Beyond, as if he wanted to show no ambiguity as to how a character was feeling or what they were thinking. The shot of Father Thomas hanging, framed in Mary’s iris is genius.

Like The Beyond, the zombies here are more like ghosts. They appear and disappear at will and only resemble the shuffling creatures we’re used to at the end, in the crypt. Any flesh eating is done mainly off camera. I wonder if the inclusion of zombies was another requirement similar to the demands during the filming of The Beyond as he has said that he had to include zombies in the movie, to secure German funding.

The tension that Fulci builds in scenes is sometimes spoilt by the poor editing in of music. A perfect example is a scene where the psychiatrist Gerry’s patient, Sandra, rings with a dilemma. There is a superb build-up where we the audience are not privy to the actual problem whilst Sandra questions her own sanity. Eventually, Gerry arrives at her house, and we all discover that there is a dead body in her kitchen. The scene is exceptional and quite creepy. The score works well up until the discovery of the body and we get some folky guitar music that totally ruins the tension.

Another creepy moment that I particularly like is the scene where John-John is describing the return of his sister Emily. He describes her eating their parents as we get a shot of a heavily stained ceiling and the blood dripping on to the dining table, complete with Fabrio Frizzi’s score piling on the terror.

The gore effects, at times, make the CGI splatter of today look tame in comparison. We get numerous shots of zombies pulling the backs of their victim’s heads off, complete with brains oozing out of the wounds. Giovanni Lombardo Radice (aka John Morghen) typically goes out in fashion as his head is pushed into an industrial drill. The nastiest of all is the teenage girl’s demise. The demonic priest wills the girl to evacuate her entire innards. We see this happen as her intestines, liver and kidneys exit her mouth. What is especially grisly about this is the actress had to partially ingest animal offal to get the initial shots before a stand in dummy head was used. Gino De Rossi supplied the effects in City because Fulci’s usual FX artist, Gianetto De Rossi was unavailable. Perhaps he was making a point during this scene.

Both Fulci and De Rossi weren’t shy of putting their actors through the wringer, with one scene consisting of maggots being thrown at the stars by way of a wind machine.

The acting on the whole is good although the movie suffers from dubbing that appears to cheapen the odd performance, especially Adelaide Aste’s turn as Theresa, at the beginning of the movie. The dubbing spoils the séance scene which also isn’t helped by the screenplay. All that stuff about “the contact” and then the close-up shots of eyes.

Catriona McColl helps secure her hat-trick of Fulci horrors in her role as Mary, the young psychic. Does she open the Gates of Hell or the priest? I’m still open to both ideas. MacColl puts in another solid performance.

Christopher George is typically dry and provides a little light relief in this moody piece. He also helps supply one of the surprises in the film as he is dispatched during the movie’s final scenes. He played a typical hero role throughout and I had expected him to survive the movie.

Giovanni Lombardo Radice is suitably ambiguous as Bob. You never quite know what he’s meant to be; disaffected youth? Pervert? Just misunderstood? This is where the poor screenplay doesn’t help matters. Is the writer attempting to show small town prejudice? I’d say that he is. Bob appears to be creepy. Radice looks quite ill and creepy as Bob in his opening scenes, but messing around with a blow-up doll does not make him a murderer. When Emily is discovered at an abandoned building that Bob frequents, the coroner explains that she died of fright. Yet, the townsfolk blame Bob. It transpires that he took a girl out in the woods with the implication that he was improper. Judging from their attitude, he was probably innocent. So, when Bob gets found by the “victim”, now older, in her Dad’s garage, they get on like school mates. Weird. To me, it makes Bob’s demise all that more shocking, that her Dad found it easy to dispatch him using the industrial drill in his workshop.

There’s some unintentional humour (or maybe it was intentional?) too as Peter and Mary stop their urgent car journey to find Dunwich to get a bite to eat.

As for this new version: Let’s face it, anyone thinking that a Blu-Ray transfer of this film was going to rival the current digitally recorded movies is going to get disappointed. That said this is the best way you'll ever see this low budget shocker. It was filmed on 16mm and is grainy. However, this adds to the atmosphere of the film.

The lossless audio means that you’re assaulted from all sides by the fiendish sounds employed during the feature.

Why buy this again, if you're a fan? Well, the very fact that the transfer is the best you've seen, but mainly down to the superb extras. Like the recently released Day of the Dead, Arrow have gone to great trouble to secure a host of exclusive extras that any fan would want to see. There's a newly recorded commentary featuring Giovanni Lombardo Radice. Radice is a funny guy, his insights are peppered with humour. This comes across in the other featurettes which heavily feature the actor. It’s funny how some actors that play such horrible characters at times, end up being the wittiest, most normal down to earth people in reality.

The only downside was the Q&A section that was let down by some truly mundane questions. I also can’t take seriously, horror fans that think that Martyrs was “awful”. Clearly, they needed to watch the movie right up until the end!

The extras produced by High Rising Productions feature some clever entertaining animated titles in the same style as the extras on the Day of the Dead release.

Catriona MacColl features in an alternative commentary and recalls her experiences in "Dame of the Dead". MacColl seem bemused that this film still gets attention after 30 years. To us fans it's no surprise in a world of CGI gore and Hollywood horrors lacking in substance of any kind.

Summary:

Anyone interested in atmospheric, gory horror will have a treat upon first watch of this movie: Just keep an open mind and disregard some of the negative aspects.For those of us that remember either the pre-video nasty bill version or the subsequent heavily edited version, Arrow have done us proud with this release. I thoroughly recommend this Blu-Ray.

8 out of 10 (Wayfarer)

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