Dir: Lucio Fulci. Cast: Christopher George, Catriona MacColl, Carlo De Mejo, Janet Agren, Antonella Interlenghi & Giovanni Lombardo Radice. 1980
Lucio Fulci is one of my “comfort” filmmakers, having created a filmography from which segments have become very familiar to me, and which always serve to bring me back to the early days of hunting for Italian horror on VHS, and the joys of actually happening upon a rare uncut tape at some mom and pop shop back in the 1980s.
The director has a number of great horror films to his name — The Beyond, Zombie, The House by the Cemetery, and most notoriously, The New York Ripper — as well as gialli — Perversion Story, Don’t Torture a Duckling, A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, The Psychic — but for me, City of the Living Dead is his most gleeful foray into the macabre.
A doorway to Hell is opened when a priest in Dunwich, Massachusetts (Lovecraft territory), hangs himself. What follows (and precedes it) is a number of set pieces designed to wow splatter fans: A psychic awakens after being buried alive (a scene I believe Tarantino — ahem — paid homage to in Kill Bill: Vol. 2), poor old John Morgan (aka the late, great Giovanni Lombardo Radice) has his head drilled, internal organs are spewed, brains are squeezed out of skulls, and what’s an Italian splatter classick without a storm of maggots?
There are surprising twists that may not be logical, but they sure work on a visceral level, and there are no rules about who will make to the other side, or even what that other side might look like when they get there. The whole thing is heavy on atmosphere and comic book lighting, and is not meant to offend or to be taken more seriously than the entertainment — albeit a little on the nihilist side — that it is. Admittedly, its pace has slowed, for me, on repeat viewings due to that same familiarity that makes me love it, but that initial introductory screening was extraordinary.
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