As Lucio Fulci moved into the zombie horror arena, his films made less sense as time went on. Unlike his brilliant early giallo turns from the Hitchcock-like Perversion Story, and the awesomely dark A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, Fulci's zombie horrors tossed aside logic for supernatural apocalypse. The first time I saw City of the Living Dead was in 1988 on home video. At that point, I was a newly christened gorehound (awakened by Tom Savini's gruework in Romero's Day of the Dead), and looking for the most disgusting, over-the-top stomach churning gore I could handle.
Fulci and Umberto Lenzi (with his awful cannibal horrors) fit that bill perfectly. Strange, I avoided Dario Argento until 2006, but I digress.
Fulci's zombie horrors Zombie and City were in top rotation back in the late 80s, I was still ignorant of the grand Italian police films, westerns (beyond Leone) or gialli.
City of the Living Dead is the tale of the pending armageddon wrought by a priest (Father Thomas) who hangs himself in the cemetery of the New England town Dunwich. Dunwich sits upon one of the Gates of Hell and the cleric's suicide was key to opening the Gates. Dunwich prided itself on being a town of witch-hunters (Salem is often referenced), making the locals think that Father Thomas' suicide might very well be the revenge of evil upon the current inhabitants.
Meanwhile in New York, a young psychic, Mary witnesses the priest's suicide during a seance. Mary "dies" of fright setting up one of the scariest set pieces Fulci ever lensed. A nosy reporter played by Christopher George winds up saving Mary from being buried alive. The scene of Mary desparately trying to claw her way out of the coffin is claustrophobic and harrowing. Still awful some 30 years after it was shot.
The reporter teams up with Mary to find Dunwich to stop the impending apocalypse. Mary's mentor claims that stopping armageddon on All Saint's Day (in which no dead body will ever rest and the dead will overrun the earth) will require the closing of the Gates of Hell.
What follows are a series of utterly disgusting kills, the smothering by worms freaks me out more than other more gruesome deaths, as time slips closer to All Saint's Day.
The film ends abruptly. This remained the frustrating element of City, but I seem to finally think it means that our 'heroes' were unable to close the gates of hell. Just a word of caution, only two characters, Mary and the psychiatrist Jerry, are vaguely worth rooting for. Fulci always populated his movies with unlikable characters, but City... like Zombie before it, is filled with scum.
For me, the concept for City... is the strongest of Lucio's zombie films. I also think that Fulci and his cowriter got the idea for this film from one pivotal line in George Romero's awesome Dawn of the Dead: "When there's no more room in Hell, the Dead will walk the earth."
City... was the first in Fulci's supernatural zombie trilogy and set the stage for the unnerving sequel, The Beyond.
Back to this dvd release, Blue Underground's special edition, like so many of their releases is top shelf. Several interviews, a documentary and other such extras make this an essential purchase for gorehounds who want more gore with their zombies. And not just the gut-munching kind.
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