City of the Living Dead
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DVD details
Actor: Catriona Maccoll, Christopher GeorgeBrand: WEA DES Moines Video
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Italian (Original Language)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 93 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-02-27
Audience Rating: Unrated
Model: 1052
Studio: Blue Underground
Product features:
- The Seven Gates Of Hell have been torn open, and in three days the dead shall rise and walk the earth. As a reporter (Christopher George of Pieces) and a psychic (Catriona MacColl of The Beyond) race to close the portals of the damned, they encounter a seething nightmare of unspeakable evil. The city is alive - with the horrors of the living dead! Directed and co-written by the legendary Lucio
DVD Reviews of City of the Living Dead
DVD Review: Flawed, but enjoyable movie from Lucio Fulci
Summary: 3 Stars
When it comes to the films of Lucio Fulci I always say it's an either love it or hate flick. His 70s work might have more appeal to non-fans, but his 80s work are an acquired taste. City of the Living Dead rates as one of Fulci's more popular movies and I agree and disagree.
What I love about Italian filmmakers is their visual style and Lucio Fulci in his prime had a great visual style. He may not be the best of the Italian horror filmmakers, but he knew how to create a creepy vibe. The good points of the flick are the visual look. Lucio Fulci and DP Sergio Salvati created a great and very creepy look to the film. Most of my favorite Fulci movies are the ones with Sergio Salvati. The two really knew how to create a great look.
If you know your Italian horror you should know most of the cast members. When you recognize them from several other movies you know you've seen on too many of these kinda flicks.
The screenplay was written by Lucio Fulci and Dardano Sacchetti and the problem is it suffers from any lack of direction. Fulci may have started out as a serious filmmaker, but once the 80s rolled around lets face it his flicks were often incoherent and never really made much sense; despite that some of them were still fun flicks.
It almost seems like Fulci and Sacchetti sat in a room and just thought of some cool scenes and just put them into the movie. It also seems like they were writing two different movies. I'm a big fan of both Fulci and Sacchetti. Dardano Sacchetti wrote numerous cult classics back in the 70s and 80s. He did a lot for the genre.
But it really does feel like two movies were being written and turned into one. While this is a zombie movie it's actually more of a ghost movie than anything else. Windows shatter and blood pours down, walls split in two, zombies appear in a blink of an eye and in another blink of the eye they are gone. One scene has what seems like thousands of maggots (though one character calls them worms) come flying into a house.
The zombies also seem to have some kinda supernatural power; by making direct eye contact with them, well let's just say it won't end pretty for you. Also we know to kill a zombie give them a headshot. Here by simply stabbing them in the stomach will get the job done. If you are looking for any logic, well you won't find that in City of the Living Dead. Simply put the movie doesn't make any sense at all due to the fact we never get an explanation for anything that happens.
That's why I said it seems like Fulci and Sacchetti just threw together a bunch of random scenes they thought we be cool to see on the screen. That is what hurts the movie at times. While I wouldn't say City of the Living Dead was a scary movie it did have a creepy vibe going for it. The look of the movie was excellent and Fulci used his location to perfection, so through out the movie Fulci does manage to build some tension due to that and quite honestly makes the movie better than it should have been.
But when a bunch of random things just happen with not a single explanation for why I personally felt it took away from some of the tension I just feel this movie lacked due to nothing be explained at all. From Fulci's golden era as much as I enjoy this one it would probably be my least favorite from his 79-84 films.
This is a 80s Fulci movie so one thing you can expect is gore. While not the bloodbath it's often described as it does feature some extreme gore. The girl who vomits her insides was rather brutal. I have seen so many movies like this and some even gorier, but there is just something about that scene that always gets me.
There aren't actually a lot of gore scenes through out the movie that is why I don't see it as the bloodbath people make it out to be. When it comes time for the gore Fulci will deliver. But the one thing that takes away from the gore is it's pretty much the same thing done over. A zombie grabs the back of somebody's head and pulls a chunk of it off. Cool F/X for sure, but it's done like 3 times and doesn't really work as well after the first. There might be some stretches without any gore, but when it arrives it's almost always pretty damn cool.
Granted my review may sound more negative than positive, but despite the flaws I did find myself enjoying the movie overall. City of the Living Dead is slow in some spots and personally there were too many off camera kills. About 5 happened off camera, which is ok sometimes, but a movie like this does need to show more than it did.
But despite the negatives City of the Living Dead is a fun movie for the most part. It has a great creepy feel to it and even though the lack of explanation at times hurts it does help at times. Like the characters, you have no idea what's happening and you have no idea what will come next.
So the lack of the logic does help in certain areas, but personally I see it more as a flaw. We don't need a massive explanation, but just a little would have been nice. While the characters might lack depth, they are actually fairly interesting and likeable. So despite the slowness of the movie the characters are well-done and sort of make up for the slow pace.
City of the Living Dead is quite a fun movie and fans of Lucio Fulci I'm sure will find plenty of good here like I did. I don't think this one is as solid as some of his other work, but it's still a fun ride. If you haven't enjoyed Fulci's work I very much doubt this one will change your mind.
In closing, City of the Living Dead might suffer from feeling like two movies mixed together and the lack of any logic does hurt, but we also get a movie that has a great creepy vibe and some tension due to the visual look. Solid flick, but not great.
Description of City of the Living Dead
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