City of the Living Dead

1980 [ITALIAN]

Action / Horror

25
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 56% · 17 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 56% · 10K ratings
IMDb Rating 6.2/10 10 20796 20.8K

suicide cemetery supernatural surrealism psychic power priest

Plot summary

A woman seemingly dies of fright after participating in a séance where she sees a vision of a Dunwich priest hanging himself in a church cemetery. New York City reporter Peter Bell investigates and learns that the priest's suicide has somehow opened a portal to Hell and must be sealed by All Saints Day, or else the dead will overtake humanity.

Director

Lucio Fulci Photo
Lucio Fulci

Top cast

Daniela Doria Photo
Daniela Doria as Rosie Kelvin
Giovanni Lombardo Radice Photo
Giovanni Lombardo Radice as Bob
Christopher George Photo
Christopher George as Peter Bell
Robert Spafford Photo
Robert Spafford as Dunwich Bartender
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
773.11 MB
1280*682
Italian 2.0
NR
Subtitles it  
23.976 fps
1 hr 33 min
Seeds 8
1.47 GB
1920*1024
Italian 2.0
NR
Subtitles it  
23.976 fps
1 hr 33 min
Seeds 22

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by ma-cortes 6 / 10

Fulci's splatter film inspired on H.P. Lovecraft about the dead coming back to life at Dunwich

This is a genuinely frightening story with correct utilization of images-shock , skill edition and eerie images . Lucio Fulci's main great success along with ¨Zombie 2¨ , is compelling directed with startling gory visual content . It's a creepy horror film plenty of brutal frames and gory events. Fulci's horror film about the dead coming back to life on a small location of Dunwich with inspiration on famous novelist H.P. Lovecraft . A journalist named Peter Bell (Christopher George), a psychiatrist (Carlo De Mejo) and a psychic named Mary Woodhouse (Catriona MacColl , Fulci's fetish actress) race to close the Gates of Hell after the suicide by hanging of a priest caused them to open , allowing the zombies to rise from the tombs . Gory, gruesome , pretty repellent , and ghastly gory-feast in which the stumbling flesh-eating stiffs are relived by an ancient curse .Chilling Italian terror flick full of screams, shocks, chills, thrills and lots of blood and guts . Astonishing , mesmerizing , very repellent , and scary mess in which the living dead are reanimated and committing horrible murders . This is a classic excruciatingly terror film in which the intrigue,tension, suspense, horror appears threatening and lurking in every room, corridors , cellar , morgue, streets, cemetery and many other places . Watch for the great highlights as the alive burying and the pick-axe coming dangerously close to her head ; as when a drill punctures the face an unfortunate young -a Fulci's mark who repeats ad nauseam - and clergyman's mesmerizing stares making eyeballs bleed . And as always brief appearance of Lucio Fulci, in Alfred Hitchcock cameo style , as Police Inspector and a young future director of terror movies , Michele Soavi as hapless victim . Good make-up and special effects by makeup artist named Rufini replacing the usual maestro Gianetto De Rossi. Produced on a tight budget by Giovanni Masini and the same Fulci . Moody photography Sergio Salvati on location in Fort Lee, New Jersey, New York City, Savannah, Georgia, USA . Eerie musical score composed and conducted by Fabio Frizzi in Goblin style. The motion picture is realized by one of the most controversial filmmakers of terror movies ,Lucio Fulci , in his ordinary style with flaws and gaps but is professionally made because being a skilled craftsman . Reviewers are divided over booth the morals and talents of Fulci (1927-1996) who sometimes directed under the alias ¨Louis Fuller¨. For some critics many of his movies are cruel and shockingly violent , yet their gory surface often conceals religious, social commentaries or intelligent issues. Whether he should be viewed as a cheap sensationalist or just a genius Fulci has a loyal fan base and undeniably has an important and unique influence on the terror genre , creating great works on a low budget such as proved in ¨The Beyond¨, ¨Manhattan baby¨, ¨Gates of Hell¨, ¨Island of the living dead¨, ¨New York ripper¨ , among them . This is one more imaginative , though imperfect horror/splatter picture in which the camera stalks in sinister style . It's just one long unrelenting guts-feast and passable budget horror movie that still packs a punch for those who appeal to be terrorized out their wits . This gore-feast that tried to disguised itself under many other titles as ¨City of living dead¨ will enjoy to Lucio Fulci aficionados.
Reviewed by Phroggy 7 / 10

Someone has to say it

Okay, someone has to say it : Fulci's movie are chock-full of mistakes, unlogical things that goes bump in the scenario and scenes you might laugh at (even worse than my beloved Dario Argento on this ground) But… for the true afficionadoes, this holds riches beyond belief. As most Italian oddities, it's hard to tell were the genius starts and the hack sets in - or is it the other way round ? There IS something in those movie, that makes me - and others - watch them over and over again though I should be too old for this, though I know their defects which suddenly turns into qualities. This movie is the most Lovecraftian of all Fulci's movies, and it's true there is in Lovecraft purple prose and stuff that might be laughed at. But isn't it what grotesque is all about, this no man's land between the pits and the nirvana ?
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