City of The Living Dead Aka The Gates of Hell (1980)

In rural Dunwich Father Thomas has made a decision, walking slowly through his graveyard he stops to ponder his thoughts. Then without further thought he throws a rope over the branch of a tree and hangs himself. No sooner has he hung himself than the ground begins to move near his feet.

In New York a séance is going terribly wrong, and for one of the guests it’s a very final gathering. At the crucial point of the séance Mary dies. Reporter Peter Ball is soon on the case and following up on his enquiries he heads to the burial site of Mary, where he rather surprisingly finds her very much alive and lying in a shallow grave.

The death of Father Thomas has opened the gates of Hell, now its down to Mary and Peter to close them.

I first saw City Of The Living Dead at the start of the 1990’s, a decade after it had been banned in the UK. The film, a movie made by Lucio Fulci was one of five of the director’s movies to be banned in the UK in that time period. In the 1990’s after a period of unavailability in the UK suddenly this and three other Fulci movies became available albeit in an edited format. Of all the movies this was the least edited, and at the time to be fair I believed it to be the weakest of the four available movies. The first of Fulci’s movies I had seen was The House By The Cemetery, the next was Zombie Flesh Eaters (Zombi 2), the third The Beyond; these movies all had something about them, a scene that was so shocking it forced you to pay attention. By the time I had got round to watching City Of The Living Dead all those shocks had sunk in, and there was nothing new here except that is for a rather unpleasant vomiting scene. Having glanced on a number of sites on the Internet I have noted that a lot of viewers often saw this movie later on, the more talked about features being more a priority. Why am I telling you this? The reason I feel is an important one, this while still being a powerful movie is one of the films of the pivotal point of Fulci’s career that seems to get the worst press or reviews, I cannot help but think order of play is an important factor. Watching the film for about the sixth time, and with a fresh vision (and a slightly vague memory), I can’t help but think in reflection that this is one of the better movies of that time period.

I do need to backtrack slightly and say that while I believe this to be one of the better movies of that period, I do not understand some aspects of the movie. The acting has certainly moved down a notch, some of the actions seem a little unexplained, and the movies ending that can be interpreted a number of ways I guess, has had people questioning it for years, and despite the claims of some, I do not believe we will ever truly know the answer.

Moving on to the good stuff, one of the key reasons I like City Of The Living Dead is due to the zombies themselves, you get a zombie film and it’s a typical bloodbath some zombies move fast others slow, but generally there are lots of them. Here you have a collection of lone zombies all attacking victims on a solo basis, you only see a congregation of zombies in the final minutes. The zombies here have no reason to be either fast or slow moving, as it seems they literally teleport from destination to destination, you may think that’s silly, but how much more silly is it than the prospect of brain eating zombies in the first place? Fulci’s zombies have generally been on some sort of journey, we have had decayed zombies, the recently dead zombies, here the zombies are a lot of the time looking a little burned, with the odd one that is not too different to how they looked before death, but this condition varies from zombie to zombie.

The story itself is a little shaky granted, however it manages to link together a variety of locations and thanks to a great music score, the suspense builds from the moment the earth starts moving beneath Father Thomas’s feet. The characters are narrowed down fairly quickly and you realise you have your final four, who are dispatched in an unexpected order which keeps that aspect of the story nice and fresh. The inclusion of Bob (Giovanni Lombardo Radice) is pretty much there just to add to the body count, and certainly gets the drill rather nicely.

On a gore factor, well this is pretty good; lots of decomposing bodies scattered around, a new Fulci favourite occurs in brain scrunching, as nearly all of the characters that die and up with a zombie grabbing a characters head from the rear and squeezing so tight that a clump of skull and brain come away in their hand, this is a quite heavily used means of death in the movie.

The performances are variable Catriona MacColl performs well as ever, a good solid leading lady, the late Christopher George seems a little out of his depth at times. Carlo De Mejo almost steps into the leading male role as George struggles to keep the light on his performance. Janet Agren and future director Michele Soavi both have reasonable supporting roles.

City Of The Living Dead has some issues, it also has some really big plus points too, it’s a weaker entry in the Fulci series only if you watch them out of date order, if you’re a first time viewer however watch Fulci’s Zombie series in the correct order (Zombie Flesh Eaters, City Of The Living Dead, The Beyond, The House By The Cemetery) and you’ll find this is part of the journey that leads to the pinnacle of Fulci’s career The Beyond.

There are dozens of releases around the world of the movie on DVD and Blu-Ray, the recent release from Arrow as part of their cult movie collection is one of the best. As well as a crisp and clean print the disc is absolutely loaded to the hilt with special features. Catriona MacColl, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Carlo De Majo, Antonella Fulci, Dardano Sacchetti all feature in exclusive interviews, there are a couple of commentary tracks one of which features MacColl (always great value), as well as trailers. The case has some great artwork, and there is a highly informative booklet too.

New York Ripper

In the 1970's a director best associated with comedies and musicals began making horror movies, that director was Lucio Fulci who was and still is one of the most influential men in shaping modern horror. His successful movies The Beyond, Zombi, House By The Cemetery, and City Of The Living Dead were landmark zombie movies. But not content to rest on his laurels Fulci was pushing into new styles of horror, his intention to make horror possible in a realistic sense. The result of this was The Black Cat, and New York Ripper both the sort of horror we could encounter every day.

New York Ripper (Lo Squatatore Di New York)begins as it means to continue, an elderly man throwing sticks for his beloved dog is rather mortified to discover his dog returns not with a stick but with a hand, luckily or unluckily for the owner the hand is not attached to anyone.

Lt. Fred Williams (Jack Hedley) is called in to solve the case, but then a cyclist is found murdered on the Statten Island Ferry, killed in the most brutal of ways. The chief of police (a cunning cameo from director Lucio Fulci) insists that Williams gets to the bottom of the killings sooner rather than later "We don't want another Atlanta!" he warns, and with that seemingly gives Williams the keys to the New York Police's bank account.

Having hired the best genius around to help him solve the crime Williams has to literally wait for the killer to strike again. But when he does there is not much to go on except that the killer talks like a duck. Meanwhile a sexually liberated woman tours New York's most seedy dives looking for sex, a well to do woman with a reputable husband her need for sexual gratification take her closer and closer to the killer.

To help you build up an image we have a killer that talks like a duck, and as we later discover has two digits missing from his right hand; nice image?

I cannot say that New York Ripper is a real high point in horror history, its rather seedy reputation is actually far stronger than the menace it delivers; before I saw the movie some 8 years ago the film to some degree was almost like a myth. When you looked on the internet you could find pictures of graphic razorblade torture and sexual activity; website realmofhorror.co.uk gave me the best insight in the form of the trailer, which allowed for a certain feel to the movie. Sadly my eagerness to see the movie was met with a kind of cold and unworthy story, that sexually is incredibly risky compared to other movies, especially when death often occurs by things being forced into a certain part of a woman's body. This is not a movie that overly inspired me, however having watched it yesterday in its slightly edited form (for the first time I may add, always seeing it uncut before) I kind of had a greater appreciation for the film. The aspects that annoyed me no longer did and the story, which at times before I felt jutted in and out of context seemed far more fluid.

Before I go on I should say if you find movies like Jeepers Creepers, Scream, or the Freddy or Jason movies a little bit scary or graphic even in a cut form this is not a movie you should be seeing. Although the effects are not always so special, when a razor blade strikes you see it enter, cut and exit. You also see a rather painful finger slicing that is incredibly plausible and believably realistic.

Shot on the hoof so to speak in New York, the movie shows a pretty accurate view of New York back in the early 80's. It shows the classdifferences, the devastation and almost wasteland as industry has left the city for more rural locations. There is nothing clean looking about the majority of the movies locations. In case you wonder about my on the hoof comment as was commonplace with Italian horror movies no permission was gained from the places they filmed, certainly when out of the UK. Often filming took place by literally people jumping out of the car filming a few shots and then heading off before the police arrived; this is blatantly obvious here by the length of the outdoor scenes.

The cast is an interesting gathering Jack Hedley's name might ring a bell because not only was he in For Your Eyes Only, but he also played General Von Karzibrot in Allo Allo. Paulo Malco who plays Dr Paul Davis recently starred in the ITV's version of A Room With A View. While the movies toe pervert (you need to see it to believe it) is played by 24's Josh Cruze. Granted not names you might think "oh yeah I know" but certainly faces you will know.