An Exercise In Nonsense

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Without spoiling, I could give one example why this movie is terribly bad: At one point of the strory, the characters know they have to find one tombstone before midnight to stop all the bad things going on. They are in the cemetery on the afternoon, close to end everything. But suddenly appears another character who wants to help them and then they decide to explain everything to him AT HIS HOME and only come back at night in the cemetery when it's almost to late! What the heck! this has no sense at all. And all the movie is like that. Every scene is poorly written, all characters' behaviors are irrational, most of dialogs are just here to give information the to the Spectator just because the director was not able to give them differently, low budget make up and effects are terrible, nothing is scary (unless you're scared by a priest with a toy store makeup holding spaghetti). And the movie isn't even funny (unless unvolontary), it's dead serious and bit pretencious like most of movies from Fulci, the guy who shot 2 movies a year... it mathematically can't be good...

Lucio Fulci was one of the major players in the Italian horror/exploitation scene in the 1970's and 1980's (though he worked in other decades as well, it's then that he made his mark in the world of low-budget gore and schlock), and sometimes he could make some really terrific, even awe-inspiring genre work (The Beyond hits the spot for me), and other times very much not so (Zombie 3 and Sodoma's Ghost are rather pitiful). City of the Living Dead marks some of the high qualities of Fulci's style that's loaded for bear with dreadful imagery (I mean that word as a compliment, up to a point), but there was barely any work on the script or characters.I want to give the movie more of a break for how Fulci and his crew make this town of 'Dunwich' eerie and fogy and genuinely spooky for much of the 2nd half (which seems to be an obvious allusion to the Dunwich Horror, but may also be connected to 'witches' or the supernatural). It's a 'living dead' movie but not connected in any way to the Romero films; this is a zombie movie but not one that involves the eating of flesh. The living do die and come back as the un-dead, and their primary task is to tear into people's skulls (usually when they're not looking) and take out some brains. Why don't they eat them and then just go on their shuffling, make-up-face covered ways? Uh, ask the writers I guess.There are supposedly characters here - I know Christopher George is one of them - and like a lot of horror films from Italy and of the super-cheap variety (several from Fulci of course), New York city is used because it's... New York city, though only briefly. There's a priest who seems to be hung at the start of the movie, and his corpse sort of sets off this or that and then there's gates of hell (this is the "first part" of an unconnected Gates of Hell trilogy by Fulci by the way), which is supposed to be why the dead are returning to life and making things difficult for those in the town.Things with characters just happen, and why bother with rhyme or reason when there's still some space for Fabio Frizzi's score (which at times is the one thing shamelessly ripped from the Goblin's score for Dawn of the Dead, listen for it and it's plain in sight). Aside from one notable scene where a father shows the young man screwing around with his daughter in a car (he isn't but he thinks he is and that's enough) by using a powerful table saw to grisly effect, the violence in the movie is done via the undead. And boy there is a damn lot of it: heads crushed, torsos and abdomens punched through, a head is drilled, limbs get cut or sawn in to, and among all of these the opening with the hung priest is perhaps the most unsettling of all.I wish I could comment on the characters but they're so thin that it's not worth commenting, and I don't think there could have been a solution via a longer cut; this is all about setting up some basic situation, throw in a psychologist or a psychic and a detective who can read people's minds, not to mention a s***load of close-ups of people's eyes looking at each other even when nothing is exactly happening (sometimes there is the psychic angle, others not), and you got yourself a baseline for a whole lot of gore effects, make-up jobs, and people shuffling while usually appearing out of jump cuts. In other words, when it comes to humans talking it's not too satisfying, but when Fulci keeps it to being just a hardcore, brutal horror movie, it's like going into a haunted house and getting the works: cool cinematography, obvious music score, and gruesome kills.

The scene early on in this film where the zombie rises from a pile of leaves amuses me to no end. Most people- before being turned undead by whatever unseen forces- are usually buried in A COFFIN a few feet down- not literally right at the surface. Of course with all the goofs and lapses in plot and continuity, this is just one example, but I thought I'd point it out since viewers have mentioned most of the others.The infamous gore scenes are too fake-looking to be truly stomach- churning. If Tom Savini had done the FX on Fulci's movies..oh man think of how that would have been. Christopher George is always a pleasure and adds some respectability to the otherwise poor acting. The worms and maggots on some of the zombies were better actors!

I just spent the past two days re-watching the entire "Gates of Hell" trilogy from Fulci. I have seen all three previously, but never watched them in a marathon, so to speak, to get a sense of the trilogy as a whole. For some reason, I watched them backwards as well (which doesn't matter one bit mind you, since they are more a thematic trilogy rather than a narrative one). I really developed a much better appreciation for the themes and tones that Fulci was trying to establish with these three movies. He has stated in interviews that he was essentially trying to put his nightmarish views of hell on film and I think he does an admirable job.One thing that you can say for the director is that he knows how to establish a consistently creepy atmosphere for his movies. Even when they lack action or solid pacing, the movies are moved along well by an excellent artistic sense of how to use violence and imagery to create mood, which is a lesson that many modern directors could stand to learn. In many ways, this movie is sort of a ramp up to THE BEYOND. I see a lot of the same patterns to the movies and it's almost as if he was learning the ropes on this movie so that he was ready for the ultimate work with the next movie. While that definitely means, to me, that THE BEYOND is the better work, this is by no means a bad movie. For one, the biggest complaint typically lodged at Fulci is his lack of plotting. Of the three movies in the trilogy, I would posit that this is the one with the most consistent narrative. It pretty much makes sense (for a horror movie) from front to back and moves along as one linear narrative. He almost abandons any sense of logic in the next two, so for those turned off by that surreal approach, this is more of his more accessible movies.It does take quite a bit to get going. I hate the term "slow burn" because it gets thrown around far too often, but Fulci takes his time establishing his atmosphere until the final reel when the zombies come out to play. I love the zombies in this movie. The makeup effects are excellent and imaginative without being the same cardboard cutouts that we see over and over in modern zombie movies. Yes, they don't feel as realistic, but they do come across more like something from a Gothic nightmare.The real reason you want to watch a Fulci movie is for the gore, of course, and this is one of his very best in that department. He was obsessed with ocular damage and this doesn't hold back as plenty an eye is gouged, ripped and poked out. The legendary drill scene is definitely a gorehound's treat and still holds up well. For me, though, the coup de grace is the girl throwing up her internal organs in the car. This is made all the more impressive considering that he actually convinced the actress to swallow a plate full of guts to make the image work. That makes it even more horrifying for me.If you've seen a Fulci movie and hated it, then this isn't going to change your mind. They are generally the kind of film that you love or hate the first time and nothing will change that opinion. If you've seen some of Fulci's work and enjoyed it, then I highly recommend checking out this movie after you've seen ZOMBIE and THE BEYOND. If you like this, you may, just may be prepared for THE HOUSE BY THE Cemetery.