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 CITY
OF THE LIVING DEAD (Anchor
Bay) DVD. 1980. Horror. 93 minutes. NR, violence, gore. Directed by
Lucio Fulci. In Dunwich, a priest hangs himself in a cemetery unlocking
the gates to Hell, which will allow the dead to roam the earth in three
days time. In New
York, Mary has a vision of the hanging and is made aware of the ensuing
consequences. Oh, Mary dies
after seeing the vision, but she isn’t really dead and is rescued from
her grave by Peter, a streetwise reporter. As Mary and Peter head off to
Dunwich to save the world, the small town is riddled with strange murders
and even stranger happenings. One being a woman who pukes her guts out
(literally) and then squishes her lover’s brains out. After finding the
body of an old woman in her house, Emily calls her shrink Jerry to start
their own little investigation. Soon, the two couples meet and enter the
family tomb of the priest to take on zombies and demons .
Although utterly ridiculous, this is
a fun and gory movie. Firstly, why is it up to the four rag tag main
characters to save the world from the walking dead? Shouldn’t that be
the job of the Pope, or at least a “good” priest? Hell, nobody even
calls the cops in this movie, they all call the town shrink for help.
Maybe it’s just me, but if I ever found a dead body in my house the
first place I’d call is the police station (after I rummage through the
corpse’s pockets for loose change of course), not my shrink. And when
are people going to learn that when your house walls bleed and the windows
fire shards of glass at you, it time to get the fuck out of Dodge and not
try to “sleep it off.” The zombies also just appear and disappear
instead of lumbering around after people like most other zombies. I found
that to be most unfair to the “living” people.  The
characters in the film also flinch in reaction to startling moments BEFORE
they happen. What is it with Italian made movies and little boys? They all
seem to have young boys as one of the main characters and this one is no
different. The ending of this one appears choppy and I have no idea what
the very last scene was all about. On the positive side, the gore effects
are pretty damn cool. The woman puking her guts out is ucky.
Although most of the scene is fake, the actress did have to actually spew
sheep innards out of her mouth. There is also a head drilling scene that
impressed me. The sound (Dolby 5.1) heard on this DVD is phenomenal. It
adds a ton of eeriness to the film’s atmosphere. The whirling wind
coming from my rear speakers had me thinking it was really windy outside
and I peered out my window more than once for a look see. The video is
just ok, but there is really nothing visually stimulating about this flic
anyway. The picture (Widescreen 1.85:1, Enhanced for 16x9 TVs) is a tad
grainy, but the colors do stand out nicely. Features include a short Fulci
bio, the theatrical trailer, and radio spots. Yes, I bitched a lot, but I
enjoyed this Italian gore film. The pacing is a lot better than most other
Italian movies and the gore was enjoyable. This DVD is a must for fans of
Fulci and gore flics. All others will be on shaky ground. – Denis
Sheehan
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