Review - City of the Living Dead (1980 - Dir. Lucio Fulci)

If you've been with us since the very start (April 2011) then you'll know that this was the first film reviewed on this very site. And it was a bit rubbish. (The review, not the film.) So seeing as though we're having a bit of a zombie celebration I thought it would be rude not to have another look at one of the classics of the genre.

It is still a classic but as I was watching it I couldn't get over how terrible it is in parts. For example, the plot. To be generous, it's a big pile of dog presents. I'll buy the fact that a priest committing suicide has opened a gate to hell. But what happens after that is suspect to say the least. Characters behave in some very strange ways. When faced with a rather slimy zombie, Gerry (Carlo De Mejo) decides to comfort a small child in an incredibly calm manner, then has a look at the zombie in question. Does he attack it with a baseball bat encrusted with razor blades, or just leg it? Nope he shuts his eyes. For about five seconds. Any other zombie film and he's a dead man, but here the zombie vanishes. Not a standard tactic but it worked surprising well. Well done Carlo.

That brings me neatly to the next point: the vanishing zombies. They are brought to you by some stunning special effects technology. Slap the camera on a tripod, film the scene with the zombie there. Then remove said zombie and film it again. The editor can then craftily swap between the two shots and, hey presto, the zombie disappears (or appears as the case may be.) Premium quality.

There is also someone to rival Mary's dad in the bad acting stakes and amazingly he's someone's dad: Emily's dad. His acting is really bad, even compared to the acting in the rest of the film - which can be best described as standing around - but Emily's dad reaches new depths. All he has to do is look upset and he does it spectacularly badly. If he'd have just said, "Emily love," the package would have been complete.

This all sounds like I hate City of the Living Dead. But perversely, I love it. I was trying to work out why, and this was the best I could come up with: the brilliant parts make me forgive, even enjoy, the dire bits. And what brilliant parts there are. There are four standout scenes. Some films can't even manage one so it's doing well already. Beware there are spoilers ahead, as we have a look at those scenes in a bit more detail:

1. Catriona MacColl being buried alive and then getting rescued by Christopher George. The only problem here is that he slams a pickaxe through the top of the coffin narrowly missing her head. On numerous occasions. No acting required here because it looks absolutely terrifying. The pick comes perilously close to her face despite it being rigged to miss her. Add to that the claustrophobia factor and it must have been a nightmare to film. Luckily, the end shot of her screaming through the hole made in the coffin is truly iconic.

2. Daniela Doria throwing up her guts. Literally. This has to be one of the most gip inducing scenes in cinema. The first shots of the actual actress, (who Fulci lovely to put through hell) with intestines pouring out of her mouth are bad enough. And you'd think that when it swaps to a blatantly fake special effects head for the final push the vomit would recede. But no, it gets worse as a huge lump passes out from her lips. Disgusting stuff, but great.

3. Giovanni Lombardo Radice, as the seedy loner Bob, getting his head drilled. Another iconic moment here as the horror is drawn out to really get the most out of the effect. The tension is ramped up as his head gets closer and closer. And it intercuts between shots of the drill bit getting closer and closer. In most other films, he'd get rescued at the last moment, it would show the death in shadow, or cut at the moment of insertion. Not here. The camera loving gazes on as the drill enters his head, pierces his cheek on the other side, and then continues to spin for a while longer. It's a great effect, even now, and must be up there as one of the greatest screen deaths (now there's an idea for a Letterboxd list).

4. The final sequence with Carlo, Catriona and Christopher in the tomb of the dead priest. Not as excessive as anything that has preceded, though still brilliant nonetheless. The set design and lighting are gorgeous with skeletons and cobwebs hanging from the roof, lit with spooky blue lights in true gothic style. Then the music kicks in and the dead rise. In a similar way to The Beyond, the music signals the beginning of the end, and it's stunning mix of visuals and sound. 

There are other moments too, for example, the Sherrif's comment about Bob burning in hell, but it's the above scenes that garner the film so much goodwill from the viewer that its faults can be overlooked or, which happens more often, laughed at and enjoyed. Even the shockingly bad ending is part of the fun. For me, the things that stop it from being a 10 are the zombie make-ups, that are more oozy than the crusty examples in Zombie Flesh Eaters, and those disappearing zombies that I can never fully forgive. 

Right, now that I've got this review done and dusted, I'm off to Celluloid Screams 2013. Full coverage coming very soon...
9/10
evlkeith



If you like this you could also try:
Zombie Flesh Eaters, The Beyond, The House by the Cemetery.

Review - The House by the Cemetery (1981 - Dir. Lucio Fulci)

This is a nice Friday the 13th treat for you. It's the final film in the loose trilogy containing City of the Living Dead and The Beyond. It is a trilogy in the sense that they share similarly disjointed narratives, although The House by the Cemetery has the most conventional storyline of the three. Fulci actually spends a fair part of the film building tension after an initial gruesome death (Daniela Doria bites the dust yet again). Don't worry though. There are still a fair few of the usual protracted death scenes.

Lucy Boyle (the excellent Catriona MacColl who appears in all three films in the trilogy) and her husband Dr Norman Boyle (Paolo Malco - The New York Ripper) move into the titular house (idiots) so that Norm can look into some of one of his ex-colleagues disturbing findings. The fact that his ex-colleague committed suicide makes you wonder about the motives of Normie. Also, his shifty glances at the babysitter, (Ania Pieroni - Inferno) shown in trademark Fulci close-up, makes you ponder on his fidelity. Throw into the mix the way he constantly tries to give Lucy tablets and you have some major chin-strokery. Is he a crafty skullduggerer or the perfect husband and father? Oh, yeah, and Dr Freudstein lives in their cellar too.

Dr Freudstein!?! Who he? The name suggest someone who wants to bring their mother back to life by grave-robbing body parts, sewing them to his Mammy's body, patching her into the mains and then having a cheeky wriggle with her. Probably not that far from the truth either. Freudy (a silent Giovanni De Nava - The Beyond) is one of the scariest on-screen creations in any film. He is a zombie. He has a slightly insectoid face. And when you cut him, what can only be described as maggot enriched excrement oozes out of the wound. Put it this way: you wouldn't want him marrying your only daughter. 

The gore is great, but what stops this film from getting a higher rating is that it feels as though the film is cut, even when I know it is definitely an uncut version. The drawn out death of the estate agent Laura Gittleson is enjoyably excessive but Fulci actually cut out some effects work that he wasn't happy with. Her face in one part of the scene is fairly normal looking, albeit covered in blood. In the very next shot we see that something nasty has happened to one side of her face. But we don't get to see what. Gutted. The other scene that feels cut is a death where someone has their face dragged down a set of stairs - I've never been convinced that this would kill, it looks more like it would cause a minor graze, soon sorted with Savlon - then at the bottom of the stairs you see a pool of blood forming around the recently deceased's head.  I don't know whether anything was removed but it certainly feels like it. Gutted.

Quite a few people don't like a particular scene where Lucy walks in on the babysitter cleaning a load of blood off the floor... and doesn't comment on it. Business as usual in the Boyle house. I actually quite like it. Fair enough it makes no sense and I can't really justify its inclusion, but it feels right in the overall atmosphere of the film. A little quirk that the film would be poorer without.

Crikey, I've already written loads and I haven't even touched upon one important aspect of the film: Bob. And his voice. An infant voiced by an American adult. Terrible. 

I am being picky. This is a great film. A classic, even. It is fairly tense and scary, and it has a fairly upsetting ending when you consider the implications. Highly recommended. (Also, the trailer is one of the top trailers ever. Just listen to the voiceover guy. I'll never be able to say 'The House by the Cemetery' in a normal way again.)
9/10
evlkeith



If you like this you could also try:
Zombie Flesh Eaters, The Beyond, City of the Living Dead, Tenebrae, Suspiria.

Review - The Theatre Bizarre (2011 - Dir. Richard Stanley, Tom Savini, Douglas Buck, Karim Hussain, Buddy Giovinazzo, Jeremy Kasten, David Gregory)

This is an anthology from seven cheeky little directors and it looked like pretty sick stuff from the trailer. Suffice to say, I was looking forward to it.

As with all anthologies, the individual sections vary in quality. The one that I enjoyed the most, I Love You by Buddy Giovinazzo, had very little horror content and was more a study of the breakdown of a marriage where the fella is a stalking control freak. Another highlight, with some severe eye trauma (always a treat), was Vision Stains by Karim Hussain.

The weakest was The Accident by Douglas Buck, which did have the dubious honour of containing the most gormless looking half-dead deer in a film, but even this section was not too bad.

The problem with it was that there wasn't anything really stunning. The individual parts were mostly okay. The framing sections by Jeremy Kasten didn't help, as they didn't link the stories together in any meaningful way and if you were watching this on DVD you'd just skip them.

But when you feel the need for a film that contains a toad woman bouncing merrily astride a young gentleman, a bloke's lad served up on a plate for his breakfast, a lady with H.P. Lovecraft style privities, numerous eye injections and a mister being ripped apart, then eaten by some crazed food addicts you could do worse than give this a try. And it's got Catriona MacColl in it!

6/10

evlkeith

If you like this you could also try:
Necronomicon, Dead of Night, Dr Terror's House of Horrors.

Review - City of the Living Dead (1980 - Dir. Lucio Fulci)

The first of a loose trilogy of zombie films made by the late great Lucio Fulci (followed up by The Beyond and House by the Cemetery). This film has recently enjoyed its 30th birthday and is still going strong (I wonder if recent horror offerings will do the same). 

It is hard to put your finger on why it is so likeable. Is it the pairing of Christopher George and Catriona MacColl, who really don't have to do a lot of acting? For evidence, watch the maggot scene. Is it the excessive non-CGI gore effects? One scene of the much abused, in Fulci films, Daniela Doria  chucking up her intestines can make you feel a tad queasy. Plus, for the entrance fee, you also get a drill through the head scene! Is it the atmosphere and the strange disjointed plot? Is it the final shot that provokes much chin stroking bafflement? I don't think we will ever know the thinking behind it, if there was any. It's probably a combination of all these things that make an enjoyable late Friday night kind of film. Bear in mind that this is just the starter, compared to the main course that is The Beyond...
9/10
evlkeith
 

                                                      
If you like this you could also try:
The Beyond, The House by the Cemetery, A Bay of Blood, Zombie Flesh Eaters, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, Dawn of the Dead.