Review by Jason Lees

Being a fan of Lucio Fulci isn’t always easy. Among the right people, expressing your love of his films can garner instant friendship and hours of discussion, but trying to convince some people that the Italian director is a true cinematic genius is sometimes flat out impossible. With a film like CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, it’s sometimes an uphill battle.

CITY begins Fulci’s “Death Trilogy” (sometimes called his Real Estate Trilogy) where he explores the concept that certain events can open a door to hell. Here, the suicide of Father William Thomas triggers a rift between our world and Hell that will only get worse the closer we get to All Saints Day. The undead rise and drag the living down to their level with only a few unlucky souls able to fight back and try to save the world from apocalypse.

Okay, that’s enough plot. Anyone who knows Fulci knows that when it comes to his films, logic is best left at the theater doors. This is spectacle, pure and simple. A morbid roller coaster ride if there ever was one. I’ve watched CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (or GATES OF HELL as it was called in its original US release) while trying to figure out what it’s trying to say and I admit, I completely missed the point. Yes, there are plot holes big enough to drive a hearse through and characters react to the horrors around them in such absurd ways that it’s almost laughable, but like I said, Fulci wasn’t striving for realism. He was trying to make you feel something.

And he was an expert at making the audience nauseated. That’s a good thing.
Fulci, more so here than in any of his other films, built the movie around certain set pieces. THE BEYOND, as gory as it was, was layered on mood, and ZOMBIE was centered on the appeal of the shambling dead. In CITY, Fulci relies on certain gross out scenes to maintain the level of fun. The standouts, the reason to watch CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, is to experience two very different scenes. Fans the film will know them immediately as the drill scene and the tripe scene. Non-fans will know them soon enough as the scenes that made them lose their lunch when they see it. There is a magician’s sense of craftsmanship to these scenes. Slight of hand and uncommon subtlety, considering the subject, raise Fulci’s direction from exploitation to artist. Instead of just red smears on latex, we do almost feel the drill tear in. And the visual impact of the bloody tears is something that sticks with you long after the annoying plots holes are forgotten.

This might be why Fulci is such a hard sell. It’s not a question of whether you ‘get’ him or not, it’s more of a very distinct taste. Just being a horror fan doesn’t mean you love Fulci. His fans are among the most dedicated and loyal, but even they’ll tell you that the ending of CITY makes no damn sense.
Does it have to?

Hollywood is full of movies that don’t make a damn bit of sense, but no ones seems to mind. At least with Fulci, he never promised us a happy ending, or even a sensible one. Nope, the maestro promised to show us sights that we’d never seen before, and even if CITY isn’t his best film, it’s still something distinctly Fulci and thereby unique. In a market where every flick is trying very hard now to blend in and serve up what they think the audience expects, I miss the days when ol’ Lucio threw films at us and dared us to make sense of them.

Rational? No. Logical? Not in the slightest. Forgettable? Not by a long shot. Thank God.