City Of The Living Dead

Rating:
Summary: Great, Fun, Spooky.
Review: Amazing. This is a great movie. And the DVD was done right! Thank God! The quality is awesome, and the 5.1 surround is amazing. Great job. Much better than Anchor Bay did with Dawn of the Dead.

Rating:
Summary: "crap
Review: ok let me say this in as few words as i can, this movie SUCKED ! just when i thought there was going to be a all out gorefest at the end when all the zombies came out of there graves, there was none and it just ended. there was only a few gory parts and thats it, this movie drags on and drags on and its really boring, if u wanna waste your money on total crap, this is the movie, if you want a movie with alot of gore, violence and a good storyline, this definately isnt for you

Rating:
Summary: Abra cadaver
Review: Film director Lucio Fulci is an intersting case. On the one hand, his work is often very sloppy and slapdash. On the other hand, his films often boast individual scenes, shots and ideas that prove the man was not without talent. City of the Living Dead contains a goodly number of such moments, and is therefore well worth the time of Horror film aficiandos. All the usual objections apply: bad script, bad dubbing, no characterization to speak of, etc. But the film works as a collection of hallucinogenic moments (a supernatural burst of flame in an apartment, an apparition that causes people to weep blood, gusts of wind-swept maggots) of disturbing, dreamlike horror. He also manages to create and sustain an odd, nightmarish atmosphere throughout. And I love the fact that Fulci had the nerve to tack on a puzzling denouement that probably made no sense even to him. All in all, consider this film low rent, morbid magic realism.

Rating:
Summary: Brain ripping, gut spewing - same old drill from Fulci...
Review: By anyone's standards, Lucio Fulci's "City of the Living Dead" (Paura nella Citta dei' Morti Viventi, 1980) shouldn't rate so much as a second glance: The acting is atrocious, the dialogue is a joke, and the plot is a meandering grab-bag involving a ghostly priest whose suicide in the obscure town of Dunwich has somehow opened the gates of hell. Don't ask me why - the script doesn't provide an adequate explanation, so your guess is as good as mine. Whatever the reason, cue shuffling zombies, oodles of fog, and a bunch of lacklustre 'heroes' (including Christopher George, clearly in it for the money) who barely register as anything other than mouthpieces for the increasingly humdrum scenario. And yet...

And yet, there's something about the movie that makes it almost compulsively watchable. Fulci and cameraman Sergio Salvati transform the Lovecraftian town of Dunwich into a desolate, windswept no-man's-land where isolated citizens are confronted by supernatural events which seem to validate the kind of superstitious bigotry that was initiated in Dunwich's distant past: When a misunderstood simpleton is murdered by an outraged father who mistakenly thinks the boy has been messing with the man's daughter (who's actually far less innocent than he imagines), the script invokes parallels with events of the 17th century when so-called witches were unjustly burned at the stake by irrational townsfolk. In other words, nothing changes, despite the passage of time. This particular murder may seem gratuitous (the victim serves no other purpose in the narrative and his death is immediately forgotten by the scriptwriters), but Fulci uses it to underline the small-minded bigotry which links the town unequivocably with its own historical past. Elsewhere, the frequent explosions of hardcore gore will horrify the uninitiated, but Fulci resorts to these crowd-pleasing set-pieces only sparingly, and his over-reliance on mood-setting tableaux is a disappointment. But "City" DOES contain what is arguably the finest set-piece of this director's career: George's use of a pickaxe in a desperate attempt to free the lovely Catriona MacColl from a coffin where she's been buried alive. Here, Fulci generates more tension and genuine horror than any other scene in his entire filmography and provides stunning confirmation of his somewhat erratic talent.

Anchor Bay's anamorphic 1.85:1 presentation seems a bit cramped at the sides (cf. the final shot of the aforementioned murder scene in chapter 17), and the somewhat grainy image is a little drained and colorless, but this is due to the quality of the print itself, which is otherwise intact. Two soundtracks are provided - 5.1 Dolby Digital and two-channel stereo (as usual with Anchor Bay, the original mono track has been unceremoniously dumped), and there's a trailer which doesn't even attempt to explain the nonsensical plot. There are no captions. DVD running time: 92m 34s.

By the way, horror fans have been trying for years to decipher the very last scene in the movie, but it defies all attempts to make sense of it. Catriona MacColl believes it was because the director didn't know how to end the film and simply made something up on the spot. So now you know...

Rating:
Summary: little help, please
Review: Yeah, yeah, Fulci's a genius, yeah yeah, this movie is incredibly atmospheric, yeah yeah, it's amazing. You should know all this from reading the previous reviews.

However, i have a problem with the ending. Don't worry, I'm not gonna spoil anything for anyone. I just want to know what the hell it means? If anyone out there has an idea about the ending, please email me at "[e-mail]". I love the movie, but am terribly confused by the ending. help!

Rating:
Summary: Thank you Anchor Bay!
Review: AB has done it again with a great print of THE GATES OF HELL and 5.1 surround sound! This company never ceases to amaze me with their releases. If you consider yourself a horror fan then you MUST own their Fulci collection. Only one gripe: I would like to have seen the American trailers added to this DVD well as the others.

Rating:
Summary: Lucio Fulci's cinematic legacy lives
Review: City of the Living Dead (aka The Gates of Hell) is not one of my favorite Fulci movies, those would be Zombie and The Beyond, but it does serve as an excellent creative bridge between the two.

The suicide of a priest in the town of Dunwich's cemetery opens the gates of hell. If it is not closed in three days the dead will arise and take over the earth.

The movie benefits from Fulci's always strong sense of atmosphere and his unsettingly use of odd and exaggerated sound. Outside of the two notorious gore sequences, there are two other great moments worth watching the movie for...the rescue of the heroine when she is buried alive and the hunting for a here and gone corpse in Sandra's house.

The disc itself is good. The transfer seems sharp and clean, the letterboxed image is nearly complete (some cropping is still visible). The extras are interesting but, for longtime fans of Fulci, nothing new and nothing special.

In all this is a worthy addition to the video library for fans of Fulci and Splatter Movies. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Bleeding eyes and more
Review: This is a true Fulci classic. A demented priest hangs himself in a church graveyard thus opening the gates of hell. Meanwhile a psychic, who has been buried alive and then saved, teams up with a poorly dressed American to find the priest, kill him, and close the gate.

Although the film is filled with over-the-top acting and a flimsy script it is engaging and fun, probably due to the tons and tons of gore.

If you like bleeding eyes, exploding brains, maggots, and more then this is the movie for you.

Rating:
Summary: Total classic!
Review: The biggest shame of this film, is that a good many people haven't seen it. Hopefully with the dvd release, more people will.

This is truly a cult classic in every sense of the word. It's fun, campy & gory. People who aren't strong stomached might not like this, but those who love gore will be in heaven.

Best scene - the head drilling sequence. It's at once horrifying and hilarious.

Rating:
Summary: A slam-bang, pull no punches gorefest!
Review: Lucio Fulci's "City of the Living Dead" is, of course, the uncensored print of "The Gates of Hell". The story, what there is, anyway, centers around the sleepy town of Dunwich and the horrific chain of events that ensues after a priest hangs himself in a cemetery. The portals of Hell have been opened and, unless they are closed before All Saint's Day, the dead will rise and walk the earth. Contains the typical dubbing associated with foreign releases, but is also quite atmospheric and scary. Keep the kids away at all costs, the gore quotient is extreme: brain rippings, gut puking, and more! Fulci delivers big on this one! Seek it out!