City of the Living Dead

This gruesome horror film from cult director Lucio Fulci posits a priest's suicide opening the gateway to Hell, freeing bloodthirsty zombies to roam the town of Dunwich. The main attractions are startlingly explicit special effects by Franco Rufino, including two of the horror genre's most memorable ...more

This Italian horror film, also released on video as The Gates of Hell, is a dry run for the blend of graphic shocks and surrealism atmosphere that Lucio Fulci would perfect with The Beyond. Patience and a strong stomach are prerequisites for viewing City of the Living Dead because it suffers from the same shortcomings present in much of Fulci's other horror films. Its narrative is loose, the pacing often lags, and the film relies on stomach-churning gore effects in place of suspense. Despite ...more