Something strange and devastating is happening in the New England town of Dunwich. A priest is dead, and all sorts of terrible and inexplicable events are seemingly resulting from this. A woman at a seance in New York City sees this somehow, and other awful portents. People in Dunwich are disappearing, or are found dead, brought down by fear-induced heart attacks. And the deceased are seen again, as living corpses wreaking even more havoc upon the town. A small band of heroes try to fight this evil, before a looming deadline is reached. Will they succeed, or will a terrible apocalypse be loosed upon the entire world?
(SPOILERS AHEAD UNTIL MARKED) The movie opens in a graveyard, marked "Dunwich." A haggard priest is walking around. Simultaneously, a seance is going on in New York City. One of the participants, Mary Woodhouse, sees the priest hang himself, followed by howling winds, and the dead rising. Mary collapses, and dies. The police investigating this tragedy are openly suspicious, but are confused as weird bursts of flame appear at the medium's apartment. Back in Dunwich, an odd looking man, Bob, enters an abandoned house. There he witnesses his sex doll inflating itself, and then a worm-saturated child's corpse. In New York, a reporter, Peter Wells, tries unsuccessfully to investigate Mary's mysterious death. The customers in Junies, a Dunwich tavern, see a mirror break on its own, and then a large crack forms in a wall. Then we meet psychiatrist Gerry, who's treating a patient named Sandra. We also meet Gerry's girlfriend, Emily, who's attempting to locate Bob, who she regards with sympathy. Bob is the town outcast, because of an earlier attempted attack on a local child, Anne Ross. Dunwich is revealed to be built on the ruins of Salem, renowned for its witch trials and executions.
Back at a cemetery overlooking Manhattan, Peter is nosing around Mary's grave, which lazy diggers have left only partially covered. He's shocked to hear screams coming from the coffin. Peter opens the coffin with a pick, discovering that Mary is actually alive. Together, they meet up with the medium, Theresa, and pooling their information, realize that the dead will rise and take over the earth, unless someone closes the Gate of Hell opened by Father Thomas's suicide. They have until the start of All Saints Day, which begins at midnight in a few days.
In Dunwich, Emily locates Bob in the abandoned house, but he flees. The dead Father Thomas appears and subdues Emily with a handful of worms. A young couple, Tommy and Rose, are making out in a parked vehicle in an isolated part of town. Father Thomas appears to them, and his hypnotic gaze causes Rose to literally vomit up her own guts, and then transform into a zombie. She then kills Tommy by tearing out his brains with her bare hand. Meanwhile, Mary and Peter start driving to try to find the town of Dunwich, which isn't on the maps.
Emily's body is found, dead from a heart attack prompted by terror. Bob is the only murder suspect. Another woman, Jane Holden, has died from the same cause across town. Father Thomas appears before Bob, causing him to flee once more. The funeral director, bent on robbing jewelry from the bodies of Emily and Jane, is somehow bitten by Jane's corpse. Emily's corpse, all bloodied, is seen by her little brother, John-John, outside the family home. Jane's body is discovered inside Sandra's kitchen. She calls Gerry, and he confirms that she's not hallucinating. However, the body disappears, and a strange gust of wind breaks a window, and the shards of glass cause the walls to bleed.
Bob panics, and breaks into the garage of the Ross family to spend the night in their car. The next morning, Anne Ross, his former would-be victim, seems happy to see him. However, her father bursts in, sees Bob, and kills him using a drill press. After speaking with a priest in a neighboring town, Peter and Mary finally find Dunwich, and locate the cemetery. There they meet up with Sandra and Gerry, and they go to Gerry's office to share their stories. This is interrupted by a window coming open, letting in a storm of maggots, which envelopes the room and its inhabitants. John-John calls Gerry, telling him that zombie Emily has killed his parents in the night. Sandra takes John-John to Gerry's studio, while Gerry, Peter and Mary check out the funeral home. Sandra is attacked by Emily, who dispatches her with another brain-pulling. Tommy's corpse appears too, and he and Emily menace John-John before Gerry comes back and drags the boy away. Across town, Bob, Emily, and Tommy appear in Junie's bar, and proceed to attack the regular customers.
As midnight is reached, All Saints Day, Peter, Mary, and Gerry open the Thomas family tomb, and descend into it via a ladder. It leads to a vast, underground chamber, which links various graves and mausoleums. Sandra's corpse appears and kills Peter. She then stares at Mary, and Mary's eyes begin to bleed. Before Mary starts vomiting up her insides, Gerry destroys Sandra with a metal pole. More zombies rise up and surround Mary and Gerry, including Father Thomas. The priest once again attempts his "death-stare," but Gerry impales him with a large wooden cross. The priest's body erupts in flame, as do all the the other zombies, and they quickly turn to ash, and then disappear. Gerry and Mary climb out of the tomb, and see John-John approaching them. Just as he gets near the movie screen grows cracks, and then turns completely black, as screams are heard.
Readers of my recap might well be saying, "What was that? That plot makes no sense!" So let's get this out of the way. As any knowledgeable viewer of Italian horror movies will surely admit, their stories often don't make much sense. Some, maybe most, probably, have significant plot holes, and don't appear realistic or accurate at all. "City of the Living Dead" certainly has these moments, too. For example, Dunwich couldn't be built on the ruins of the notorious witch-hunting town of Salem, since Salem was never abandoned and ruined! It exists where it's always been (well, okay, it's surely grown in size, but you get the idea), and is a big tourist attraction. Secondly, the burial of Mary isn't realistic at all. As one blogger pointed out, some cultures, such as some Jewish sects, prefer not to embalm their dead, so maybe that's possible. But a suspicious, unexplained death like Mary's would obviously result in an autopsy, meaning if Mary was only "seemingly" dead, the doctor cutting into her would have gotten quite a surprise! Also, Theresa the medium warns Peter and Mary that the open portal to Hell must be closed by midnight, at the start of All Saints Day. But Mary observes that the deadline has been reached before they even enter the Thomas family tomb. So isn't it too late? And why weren't they hurrying into the tomb as soon as they found the cemetery, in that case? There are other, more nitpicky issues, too. Such as why Father Thomas appears at the end. Why risk being destroyed, when he had many undead minions to attack Mary and Gerry? His underlings can even do the eye-bleeding/gut puking stare, after all. But maybe he was arrogant, I suppose. Or, it didn't matter, since the deadline had already been reached, and evil had won? (More on the ending later.)
So why am I writing about this movie, then, if the story is so muddled, and nonsensical? Because other aspects of the film make up for these deficiencies in the story, and make the experience still worthwhile. One of these is the overall atmosphere of the movie. It's very reminiscent of a nightmare, as are some of director Fulci's other movies, like "The House by the Cemetery" (1981), and "The Beyond" (1981). The fact that things aren't realistic can help in this case. It's surreal, and strange, and therefore, more frightening. Another detail is the use of sound, and visual effects. When evil starts to really take control of Dunwich, it's accompanied by ferocious windstorms. Gales are whipping through the streets, pushing characters around, and obscuring their attempts at speaking. Animal noises abound too--weird screams, some of which appear to be those of tropical birds, from jungle movies. And then there's the animal's themselves, especially the worms. Fulci seems obsessed with worms, similar to his Italian directing comrade, Dario Argento. Worms are seen infesting a child's corpse. Then Father Thomas dispatches Emily with a faceful of worms (technically fear actually causes her heart to stop, but surely the worms were a factor). And then there's the bizarre, disgusting, shower of maggots that cover our heroes. Many of these were actually grains of rice, but clearly some were real. Much to the actors' revulsion, as live maggots were stuck to their faces.
The special effects really packed a wallop in "City of the Living Dead" as well. Bob's demise by drill is one of these cases. Most movies would have cut away, but not this one. We see the drill in close up, steadily getting closer. Then we see it go both into Bob's head, and then out the other side, complete with the tool's mechanical whirring, gurgling as it bites through flesh and bone, and the accompanying screams. The zombies' "stare" tactic is incredible, too. The victims' eyes fill with blood, and they "cry" red tears. Then (if not interrupted) it gets even worse. Seeing Rose choke up her own digestive tract is nauseating, shocking, and unforgettable. (It was accomplished by having the actress take a large mouthful of sheep intestines, and then jump cutting to a false head for part of the scene.) Some of the effects weren't as strong--for example, the burning corpses at the end were clearly dummies, but overall the effects are disturbingly gross and believable, and so they really add to the impact of the horrors on the screen.
This film's living dead were innovative in many ways. Mostly because of their ability to teleport, apparently at will. Most zombies are relatively easy to avoid, since they're commonly portrayed as being slow moving, but not so in "City of the Living Dead." Even if you successfully lock yourself up in a building, they can simply appear and get you anyway. Aside from the previously mentioned deadly "stare," their strength is also quite formidable. Casually ripping through a human skull to tear out their brains is something even an Olympic weightlifter would find challenging. True, they can be dispatched via impalement, or if their leader is destroyed (ala the "Night King" in the HBO series "Game of Thrones"), but they're still much more dangerous than the average living dead corpse.
The ending of "City of the Living Dead" is often remarked upon, and puzzled over. Stories abound about it. Some claim Fulci intended a different ending, such as John-John becoming a zombie as he encounters Mary and Gerry in the cemetery. Then, the rumor goes, a careless editor spilled coffee on the film stock, necessitating the re-shot, eventual conclusion. Others claim that this tale is apocryphal. As it stands, the ending is mysterious. I think an interpretation is that evil won, possibly because the All Saints Day deadline had been reached. So the world itself was cracked asunder, as everybody and everything has been destroyed. The ending could be going even further--maybe it's intended as a (kind of literal) fourth wall breaking, scaring viewers into thinking that evil has doomed the world in both the movie, and in reality. Whatever the true explanation, the conclusion can't be positive, it's safe to say!
A lot of questions remain about the character of Father Thomas. Was he truly evil--did he kill himself knowing that it would cause the chain of events leading to the (apparent) end of the world? Or was he just a normal, depressed guy, whose body was later possessed by evil spirits? And whatever was in charge of his corpse, why did he(they) behave as he did? (And I realize the actual answer is surely to advance the plot, for dramatic reasons, but I mean within the movie's reality.) He appears to enjoy messing with people. It seems like he could have killed Bob whenever he felt like it, but Father Thomas apparently wanted to set Bob up as a patsy, and also liked psychologically and physically torturing him. Also, if the zombies can evidently teleport anywhere, at any time, why didn't Father Thomas send them into the bedrooms of the heroes while they slept, and kill them? He murders John John's parents, but doesn't kill the kid, which should have been just as simple to accomplish. I think the evil forces, and/or Father Thomas, were enjoying the journey to their goal, and weren't just focused on the goal itself.
(END OF SPOILERS--SAFE FOR EVERYONE) The late Lucio Fulci had a long and productive career. He's probably best remembered for his horror output, but he dabbled in many genres, such as comedies, dramas, adventure, science fiction, etc. Aside from "The Beyond" (1981), "Zombi 2" (1979), and "The House by the Cemetery" (1981), he's also known for "A Lizard in a Women's Skin" (1971), "Don't Torture a Duckling" (1972), "The New York Ripper" (1982), "Demonia" (1990) and "A Cat in the Brain" (1990). (He obviously liked using certain actors and writers in multiple projects, as you'll soon see.) Screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti, sometimes in collaboration with his wife, Elisa Briganti, wrote such hits as "The Cat o' Nine Tails" (1971), "Demons" (1985), and "Demons 2" (1986), to go along with the Fulci films "Zombi 2" (1979), "The Beyond" (1981), "The House by the Cemetery" (1981), and "The New York Ripper" (1982). Mary Woodhouse portrayer Catriona MacColl appeared is such movies as Fulci's "The Beyond" (1981) "The House by the Cemetery" (1981) and "A Good Year" (2006). Christopher George (Peter Bell) starred in TV's "The Rat Patrol" (1966-68), "Chisum" (1970), "Grizzly" (1976), "Day of the Animals" (1977), and "Mortuary" (1983), among others. Besides the role of Gerry, Carlo De Mejo's career included "The Other Hell" (1981), "The House by the Cemetery" (1981) and "Manhattan Baby" (1982). Giovanni Lombardo Radice (aka John Morghen), who played Bob, is well known to horror fans, as he appeared in such films as "Cannibal Apocalypse" (1980), "The House at the Edge of the Park" (1980), "Cannibal Ferox" (1981), "Stage Fright" (1987), "The Church" (1989), and the Martin Scorsese hit "Gangs of New York" (2002). Tommy Fisher was played by Michele Soavi, who was both an actor/assistant director as well as a director. Highlights of the former include "Tenebrae" (1982), "Phenomena" (1985), "Demons" (1985), and "Opera" (1987), while highlights of the latter include "Stage Fright" (1987), "The Church" (1989), "Cemetery Man" (1994), and "The Goodbye Kiss" (2006). Daniela Doria (Rose Kelvin) appeared in such movies as "The Black Cat" (1981), "The House by the Cemetery" (1981) and "The New York Ripper" (1982). Finally, Perry Pirkanen (blonde gravedigger) had a short acting career, but he was in two other movies that were (in)famous--"Cannibal Holocaust" (1980), and "Cannibal Ferox" (1981).
Therefore, if you want to see an odd, different take on the living dead, complete with a creepy and nightmarish atmosphere, repulsive gore effects, and don't mind a bit of plot incoherence, you might enjoy "City of the Living Dead." Just don't get confused with director Umberto Lenzi's 1980/1983 opus "City of the Walking Dead" (aka "Nightmare City") though--that one is worth watching as well, but only in a "so bad it's good" way.
As midnight is reached, All Saints Day, Peter, Mary, and Gerry open the Thomas family tomb, and descend into it via a ladder. It leads to a vast, underground chamber, which links various graves and mausoleums. Sandra's corpse appears and kills Peter. She then stares at Mary, and Mary's eyes begin to bleed. Before Mary starts vomiting up her insides, Gerry destroys Sandra with a metal pole. More zombies rise up and surround Mary and Gerry, including Father Thomas. The priest once again attempts his "death-stare," but Gerry impales him with a large wooden cross. The priest's body erupts in flame, as do all the the other zombies, and they quickly turn to ash, and then disappear. Gerry and Mary climb out of the tomb, and see John-John approaching them. Just as he gets near the movie screen grows cracks, and then turns completely black, as screams are heard.
Readers of my recap might well be saying, "What was that? That plot makes no sense!" So let's get this out of the way. As any knowledgeable viewer of Italian horror movies will surely admit, their stories often don't make much sense. Some, maybe most, probably, have significant plot holes, and don't appear realistic or accurate at all. "City of the Living Dead" certainly has these moments, too. For example, Dunwich couldn't be built on the ruins of the notorious witch-hunting town of Salem, since Salem was never abandoned and ruined! It exists where it's always been (well, okay, it's surely grown in size, but you get the idea), and is a big tourist attraction. Secondly, the burial of Mary isn't realistic at all. As one blogger pointed out, some cultures, such as some Jewish sects, prefer not to embalm their dead, so maybe that's possible. But a suspicious, unexplained death like Mary's would obviously result in an autopsy, meaning if Mary was only "seemingly" dead, the doctor cutting into her would have gotten quite a surprise! Also, Theresa the medium warns Peter and Mary that the open portal to Hell must be closed by midnight, at the start of All Saints Day. But Mary observes that the deadline has been reached before they even enter the Thomas family tomb. So isn't it too late? And why weren't they hurrying into the tomb as soon as they found the cemetery, in that case? There are other, more nitpicky issues, too. Such as why Father Thomas appears at the end. Why risk being destroyed, when he had many undead minions to attack Mary and Gerry? His underlings can even do the eye-bleeding/gut puking stare, after all. But maybe he was arrogant, I suppose. Or, it didn't matter, since the deadline had already been reached, and evil had won? (More on the ending later.)
So why am I writing about this movie, then, if the story is so muddled, and nonsensical? Because other aspects of the film make up for these deficiencies in the story, and make the experience still worthwhile. One of these is the overall atmosphere of the movie. It's very reminiscent of a nightmare, as are some of director Fulci's other movies, like "The House by the Cemetery" (1981), and "The Beyond" (1981). The fact that things aren't realistic can help in this case. It's surreal, and strange, and therefore, more frightening. Another detail is the use of sound, and visual effects. When evil starts to really take control of Dunwich, it's accompanied by ferocious windstorms. Gales are whipping through the streets, pushing characters around, and obscuring their attempts at speaking. Animal noises abound too--weird screams, some of which appear to be those of tropical birds, from jungle movies. And then there's the animal's themselves, especially the worms. Fulci seems obsessed with worms, similar to his Italian directing comrade, Dario Argento. Worms are seen infesting a child's corpse. Then Father Thomas dispatches Emily with a faceful of worms (technically fear actually causes her heart to stop, but surely the worms were a factor). And then there's the bizarre, disgusting, shower of maggots that cover our heroes. Many of these were actually grains of rice, but clearly some were real. Much to the actors' revulsion, as live maggots were stuck to their faces.
The special effects really packed a wallop in "City of the Living Dead" as well. Bob's demise by drill is one of these cases. Most movies would have cut away, but not this one. We see the drill in close up, steadily getting closer. Then we see it go both into Bob's head, and then out the other side, complete with the tool's mechanical whirring, gurgling as it bites through flesh and bone, and the accompanying screams. The zombies' "stare" tactic is incredible, too. The victims' eyes fill with blood, and they "cry" red tears. Then (if not interrupted) it gets even worse. Seeing Rose choke up her own digestive tract is nauseating, shocking, and unforgettable. (It was accomplished by having the actress take a large mouthful of sheep intestines, and then jump cutting to a false head for part of the scene.) Some of the effects weren't as strong--for example, the burning corpses at the end were clearly dummies, but overall the effects are disturbingly gross and believable, and so they really add to the impact of the horrors on the screen.
This film's living dead were innovative in many ways. Mostly because of their ability to teleport, apparently at will. Most zombies are relatively easy to avoid, since they're commonly portrayed as being slow moving, but not so in "City of the Living Dead." Even if you successfully lock yourself up in a building, they can simply appear and get you anyway. Aside from the previously mentioned deadly "stare," their strength is also quite formidable. Casually ripping through a human skull to tear out their brains is something even an Olympic weightlifter would find challenging. True, they can be dispatched via impalement, or if their leader is destroyed (ala the "Night King" in the HBO series "Game of Thrones"), but they're still much more dangerous than the average living dead corpse.
The ending of "City of the Living Dead" is often remarked upon, and puzzled over. Stories abound about it. Some claim Fulci intended a different ending, such as John-John becoming a zombie as he encounters Mary and Gerry in the cemetery. Then, the rumor goes, a careless editor spilled coffee on the film stock, necessitating the re-shot, eventual conclusion. Others claim that this tale is apocryphal. As it stands, the ending is mysterious. I think an interpretation is that evil won, possibly because the All Saints Day deadline had been reached. So the world itself was cracked asunder, as everybody and everything has been destroyed. The ending could be going even further--maybe it's intended as a (kind of literal) fourth wall breaking, scaring viewers into thinking that evil has doomed the world in both the movie, and in reality. Whatever the true explanation, the conclusion can't be positive, it's safe to say!
A lot of questions remain about the character of Father Thomas. Was he truly evil--did he kill himself knowing that it would cause the chain of events leading to the (apparent) end of the world? Or was he just a normal, depressed guy, whose body was later possessed by evil spirits? And whatever was in charge of his corpse, why did he(they) behave as he did? (And I realize the actual answer is surely to advance the plot, for dramatic reasons, but I mean within the movie's reality.) He appears to enjoy messing with people. It seems like he could have killed Bob whenever he felt like it, but Father Thomas apparently wanted to set Bob up as a patsy, and also liked psychologically and physically torturing him. Also, if the zombies can evidently teleport anywhere, at any time, why didn't Father Thomas send them into the bedrooms of the heroes while they slept, and kill them? He murders John John's parents, but doesn't kill the kid, which should have been just as simple to accomplish. I think the evil forces, and/or Father Thomas, were enjoying the journey to their goal, and weren't just focused on the goal itself.
(END OF SPOILERS--SAFE FOR EVERYONE) The late Lucio Fulci had a long and productive career. He's probably best remembered for his horror output, but he dabbled in many genres, such as comedies, dramas, adventure, science fiction, etc. Aside from "The Beyond" (1981), "Zombi 2" (1979), and "The House by the Cemetery" (1981), he's also known for "A Lizard in a Women's Skin" (1971), "Don't Torture a Duckling" (1972), "The New York Ripper" (1982), "Demonia" (1990) and "A Cat in the Brain" (1990). (He obviously liked using certain actors and writers in multiple projects, as you'll soon see.) Screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti, sometimes in collaboration with his wife, Elisa Briganti, wrote such hits as "The Cat o' Nine Tails" (1971), "Demons" (1985), and "Demons 2" (1986), to go along with the Fulci films "Zombi 2" (1979), "The Beyond" (1981), "The House by the Cemetery" (1981), and "The New York Ripper" (1982). Mary Woodhouse portrayer Catriona MacColl appeared is such movies as Fulci's "The Beyond" (1981) "The House by the Cemetery" (1981) and "A Good Year" (2006). Christopher George (Peter Bell) starred in TV's "The Rat Patrol" (1966-68), "Chisum" (1970), "Grizzly" (1976), "Day of the Animals" (1977), and "Mortuary" (1983), among others. Besides the role of Gerry, Carlo De Mejo's career included "The Other Hell" (1981), "The House by the Cemetery" (1981) and "Manhattan Baby" (1982). Giovanni Lombardo Radice (aka John Morghen), who played Bob, is well known to horror fans, as he appeared in such films as "Cannibal Apocalypse" (1980), "The House at the Edge of the Park" (1980), "Cannibal Ferox" (1981), "Stage Fright" (1987), "The Church" (1989), and the Martin Scorsese hit "Gangs of New York" (2002). Tommy Fisher was played by Michele Soavi, who was both an actor/assistant director as well as a director. Highlights of the former include "Tenebrae" (1982), "Phenomena" (1985), "Demons" (1985), and "Opera" (1987), while highlights of the latter include "Stage Fright" (1987), "The Church" (1989), "Cemetery Man" (1994), and "The Goodbye Kiss" (2006). Daniela Doria (Rose Kelvin) appeared in such movies as "The Black Cat" (1981), "The House by the Cemetery" (1981) and "The New York Ripper" (1982). Finally, Perry Pirkanen (blonde gravedigger) had a short acting career, but he was in two other movies that were (in)famous--"Cannibal Holocaust" (1980), and "Cannibal Ferox" (1981).
Therefore, if you want to see an odd, different take on the living dead, complete with a creepy and nightmarish atmosphere, repulsive gore effects, and don't mind a bit of plot incoherence, you might enjoy "City of the Living Dead." Just don't get confused with director Umberto Lenzi's 1980/1983 opus "City of the Walking Dead" (aka "Nightmare City") though--that one is worth watching as well, but only in a "so bad it's good" way.
