City of the Living Dead (1983)

With City of the Living Dead, Lucio Fulci introduces a supernatural world filled with walls dripping blood, swarms of maggots, apparitions and the occasional zombie.  In fact, zombies command no more than 10 minutes of total screen time. When zombies do appear, they make the best of their presence and are flat out mean.  It becomes quickly apparent that the zombies in City of the Living Dead have on goal in mind: kill in the most gruesome fashion possible.  Why settle for a bite on the arm when you can pull a guy's brain out of the back of his head?

The plot is confusing at best.  In the small town of Dunwich, New England, a priest hangs himself in the town cemetery the result of which opens the gates of hell.  At the same time in New York City, Mary Woodhouse (Catriona MacColl) is performing a seance and has a vision of the suicide.  The vision causes her to die from fright.  She is buried only to come back alive in her coffin.  Obviously, the local cemetery was cutting corners and opted not to embalm her.   Moments before her air runs out, she is saved by Peter Bell (Christopher George), an all-too-curious reporter who has taken an interest in her story.  Mary convinces Peter to go with her to Dunwich so they can find a way to close the gates of hell before the world is overtaken by zombies.

With an incoherent plot and head scratching ending, gore is the real draw of City of the Living Dead.  By now, many of the goriest scenes in the movie are legendary to horror fans.  Fulci spared no expense when it came to creating gruesome gore scenes that hold up surprisingly well.

Don't freak out.  Those aren't human intestines.  They are REAL sheep entrails!

City of the Living Dead is considered a classic by most.  It is the first in Lucio Fulci's unofficial "Gates of Hell" trilogy that also included The Beyond and The House by the Cemetary.  Fulci should be commended for trying to expand beyond the traditional confines of a zombie movie.  He doesn't hit his stride with this concept until The Beyond but City of the Living Dead is an adequate start.