This off-the-wall nonsensical Italian horror film from giallo master Lucio Fulci is just an excuse for some bizarre and excessive gore sequences, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Half of City of the Living Dead takes place in NYC, so you’d be justified in expecting a full-on “Rotting Corpses take Manhattan” climax. But, alas, the titular “city” actually refers to a nearby quaint village haunted by gruesome murders ever since a local priest hanged himself in the cemetery. Again, the plot is ludicrous and there is absolutely no characterization, so everything hinges on a few baroque horror scenes that are almost comic in their gratuity. The power of these bits is perhaps best captured in the unadorned descriptions of the film’s Wikipedia plot summary (MILD SPOILERS to follow):
“In Dunwich, Bob wanders into an abandoned house, finding a rubber sex doll which inflates itself. Before he can use it, the sight of a rotting baby’s corpse scares him away.”
“Father Thomas makes Rose’s eyeballs bleed and she meets a ghastly fate by vomiting her entire guts out and Tommy is killed by getting his head ripped open.”
“…the rabid patriarch enters, and mistakenly assumes that Bob is trying to seduce his daughter. The vicious Mr. Ross kills Bob by impaling his head on a drilling lathe.”
“They begin to become acquainted at Gerry’s office when a sudden violent storm blasts through the window, showering the four with maggots.”
Fulci does not have the command of tension and atmosphere that his contemporary Dario Argento possessed (the movie looks pretty good, but it’s got nothing on Argento’s lush nightmare-scapes). Where Argento’s movies are like incomprehensible visions from a demented unconscious, City of the Living Dead is like a bad cheap movie with some great weird gore scenes. Unabashedly dumb in a fun and enjoyable way.
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