City of the Living Dead (1980)

March 11, 2024 10:49 AM

[TRAILER] A psychic participates in a séance where she sees a vision of a Dunwich priest hanging himself in a church cemetery, causing her to die of fright. New York City reporter Peter Bell investigates the séance and learns that the priest’s suicide has somehow opened a portal to Hell and must be sealed by All Saints Day, or else the dead will overtake humanity.

Starring Christopher George, Catriona MacColl, Carlo De Mejo, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Janet Ågren, Antonella Interlenghi.

Also known as Gates of Hell. Italian title: Paura nella città dei morti viventi. Directed by Lucio Fulci. Written by Lucio Fulci, Dardano Sacchetti. Produced by Mino Loy for Dania Film. Cinematography by Sergio Salvati. Edited by Vincenzo Tomassi. Music by Fabio Frizzi.

40% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

JustWatch listing.

posted by DirtyOldTown (5 comments total)

This era of Italian horror is so wild to me because some of the most intelligent creative people make these films then go off and yadda yadda the entire plot, only to redeem themselves to various degrees with brilliant camerawork, effects, and music as well as truly unnerving imagery.

This a bad, often boring movie redeemed by some truly f-ed up scenes, like a maggot storm.

A maggot storm.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:52 AM on March 11 [2 favorites]

Frizzi's music for this is exceptional for the genre.
posted by Claude Hoeper at 11:41 AM on March 11 [1 favorite]

New York City reporter Peter Bell investigates the séance and learns that the priest’s suicide has somehow opened a portal to Hell and must be sealed by All Saints Day, or else the dead will overtake humanity.

Yes, when I was a journalist, this is pretty much what we did all day. Investigate priestly suicides, discover portals to hell, battle hordes of the undead. Ah, good times, but it's no wonder we drank so much.
posted by Naberius at 8:31 AM on March 12 [5 favorites]

u r kolchak aicmfp
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:15 AM on March 12 [3 favorites]

For decades, I remember this movie ending like so: with evil apparently defeated, the surviving townspeople come running out of the fog toward the surviving heroes; a look of horror crosses a hero's face as the surviving little kid comes into full morning light, which reveals him to be a zombie! They're all zombies! Ahhhhhh! What a great ending, I always thought; and then I watched it again a few years ago, and the way it really ends is the kid is just a screaming kid, and that's like, the end of the movie. I was like 20 the first time I saw this, and it was late at night at a party, and I was probably really drunk and my brain just autocompleted the movie when I thought about it the next day. Because, really, that is not an ending. Did Fulci run out of film?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:51 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]