City of the Living Dead
is part of a high point in Lucio Fulci’s career
that would make him synonymous with gore, zombies, and splatter and also cause
him to be more generally regarded as a horror director, despite having worked in
numerous other film genres. Being the first film in what has become known as
The Gates of Hell trilogy, which also includes The Beyond (1981) and House
by the Cemetery (1981), City
feels a little rough around the edges, a step down from the previous Zombi 2 (1979) but at the same time a
stepping stone or prototype to The
Beyond, a film that masterfully embodies a dreadful but surreal atmospheric
ascetic that I like to call nightmarish horror, which abandons logic to create
a sense that anything can happen, usually something bad involving the eyes.
While
there is an interesting Lovecraftian story (co-written by Fulci and Dardano Sacchetti)
and plenty of dialogue and characters to fill it, City feels a bit like a compendium of gore scenes and set pieces,
most of which exemplify Fulci in top
form. It has its flaws and issues, yet it’s one of those films where you can
talk just as much about what’s wrong with it as you can about what’s right with
it, and what’s right is pleasing enough to supersede what’s wrong.
Despite
having a dodgy narrative, a few silly moments, and somewhat shallow characters, who
have grown on me with time, such as Bob (Giovanni
Lombardo Radice), the film is quite a macabre experience that has become known for its top-notch
ambiance and gore FX (by Gino De Rossi),
as well as succeeding as a horror film overall. It’s like a product of low
quality that nonetheless continually hits the sweet spot throughout its runtime
so that you just can’t help loving it. It’s almost the masterpiece The Beyond is.
Oh glorious haunted New England mansion…. A supreme visual brought to life with the sound of Gothic CASTLEVANIA-esque theme music by Walter Rizzati, tombstones, and leafless winter trees. What splendid grandeur and majesty you emit against the daytime sky and how even more beautiful you are at night… What evil cosmic secrets do you hold? How I’d love to see what fate would befall a family that was to all of a sudden move in and inhabit you. What’s that you say? I can? In a film called HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY.
It’s been blogged about a thousand times and reviewed to death, but I still feel that Lucio Fulci’s HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY deserves all of the love it can get. The film primarily concerns the Boyle family who are played by the likeable Fulci fan favorite Catriona MacColl, who has to be one of the best female screamers ever (consider the intro scream from THE GATES OF HELL), as Lucy, Paolo Malco as Norman, and Giovanni Frezza as little Bob (who it seems was dubbed by a woman, which ends up being just as awkward as it is creepy). These poor souls unknowingly mortgage their lives when they move into a quiet and isolated house in the woods next to a cemetery. The thought of a husband and wife moving into an isolated house with their creepy kid and into a deadly scenario may have THE SHINING written all over it, but the overall ordeal shares no similarities to that film.
There is a memorable and fairly iconic relation between the son and a nineteenth century ghost girl that haunts the area, named Mae. The encounters between these two kids possess a childlike innocence that blurs the motive for why Mae is contacting Bob from beyond. The end result of their friendship is confusing but so fascinating and endearing that it’s no wonder that former kid actors Giovanni Frezza and Silvia Collatina’s Facebook pages are constantly bombarded with friend requests by loving fans (myself included). We may not know them personally, we may not be actual friends, but we would still like to know how poor Bob is fairing after the traumatic events that transpired in the evil basement of that damned house. And who doesn’t have a desire to express admiration to Mae, the cool Gothic ghost girl, for saving Bob from a fate worse than death in a satisfying heartwarming ending that makes the viewer want to run off and buy Fulci’s other films (me 10 years ago) and ultimately become a hardcore lover of Italian Horror? And what great sports those two are for friending so many fans.
