my brief thoughts on.... 'City of the Living Dead'

Lucio Fulci made the movie 'Zombi aka Zombi 2'.... one of the best known foreign zombie movies ever made.... it's one that i own and it holds a soft spot in my heart.... not too mention, it was was a love note to George A. Romero.... it was Fulci's direct response to 'Dawn of the Dead' (1978) and was the unofficial sequel according to Fulci.... all that being said.... it made perfect sense that 'City of the Living Dead aka The Gates of Hell' would be another classic.... it even has really good write ups according to zombie lovers.... so when i saw it was available OnDemand, i had to see it.... now, i had seen parts of this once before when i was a youth.... and it freaked me out.... and i vividly remembered the scene in question where a woman vomits all of her insides.... everything.... well, last night i watched it.... but before i give you my thoughts.... let's get to the interesting plot....

a psychic and a newspaper reporter get wrapped up in an end of the world scenario.... what happened to set off this chain of events is the fact that a priest hangs himself in a graveyard and ends up opening the gates of hell.... to where the dead will begin rising from the dead.... the two leads go off on a hunt to stop this from happening by destroying the priests corpse and thus closing the gates again.... and saving the world.... some zombies appear, some people get killed, a lot of worms and maggots abound.... and then you'll have to watch this movie to find out the rest.... sorry, kids.
right about now, you're saying "Joel, you must have LOVED this movie!".... well, you couldn't be farther from the freaking truth.... Fulci will always have a sweet spot in my heart, but this is so far on the other end of the spectrum from 'Zombi' that it was almost unrecognizable.... he literally used the exact same music from 'Dawn of the Dead' (1978).... the pacing was god awfully slow.... the characters weren't all that interesting.... the zombies were few and far between.... as a matter of fact.... in the end of the film you'll find the most number of zombies, but they last all of about 5 minutes and die with a mere stab wound.... yup, no shots to the head.... the zombies also seem to have some kind of magic powers, because they can appear, disappear and re-appear anywhere.... they shamble, but why bother when you can teleport yourself....?!?! the zombies are covered with goo and worms and gunk no matter how long they'd been in the ground.... there's a weird mix of satanism, ghosts and zombies that just doesn't work.... and the priest that hung himself plays a major role as the primary killer of people in the movie.... mostly by a mere stare.... this was a 1 out of 5 star movie at best.... i lost faith early on in the movie.... but when the ending occured, i nearly threw my shoe at the television.... it made no sense and was lame....

stay away.

instead of wasting your time with this, watch: 'Zombi aka Zombi 2', 'Dawn of the Dead' (1978) and/or just about any other zombie movie