Fulci's masterpiece


Very dark, eerie and atmospheric. Music score is brilliant. Essence of horror genre. Fulci described it once as "visual rendering of the metaphysical side of bad dreams."

So much different from majority of generic, repetitive and more commercial-made horror movies.

I found this review here
http://www.luciofulci.altervista.org/Eng/Masterpieces.htm


"Here is the consecration, few words! Simply horror and anguish to the pure state! Together with House by the cemetery and Beyond, constitutes one of the three miliary stones in the history of the world cinematography of the horror! A masterpiece!

What is anguish? What is the fear? City of the living dead! Fog, a church, from far they are perceived some headstones among which an anxious presence walks; is a priest, ready to hang himself and to seal an inauspicious pact with the evil's forces. It opens so, in this way, perhaps, the most spine-chilling beginning in the Italian cinema. To damage of the title (wanted by the producers for economic demands), this film is able to petrify also the more sceptic spectator! The whole film, emanates a sense of claustrophobic anguish and resignation so much to be able to influence whoever. "Splatter and Gore", contribute to accent and to alter the state of mind of the spectator, thrown to the extreme consequences, and annihilated by such iniquities! "City of the living dead", for some verses can be consideraed an improvement of "Zombie" (the living deads, the special effects, even more cruel) and for others, a totally different film (the scenery and the history). The musics gives a touch class to the film and they magnificently orchestrate every sequence. A film that doesn't save anybody and able to touch whoever with his grisly cruelty and restlessness."





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This one had atmosphere, atmosphere changes everything. It makes that difference to set it apart from most of these movies. Therefore this is a (cult) Horror classic. Good for scare factors.

Rock Now, Rock The Night, You Better Believe It’s Right - Rock The Night, Europe

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I personally much prefer this movie to the,imo,overrated The Beyond.

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[deleted]

I prefer Zombie as well, but I'll always have a soft spot for this film; its definitely one of my most watched Fulci movies.

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i watched this and zombi flesh eaters when i was a kid, since then those 2 movies always stayed in my memory....

just watched them both the last 2 nights and have to say:

sure as an adult now i see the bad acting and editing, but still! those movies freakin rock!!
now that im 35 i prefer this movie over zombie flesh eaters- its more "horror", those scenes with the little boy in the house who sees his dead sister emily for example... pure horror, dammit, love it :-D

pure cult!

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I do love "the Beyond", but I have not seen this one. I'm anxious to see it though.

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Agreed. DEFINITELY his number one best and most brilliant film. Better than The Beyond (the movie that typically gets tagged as his masterpiece, but it doesn't hold a candle of City), and wayyyy better than Zombie (as much as I love it). Frequently misunderstood, and frequently underrated. I'm actually currently working on my own review of it for my movie review blog. 5 out of 5 star score, of course.




www.BeardedWeirdoReviews.blogspot.com

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Again i am a big fan of his work , this film has amazing moments, but then there slow boring parts you just want to fast-forward, the Music score is brilliant, and so are the sets and locations the outside shots of the streets with the wind blowing are beyond creepy , have the official DVD and has pride in my collection :)
VideoVaganza!
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I would have to say Zombie and The beyond are his real masterpieces

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[deleted]

I absolutely hated Zombie. I think it's his most overrated film. For me it's City of the Living Dead (which was called Gates of Hell when I saw it in theater in the 80s), The Beyond, and New York Ripper.

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Don't Torture a Duckling is his true masterpiece IMO.

Zombie and The Beyond are my favourites though.

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Don't Torture a Duckling was torture to watch. Slow and oh so boring plus predictable as far as the killer's identity. The end was pretty good containing the only bit of gore.

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My Fulci favourites are City of the Living Dead and Zombie Flesh-Eaters (this is the UK title from which I've always known the film).The Beyond is okay imo although a little overrated, I certainly watch the other two far more than The Beyond.The Weakest of Fulci's classic zombie quartet for me is House by the Cemetery, I tried to watch this again recently on the Arrow DVD and kept nodding off throughout.It has the least replay value imo.

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master peice r u kidding me????

not 1 good thing about it really

very bad film w terrible direction & acting & fx

rob zombie halloween 2007, the one true halloween

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[deleted]

I actually like The House by the Cemetery the most. It's laced with this sort of feeling of dream nostalgia. It doesn't remind me of my childhood, but more of the dreams I had.

Zombie always felt thin to me. The Beyond and City are cool.

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[deleted]

I don't agree. Imo this movie is by far the worst I seen of Lucio Fulci. With that in mind, I haven't seen them all.

Pretty decent acting, but the movie seems to miss some scenes, the editing and camera work is appalling. The story doesn't feel a bit worked through, not even for a Fulci movie.

I consider New York Ripper his grand work of the movies I've seen so far. Nicely shot, good acting, well scripted and upon that, some truly nice and gory scenes.

And for that Donald Duck killer? just got to love it!



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[deleted]

[deleted]

am i missing something? i was sooooo bored and that rarely happens to me. i can watch magnolia str8 through without blinking.

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I wouldn't say so far he has ever done a masterpiece. Having seen Zombie and City of the Living Dead, both are good films, but both may be improved upon. I would give Zombie a 7.3 and City of the Living Dead a 7.2. At the core both films have potential to be masterpieces and are crying out to be remade, but the remakes would likely not be done correctly and end up being worse than the original films.

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I wouldn't call any of the 5 or 6 films he did round that period masterpeices, they are too thread-bare & low-brow to ever function on those lofty levels, but they are amazingly visceral- like spoiled maggoty meat, perfect for ruminations on apocalypse (implication being that the world is past its sell-by date). Everything about it screams putrefaction, even when someone isn't being creatively slaughtered, its just....foul (The funk of 40,000 years or however that goes :P). Vomitorium seems like a perfect description. I love that about old time, low budget exploitation.

Also like Zombie, gothic doom hangs like a stormcloud over everything, only this time more overwhelming. Zombie's zombies were fearsome rotters but they were thoroughly bound by reality's rules, here they can slip into thin air like sadistic ghosts, making their menace omnipresent, insubtantial yet all pervading (also like Zombie though, this b&%ch can plod like a stubborn ass & will frustrate the hell out of impatient viewers).

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