City of the Living Dead (Evil Zombies 4K Slop)
Haunted by the absence of a reliable film critic, I finally swiped the cozy couch of fate myself and dove back into pure cinema trash. Not for enlightenment, but to waste my own time rather than delegate the job and pay for it. Still, unlike music, movies present their own unique difficulty in critique: they demand attention and can’t be experienced in a passive setting. Films, unlike an album I can listen to in the car, while walking, in the gym, or any other location, refuse to be relegated to background noise. They’re a different beast and nothing you can domesticate while you multi-task. Especially when that animal answers to the name Lucio Fulci, the alleged “godfather of gore,” although I’d call him more of a bastard grandchild. Let’s drop the mystique: Fulci is hit-or-miss, mainly miss. His brilliance flickers unpredictably between moments of genius and outright nonsense: editing that violates logic, camera angles that lack a proper sense of scene or sense at all, and plot shifts that completely destroy coherence. Now you get to experience that in this beautiful restoration of City of the Living Dead by Arrow Video, though, like it or not, it’s the same Fulci to a brighter degree.
City of the Living Dead is Fulci exemplified, yet, amidst the rough edges and questionable choices, there’s a pulse, though certainly not one that beats as strongly as Zombi 2. The plot is ludicrous with brief connections made to the Salem Witch Trials in a town that looks like it’s right off of I95 on the way to the beach. The acting, further, is marginally elevated (by Fulci standards, at least), and by the time the final act unfurls beneath the primary cemetery of the plot, you might just find it interesting, if only for the stellar soundtrack by Fabio Frizzi. That sequence, in particular, is where the eccentric weirdo Fulci was at his lo-fi best with raw, dimly lit sets oozing with atmosphere and the dead literally dripping from the ceilings, somewhat reminiscent of the chilling basement denouement in The House by the Cemetery. These are the brushstrokes amid the mess, proof that fleeting moments of creativity and oddball intelligence can, in fact, bubble up from the bottom. If only he’d harnessed his powers more judiciously, perhaps City of the Living Dead wouldn’t feel like yet another trip crafted through Lovecraftian recklessness. And then there’s the ending: a bewildering U-turn, or no turn, apparently conceived simply because Fulci decided the conclusion needed to hit with dread with no explanation whatsoever. If you thought Bob was annoying in The House by the Cemtery, give the last minute before the credits of this one a glimpse and you’ll welcome that child in your arms. But therein lies the weird magic. Fulci’s films, for all their maddening flaws, always offer the irresistible promise that perhaps that the next moment will be brilliant, bizarre, or both. Note that the score is primarily directed at Arrow Video’s presentation here, only partially the film itself.
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Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls
City of the Living Dead (2024, Blu-ray)
Director: Lucio Fulci
Distributor: Arrow Video
4.2 / 5
