City of the Living Dead, Fulci’s grim little ode to maggot-infested chaos, where the phrase “Italian horror” is less a genre and more a polite warning. If you’ve ever wondered what happens when someone decides, “Let’s take every creepy Lovecraftian trope, cover it in decaying corpses, and set it to an aggressively echoey soundtrack,” then congratulations, this is your film.
The plot is pure, feverish delirium. A priest offs himself, the gates of Hell swing open like the worst Airbnb you could ever imagine, and a horde of the undead decide that All Saints’ Day is a perfect time for a block party. Enter our ragtag heroes: Peter, the journalist with a nose for supernatural gossip; Mary, the psychic who apparently faints more than she sees; and Gerry, the psychiatrist whose bedside manner includes impaling zombies with whatever he can find lying around. It’s the kind of team that inspires confidence only if your definition of confidence includes screaming, blood spraying, and maggots raining from above like a particularly sadist version of Christmas snow.
Fulci’s genius is in the details — the maggot scenes are so vivid you’ll want to start flossing immediately, and the zombie makeup is gloriously decomposed, reminding us that real horror is less about suspense and more about texture. People die in increasingly inventive ways: smothered by decaying hands, scalps removed, heads drilled into lathes, impaled by metal spikes… it’s basically a buffet of creatively unpleasant ends. There’s no shortage of “Wait, that’s gross” moments, but somehow it’s all staged with a certain wobbly, surreal elegance.
And the setting! Dunwich, the town that somehow manages to be more haunted than anyone wants, yet still has functioning bars. The abandoned houses, the creepy graveyards, the echoing corridors — Fulci’s use of location is practically a character itself. You can almost feel the moldy air, the chill of the undead, and the existential dread that maybe, just maybe, John-John is the only sane being left… until he runs at Mary like a caffeinated gremlin.
Acting is perfectly pitched at so-bad-it’s-good levels. Christopher George is the competent straight man in a town full of screaming teenagers, maggot-slinging corpses, and a priest who just can’t stay dead. Catriona MacColl, as usual, sells terror with every faint, shriek, and wide-eyed stare, making you want to hand her a respirator and a mop to clean up the guts she’s surrounded by.
By the time the climax rolls around — All Saints’ Day, skeletal caves, and fiery zombie priests — you’re not watching a film so much as riding a rollercoaster through a necropolis with no seatbelts. Fulci never apologizes, never slows down, and never pretends the logic makes sense. This is horror distilled to its purest, most gory, most ecstatic form.
City of the Living Dead is messy, it’s insane, and it’s unapologetically grotesque. But therein lies its charm: it’s a celebration of everything the living and the dead can get wrong in spectacular, unforgettable ways. If you’re looking for subtlety, go watch a documentary on moss growth. If you want to witness Hell open and then wonder why your stomach is still functioning, this is your cinematic purgatory — and it’s glorious.
