City of the Living Dead
(1980)
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City of the Living Dead
(1980)
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| Watch Trailer 0Share... |
| Complete credited cast: | |||
| Christopher George | ... |
Peter Bell
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Catriona MacColl | ... |
Mary Woodhouse
(as Katriona MacColl)
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Carlo De Mejo | ... |
Gerry
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Antonella Interlenghi | ... |
Emily Robbins
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Giovanni Lombardo Radice | ... |
Bob
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Daniela Doria | ... |
Rosie Kelvin
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Fabrizio Jovine | ... |
Father William Thomas
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Luca Venantini | ... |
John-John Robbins
(as Luca Paisner)
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Michele Soavi | ... |
Tommy Fisher
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Venantino Venantini | ... |
Mr. Ross
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Enzo D'Ausilio | ... |
Sheriff Russell's deputy
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Adelaide Aste | ... |
Theresa
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Luciano Rossi | ... |
Policeman in apartment
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Robert Sampson | ... |
Sheriff Russell
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Janet Agren | ... |
Sandra
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In the small New England town of Dunwich, a priest commits suicide by hanging himself in the church cemetery which somehow opens the gates of hell allowing the dead to rise. Peter, a New York City reporter, teams up with a young psychic, named Mary, to travel to the town where they team up with another couple, psychiatrist Jerry and patient Sandra, to find a way to close the gates before All Saints Day or the dead all over the world will rise up and kill the living. Written by matt-282
The Beyond somehow gets more acclaim from the self-proclaimed "artsy" crowd, but this essentially has the same formula, with the same juxtaposition of weak plot & characters and superb disgusting imagery, except with a more consistently oppressive tone and with less meandering, dull parts.
For those who are unfamiliar with Fulci and are just going by the title, there are zombies, but this isn't exactly a zombie flick, per se. It's more like a series of grotesque, surreal events that suggest Lovecraftian cosmic horror. Zombies teleport and make people vomit out their innards, by the way. I guess they're closer to zombie-like apparitions. Anyway...
It's a B-movie with rubbish acting, rubbish plot and all kinds of unintentionally hilarious stuff, so you can have a fun time watching this with friends, but at the same time you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. You'd have a hard time finding many other movies with such a doomed, godless atmosphere. Take the famous drill scene, for example. By now we've well established that humans are at the mercy of otherworldly forces, but there's nothing supernatural happening in this scene; it's a random act of extreme violence stemming from human malice, and this marriage of brutality and nonsense is one of the things that elevates Fulci from high camp into (potentially) genuinely scary, if you want it to be.
It plods a bit near the end, but good luck finding an Italian horror movie with perfect pacing. See it if you dig Fulci, it's just as good as The Beyond.