FULCI'S FINEST? CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD aka THE GATES OF HELL (1980) TURNS 45!!

CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (aka THE GATES OF HELL) (1980) d. Lucio Fulci (Italy)

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Tonight we're returning to the eerie and bonkers world of Italian horror with a film that defies conventional storytelling — Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead, known to American audiences as The Gates of Hell. Following up on the success of Zombie the year before, City of the Living Dead marked a turning point in Fulci’s career, steering him away from the multitude of genres he had previously worked in, into the surreal, apocalyptic horror that would ultimately come to define his legacy within the genre.

CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (aka THE GATES OF HELL) (1980) Blu-ray Review

SCARE-A-THON Totals to Date:

Total Movies Watched: 2
Total First Time Views: 1
Amount raised for BOXVILLE: $90.02

City of the Living Dead (aka The Gates of Hell) (1980) d. Lucio Fulci (Italy) (93 min) (5th viewing)

In the village of Dunwich, Father Thomas (Fabrizio Jovine) mopes around a graveyard, looking suitably bummed out by his existence. He decides to shuffle himself off this mortal coil courtesy of a length of rope and a nearby tree branch, and manages the job quite handily. Unfortunately for the rest of us, his act of self-slaughter has opened one of the fabled Gates of Hell and if the darn thing doesn’t get closed by All Saint’s Day, humanity is D-O-O-M-E-D. In addition to that happy bit of news, the priest’s death also sends NYC psychic medium Mary (Catriona MacColl) into a cataleptic stupor during a séance, with the poor gal getting buried alive. After being saved by intrepid investigative journalist Peter Bell (Christopher George), she dusts herself off and entreats Peter to help her find the resting place of Father Thomas so that they can close the gate in time….

HORSEHEAD (2014) Blu-ray Review

Horsehead (2014) d. Romain Basset (France)

Estranged from her mother (Catriona MacColl) for many years, Jessica (Lilly-Fleur Pointeaux) is called home for her grandmother’s wake. The reception is chilly to say the least, made all the more so by the young university student being placed in the room adjacent to her late relative’s corpse, but her current professor and beau sees this as an opportunity to confront some long-standing emotional issues. You see, Jessica hasn’t had a peaceful night’s sleep in many years, haunted by nightmares featuring an enormous, malevolent horse-headed figure bedecked in long robes with clawed digits clutching an enormous papal staff. As a disciple of oneirology – the study of dreams – Jessica has identified the symbolism of her equine phantom as that of a ferryman, poised to travel back and forth between the realm of the living and dead. In slumber, she is now visited by the spirit of her grandmother Rose (Gala Besson), young and frightened, seeking help from the gathering darkness....