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)

**CLICK HERE TO WATCH FULL YOUTUBE EPISODE**

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.

ZOMBIE (1979) (aka ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS) TURNS 45!!!

ZOMBIE (aka ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS / ZOMBI 2) (1979) d. Lucio Fulci (Italy)

**CLICK HERE TO WATCH FULL YOUTUBE EPISODE**

When George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead became a major success worldwide, Italians had a stake in the matter since horror icon Dario Argento was one of its producers. In Italy, the trimmed-down Dawn was rechristened Zombi, and its blockbuster status dramatically altered the horror landscape, with molto filmmakers clamoring to ride the coattails of its success. Veteran direction Lucio Fulci was first out of the gate in 1979 with his own rendering of the undead mythos. Its name was....

A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN (1971) Blu-ray Review

SCARE-A-THON Totals to Date:

Total Movies Watched: 23
Total First Time Views: 13
Amount raised for BOXVILLE: $1,755.36

A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971) d. Lucio Fulci (Italy/Spain) (104 min) (2nd viewing)

Carol Hammond (Florinda Bolkan), daughter of affluent London lawyer Edmond Brighton (Leo Genn), seeks out therapy to deal with both her insomnia and increasingly vivid, sexually tinged nightmares, the latter of which have begun to prominently feature her hedonistic next-door neighbor Julie Durer (Anita Strindberg). When Julie turns up demised in very much the manner that one of Carol’s dreams depicted, everyone – including Carol – is inclined to believe she is the guilty party. But when blackmail phone calls and stoned-out flower people start showing up on the fringes of Carol’s life, the local lawman assigned to the case, Inspector Corvin (Stanley Baker), begins to doubt that things are as simple as they seem.

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….

THE NEW YORK RIPPER (1982) Blu-ray Review

The New York Ripper (1982) d. Lucio Fulci (Italy) (93 min)

For the slasher fan sick of the heavy-breathing, hulking, mute brute and/or the wise-cracking chatterbox psycho, this skeevy little thriller from Italian gore maestro Fulci might be just what you’ve been seeking. Set in the Big Apple, women of “low moral character” are falling victim to a killer armed with razor blades, butcher knives, broken bottles, and… a Donald Duck voice. Burnt-out NYPD detective Fred Williams (Jack Hedley) wades through a cornucopia of screwball suspects from the decks of the Staten Island Ferry to the sex shows of Times Square, with each brutal murder a sadistic quack in his general direction.

ALL THE COLORS OF GIALLO (2018) Blu-ray review

All the Colors of Giallo (2018) d. Federico Caddeo (USA) (89 min)

Direct from Severin Films comes this loving examination of the evolution of Giallo, Italian for ‘yellow,’ the color of the lurid pulp novels that inspired one of the most intense, extreme and influential genres in cinema. Brimming with exclusive interviews with directors Mario Bava, Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Sergio Martino, Antonio Margheriti, and Umberto Lenzi, screenwriters Ernesto Gastaldi, Dardano Sarchetti, and Luciano Ercoli, and actors George Hilton, Daria Nicolodi, Barbara Bouchet, Edwige Fenech, and Nieves Navarro (aka Susan Scott), alongside all-new featurettes that take us even deeper into the genre’s origins, including that of the German “krimi,” the suspense films that predated and inspired their Italian successors.

ZOMBIE (1979) Blu-ray release!!

Zombie (1979) d. Lucio Fulci (Italy) (92 min)

In Italy, it was released as Zombi 2, the unofficial sequel to Dawn of the Dead. In England, it was known as Zombie Flesh Eaters and banned as an official Video Nasty. In America, it was called Zombie and advertised with the depraved tag line, “We Are Going To Eat You!” Tisa Farrow (Anthropophagus), Ian McCulloch (Contamination), Al Cliver (Cannibals), and Richard Johnson (The Haunting) star in this worldwide splatter sensation directed by Lucio Fulci (City of the Living Dead, The House by the Cemetery) that remains one of the most eye-skewering, skin-ripping, shark-chomping, gore-gushingly graphic horror hits of all time!

THE DEVIL'S HONEY (1986) Blu-ray review

The Devil’s Honey (1986) d. Fulci, Lucio (Italy) (2nd viewing) 83 min

The first 20 minutes of this erotic thriller from Fulci are outrageously soapy and naughty, packed with oodles of nudity and sex (including a howler of a sequence where our saxophone-playing hero (Stefano Madino) gives his lady fair (Blanca Marsillach, sister of Cristina, star of Dario Argento’s Opera) a “blow job” that must be seen to be believed. But after her tune-tooting tease dies on the operating table following a motorcycle accident, she decides to wreak vengeance upon the doctor (Brett Halsey, Return of the Fly) who failed to save her paramour’s life, not knowing that the sawbones has a few kinks of his own. (The nail polish sequence with Eulalia Ramon’s uncredited prostitute is another high point in silly/sexy.)