CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD
Anchor Bay Entertainment
93 MIN. 1980. 1.85:1. Color.

Starring Catriona MacColl, Christopher George, Janet Agren and Michelle Soavi
Directed by Lucio Fulci

After Lucio Fulci experienced tremendous worldwide success with the living dead epic, Zombie (aka Zombi 2), he started his own saga of violent films, mainly populated by zombies. The Beyond and House by the Cemetery were among his popular films, but City of the Living Dead (aka The Gates of Hell) was his first follow-up to Zombie. Available in a full-frame and trimmed version for many years, Anchor Bay has restored the film and its missing seconds of footage to the delight of Fulci fans worldwide.

After the resident priest of a small Massachusetts town hangs himself in the middle of a cemetery, the dead begin to rise. At the same time, a New York psychic envisions the havoc caused by the priest and appears to die. When it is discovered that she has been buried alive, she is rescued from the grave by a reporter, and they head for the town where the whole living dead problem started.

Meanwhile, strange things happen in the rural town. People begin to die and return to life, hungering for human flesh. A few people even start to do out-of-character things; one guy decides to drill the head of the village idiot with an industrial carpentry drill (in full view of the audience, no less).

The reporter and the psychic meet up with a few of the surviving residents and enter the tomb of the priest to stop the evil at its source. They encounter flesh-eating zombies and the walking corpse of the priest for one last showdown…..

The story is another stock script by Director Lucio Fulci and screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti. There is not much of a plot, but plenty of gore and strange visuals to keep an unsuspecting viewer interested. Scenes such as the one where Michelle (The Church; Cemetery Man) Soavi's girlfriend is possessed by the evil priest and vomits her internal organs and the scene where Giovanni Lombardo Radice (aka John Morghen) takes the drill through his head rival those of Zombie (where Olga Karlotos' eye is splintered at the hands of a zombie). Scenes such as these are Fulci's trademark.

As for the acting, it is probably the best one would find in a movie of this type. American actor Christopher George portrayed the same type of gruff character as he had in films like Pieces and Graduation Day. The special effects and makeup by Gino De Rossi (not to be confused with Gianetto De Rossi) and music by Fabio Frizzi are on par with those of Zombie. In other words - more of what you saw from Fulci's Zombie.

The video quality is higher than that of previous video versions. Restored are the 1.85:1 aspect ratio (16x9 enhanced) and a few seconds of footage (most noticeably, the "drill" scene and the beginning of the following scene). The brightness and color levels are a little better than earlier prints. However, there are a few darker scenes where the movie's artifacts are most evident. The graininess is brief, though, and is not all that distracting.

The sound otpions include a newly-remixed Dolby Digital 5.1 track and a nice Dolgy Digital 2.0 Stereo Surround track. The dialogue is clean and clear, and the music/effects are vividly enhanced.

The European trailer is included on this disc. It demonstrates the flow of a typical trailer used to sell movies to a European audience. The lengthy text bio on Lucio Fulci is very thorough (it is also on the other Fulci discs by Anchor Bay), and the production stills/radio spots are a good addition. The only thing the DVD is lacking is a commentary track. However, without the insight of the director (Fulci died in 1996), a commentary would be a difficult sell.

The artwork is the same artwork used in the U.S. theatrical promotional material (and on the previous Gates of Hell VHS releases from Paragon and Creature Featuers). For some strange reason, a line from Fulci's The Beyond is used as a tagline on the cover. A replica of the Italian poster is on the back off the chapter card included in the package.

This film is recommended to fans of the Eurohorror/Gore trend of the 1970s and 1980s, Fulci fans and zombie film fanatics. There have been announcements by Media Blasters (who released films to DVD such as Burial Ground and Eaten Alive/Mangiati Vivi) that they will be releasing this film in a two-disc set; however, it will be difficult to top the presentation by Anchor Bay Entertainment.