City Of The Dead AKA GATES OF HELL.

[Tommy Allison]

Lucio Fulci's cinematic suppository from 1980.

Saw it. Have to say without hesitation, one of the worst Zombie movies ever.

What did I learn from it?

If a catholic priest hangs himself in a cemetery from a tree, he'll punish people who have premarital sex, by making their guts erupt out of their mouth.

Another thing I learned is that if you kill the first zombie with a stake to the gonads, he and all the other subsequent zombies will catch fire, and burn for 10 minutes.

An Absolute pantload, and I hope I've saved you all $12.00 of your hard earned money.

Tommy

[Spatial.Archite]

As far as Fulci goes, his zombie movies are never epic or intelligent. It's just an exploitation of cinematic gore. For the most part his zombie movies don't concern themselves with plot, social commentary, etc... They're simply the Italian equivalent of '70s and '80s gore.

Never was a huge fan of the Fulci zombie movies, though I did like "The Beyond" (or "Seven Doors of Death"). As far as European zombie movies go, I was always a big fan of the Spanish "Tombs of the Blind Dead". It had some pacing issues, but overall a good zombie flick.

[MiamiLoco]

Yeah, I think Argento has a better track record.

[William Paquet]

Originally Posted by Tommy Allison

Lucio Fulci's cinematic suppository from 1980.

Saw it. Have to say without hesitation, one of the worst Zombie movies ever.

What did I learn from it?

If a catholic priest hangs himself in a cemetery from a tree, he'll punish people who have premarital sex, by making their guts erupt out of their mouth.

Another thing I learned is that if you kill the first zombie with a stake to the gonads, he and all the other subsequent zombies will catch fire, and burn for 10 minutes.

An Absolute pantload, and I hope I've saved you all $12.00 of your hard earned money.

Tommy

You are nuts.

FULCI RULES!

[William Paquet]

Originally Posted by Spatial.Archite

As far as Fulci goes, his zombie movies are never epic or intelligent. It's just an exploitation of cinematic gore. For the most part his zombie movies don't concern themselves with plot, social commentary, etc... They're simply the Italian equivalent of '70s and '80s gore.

Never was a huge fan of the Fulci zombie movies, though I did like "The Beyond" (or "Seven Doors of Death"). As far as European zombie movies go, I was always a big fan of the Spanish "Tombs of the Blind Dead". It had some pacing issues, but overall a good zombie flick.

BLIND DEAD stuff is great. The Beyond is classic Fulci.

[William Paquet]

Fulci Reccomendations-

House by the Cemetary
Zombie
Gates of Hell
The Beyond
Don't torture a Duckling

[Tommy Allison]

The bird with Crystal Plumage was FAR Better than this cinematic suppository. So was The Beyond, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I'm a big Zombie fan, more so than most, and even I had to say enough was enough.

Then, I saw another zombie movie last night called of all things, "Leave Sleeping Corpses Lie."

In the first 10 minutes, you see some naked chick running across the road in the middle of town streaking. That was pretty much the high point of the movie.

For the longest time it was just one zombie, then there's this great scene in a crypt which was pretty damned good, then it goes back to being a crapfest. It was however, better than City Of The Dead. But not by much. Boobies go a long way to make a bad movie better.

Don't Torture A Duckling is also another classic, along with Zombie. We should discuss Zombie movies at length sometime William.

[William Paquet]

Zombies are an underestimated bunch. They are loads of fun in the proper setting, and not nearly as disgusting as Rosie O'Donnell or Paris Hilton.

Fulci is also an acquired taste. The dubbing in his films was once cheesy to me, but now just adds to the charm. Christopher George was such a hammy actor, that he alone is worth Gates of Hell remaining among my cherished DVDs. For Fulci at his most exploitive, check out "New York Ripper" if you haven't seen it.

Lucio Fulci claimed to abhor violence, and I saw him make the absurd statement that he was purging his hatred for it as he shot gloriously slow motion or macro images of assorted mayhem. He definitely had a fetish for eye trauma as can be seen in Zombie and the Beyond.

Zombie Cinema is good stuff. I was lucky enough to be old enough to see much of the real grindhouse stuff in the late 70's and early 80's. Most of the films ran for one or two weeks max before being pulled. Those were also the days when an "unrated" film was a badge of honor, and the films would play in the theaters right along with "R" rated stuff. For years a theater in Jersey palyed Dawn of the Dead at midnight on Saturdays. Do any theaters do that kind of stuff anymore?

Zombies.

[Tommy Allison]

We have a couple indie theaters that run all kinds of classic stuff here in Minneapolis. It's awesome.

I have seen just about every Zombie movie there is, not only am I a watcher of Zombie films, but collect them as well.

Some zombie movies are better than others, and I too love cheesy horror films, because sometimes there's some great dubbing gone horribly wrong. You have to see this movie called "Leave Sleeping Corpses Lie" where the police chief gives a lot of grief to the male protagonist of the film. "I'm sick of your type, with your long hair, and your f---ott clothes!", totally out of context, but hilarious none the less.

Some great scenes in the film, good creepy stuff, effects also decently done. The zombie movies that really bug me at times are some of the Japanese and Korean ones. Between the dubbing, and the gore, some are just unwatchable.

[William Paquet]

I've never seen a good Asian zombie film. The filmmakers there seem to have a better handle on freaky psychological stuff like "the Eye", which is brilliant and as creepy as anything I have ever seen.

I like "Let sleeping corpses lie". How can you not just love that scene with the facist cop? Too cool. As well the opening sequence witht the big boobed streaker running through the streets of London.