City of the Living Dead

This is another Fulci film I was able to get my hands on. I gotta thank my friend Justin for this. Just about daily he brings me a new movie or wrestling/MMA pay per view on dvd to watch. Today's movie however, after watching Cat in the Brain was quite a disappointment.

City of the Living Dead, first and foremost, has nothing to do with the very successful George A Romero dead series. Though I do wonder if this was Fulci trying to capitalize on their success. The movie itself falls flat. The whole movie feels like a big build up but in the end doesn't build up to anything special. Here's a brief plot of the movie.

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.

So pretty much All Saints Day shows up and it is a big let down. Nothing really special happens. On the horror scale I give this movie 1 Burning Skull. After Cat in the Brain this movie was just too slow and not nearly as much action packed. Don't get me wrong a horror movie to me doesn't necessarily need a lot of gore but if you're not gonna do that you gotta go the thriller route and this film didn't do that either. I wont give it a zero because I have seen some atrocious horror films in the past and it certainly wasn't the worst thing I'd ever seen. Check out the trailer below, and again pleasant dreams

A Cat in the Brain

As a horror fan I always had heard of the name Lucio Fulci. I never saw any of his movies but I certainly knew the name. Many horror buffs swear by him. Recently I took a look at my collection and I realized, I have a lot of slasher films, a lot of new stuff, some Japanese stuff, and a lot of black and white classic but the one thing that was missing from my collection were some good ol' Grindhouse films. The films from the 70's/early 80's that were rarely seen outside of drive ins and late night theatres.

In 2007, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez tried to bring Grindhouse films back with their double feature of Planet Terror and Death Proof, otherwise simply known as Grindhouse. Unfortunately only a select few went to see the movie. But I am sure those who did loved it just as much as I did.

Which brings me to today. I finally watched my first Fulci film, A Cat in the Brain, and all I can say is I am hooked on Fulci. The movie was great! I don't want to ruin anything for anyone interested but here's a quick breakdown of the movie.

Within the first 5 minutes of the film we have a woman having every single limb being severed from her body and her head decapitated. Her flesh is ground up into ground "beef" and her entrails are fed to pigs. (You still with me? I promise I'm not a psycho) Then suddenly we hear "CUT" Its a movie within a movie. Fulci plays himself. A horror director. However, in the movie he makes us ask the question, Can we actually see too much horror?

Fulci starts seeing scenes from his movies in everyday life. From food in a restaurant to a girl in a wheelchair to even just simply running water and just looking out the window. He decides to see a shrink to deal with his problems. Unfortunately for him the shrink is dealing with a wife who hates his guts and wants a divorce which drives the shrink to kill. He hypnotizes Fulci into believing he is killing people while it is really the doctor. This is not a spoiler, they tell you in the film. As Fulci slips deeper and deeper into madness the shrink has a field day killing one person after another. The whole time Fulci believing he is the real killer.

Its a great film for any horror fan. The effects are just what you'd expect from this type of movie, not the greatest but that's part of its charm. From a wheelchair crushing a persons larynx to a person face being melted clear away. It was great. I am going to steal a rating system here, any good horror fan knows exactly where this comes from.

5 Burning Skulls - Excellent
4 Burning Skulls - Great
3 Burning Skulls - Good
2 Burning Skulls - OK
1 Burning Skull - Poor
0 Burning Skulls - Horrible

I give this movie 4 Burning Skulls. I was definitely hooked and I loved it but I will save a 5 for the films that just absolutely blow me away. I highly recommend it to any horror fan.

Please enjoy the trailer below. And just a warning make sure there are no kiddies in the room, the trailer contains partial nudity and gore. Pleasant dreams!