#20 - City of the Living Dead (1980)
(dir. Lucio Fulci)
The suicide of a priest in the small town of Dunwich triggers the opening of the gates of hell, and the dead begin to rise from their graves. A young psychic has a vision of this during a seance, and she must race to find a way to close the gates before All Saint's Day or the dead will rise up and overrun the living all over the world. As I've come to expect from Fulci, there is a ton of gore in this movie, and the practical effects are incredible and hold up really well even after 30+ years. If you've ever wanted to see a woman cry tears of blood and then vomit up her own intestines, this may be the film for you.
Just like most of 70's/80's Italian horror, the film suffers from horrendous dubbing, but by now I've gotten used to this and don't even really notice it most of the time. However, it's hard to ignore when the actors' lips are moving but there is no audio at all. I can't hold that against this film, though, because it does everything else really well. Besides the amazing gore effects, this is also an incredibly stylish film, with great use of color and lighting to produce some really cool and nightmarish visuals.
This may be my new favorite Fulci film, and in terms of pure stylish awesomeness I think this ranks up there with the best of Italian horror. It's not a perfect movie, but it's so impressive visually that I can look past its faults.
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