City Of The Living Dead (1980)

[Trevor]

Updated.

[Trevor]

Updated.

[Umaril Has Returned]

Interesting wrap-up...and perhaps it might be true. It is an honest response, and in that respect it is true; it is ultimately the responsibility of an artist of any medium to get a response, good or bad, and Fulci was certainly a master of that.

Fulci does have a reputation as a monster among directors, though I think it was largely self-perpetuated. Some critics have maligned his treatment of animals and actors in scenes as exploitive, even cruel; when in reality he was quite a deliberate director with an actual concern for safety, and tertiary events events within a scene which seemed real enough that we presume it just happened, were actually intentionally crafted to happen.

For instance, Janet Agren's vomiting in the horde of maggots scene, though it may look like something incidental and real, it was just as likely Fulci's design for that to happen, and look like it was real.

Fulci was once taken to court for animal cruelty due a scene in a movie of his where dogs were tortured. The dogs in the scene were puppets, it just looked real enough for people to believe it was real.

I think Fulci shares a certain degree of something Romero seemed to have: the ability to get the best out of others. Fulci's most memorable films, however, have something other films of his do not, and perhaps that makes the difference, in having much of the same crew (writers, cinematographer, make-up/special effects, and even composer).

Despite what Fulci was or was not, I think that any reaction to his work is a reaction earned, and he probably wouldn't have disagreed with it.

I like that you do keep the humor going through the review with an honest appraisal of your reactions to it. Though you begin the review with Andrew's template, you move into your own style especially as you summarize and wrap up the review.

I don't really have any disagreement with your take on the film. For me it's one that works in parts, but falls apart as a whole. There are scenes which work beautifully, and others I wish they had thrown in a trashcan. It goes to hell in the last 20 minutes, and the ending I think is along the lines of the contents of the suitcase in Pulp Fiction in leaving leaving it up to the audience to decide what it means; I think that's a poor technique and his The Beyond is an entire film which uses that technique.

This is a very nice take on Fulci.  It seemed that the endings of some of his movies were confusing, disconnected, and too fluid for a definite closing to the story.

And, in forcing the viewer to decide what the film's ending means,  perhaps he was admitting his own weakness and inability to close a film with clarity. Based on that, perhaps he was making it up us by turning the proverbial director's chair over to the fans, thereby making it our film and allowing us to decide the outcome.

In that way, we may not be getting a definite ending, but we get 'replay value' out of the movie and wind up remembering it longer than a movie that had a definite ending.
In that way the movie never ends, and in a strange way, it becomes a gift that keeps on giving.   Just my take on it. 

[Trevor]

In that way, we may not be getting a definite ending, but we get 'replay value' out of the movie and wind up remembering it longer than a movie that had a definite ending.
In that way the movie never ends, and in a strange way, it becomes a gift that keeps on giving.   Just my take on it. 

Regarding the replay value, I do watch it occasionally (just not before I go to sleep, though) and I find new things, such as when I noticed that the cemetery looked very familiar. It is a very disturbing film with very little humor but it is still a very good film. 

[Trevor]

Updated.

[Trevor]

Updated.

[indianasmith]

I must admit, Menard is one of the old hands that I really miss having around.

[Trevor]

I must admit, Menard is one of the old hands that I really miss having around.

Agreed.

[Trevor]

Emily was gored to death by a hand puppet, and a guy is killed in a library by fake tarantulas being dragged along the floor by strings.

I think you may just have opened my wallet with that statement: if I can find The Beyond again, I will buy and review it.

Seven years later, I did buy it. 

[stine.greta]

Classic movies will never go out of style, this movie is way better than the ones that I have watch in the present.