Eurozombie Week: City of the Living Dead

Twilight of the Dead, Fear in the City of the Living Dead, The Gates of Hell, Pater Thomas and City of the Living Dead

Back again you wild and wacky kids for Eurozombie Week and I feel this particular installment is a little different than the usual zombie devouring flesh spurted on the walls so it was almost refreshing in some facets.   The film of the day is considered the first installment into what people affectionately call the Gates of Hell trilogy which includes the House by the Cemetery and The Beyond.  So grab your crucifix, note the signs of evil and for crying out loud do not heavily stare at friends dying in front of you.

This is The City of the Living Dead.

Sheesh they are strict on their no credit clause!

Theresa: You don’t deserve spoiling!  You’re a comic book version of a detective, Sergeant!

In New York, a séance is underway in the study of the supernatural a young psychic Mary (Catriona MacColl of Lady Oscar, Hawk the Slayer, The Beyond, The House by the Cemetery, Squardron and The Last Days of Pompeii) has a foggy and grainy vision of a very goth looking priest hanging himself in a cemetery with a tombstone nearby warning of the transgressions of the land.  Through this knowledge she realizes this death will open the very gates of Hell itself and allow the dead to roam and rule the Earth…and then she drops dead.  Seriously, she just shrieks and drops dead.   The cops half ass around the room but don’t come up with any answers that will satisfy a log entry. 

Billy, get out of that leaf pile!

A starving reporter Peter Bell (Christopher George of El Dorado, Chisum, Man on a String, The Train Robbers, The Rat Patrol and The Exterminator) gets wind of this bizarre tale and is convinced there is a story and heads to the girl’s gravesite.  After a bit of banter with the gravediggers he is off to his car when he hears (no idea how either given the ambient street levels) Mary pounding under 5 feet of dirt and her coffin screaming for her life.  He grabs a pickaxe and damn near nails her in the face three times trying to break it open.  Getting her cleaned up her friend and Bell figure out that the psychic flash hailed from the town of Dunwich New England formally Salem…guess they also slid away from Massachusetts as well but no time for geography and back to the film.

Strange deaths occur, supernatural happenings such as: blood trickling out of the walls, glass shattering and hurling through the air and my personal favorite, a hailstorm of maggots.  One would come to the conclusion the town might be having a few problems but no, the teens want to make out and the parents want to bitch and gripe about the day.

 

I have seen into the eyes of the Devil...they were...violet.

Can Bell and Mary arrive to Dunwich in time to thwart the dead and bring order back before All Saints Day or will the world be shrouded in darkness to the end of days?

A few highlights of the film to be made now.  The gore factor is pretty high with the skull cap being torn off of heads and yet no one seems to put up even a desperate struggle, the walking dead folk seem to be manifestations of zombies as they seem to teleport around the town or in rooms and there was a fair amount of organs and liquids spat up with a rather realistic dummy head.  May not want the kiddies to see this one but thank goodness no nudity.