City Of The Living Dead
Arrow Video
Director: Lucio Fulci
Cast: Christopher George, Catriona MacColl, Carlo De Mejo
Review by Brian M. Sammons
I love this movie. If it’s not my favorite Italian gore flick, it’s right up there. The story is bizarre, the special makeup effects are gag-inducing, and it’s all around 80s horror gold. Now if you live in North America and love this movie as much as I do and want it on Blu-ray, then chances are good you’ve already got an excellent copy of it on BD from Blue Underground. However if you live anywhere else in the world, or your just an unabashed fanboy of Britain’s Arrow Video, then this just might be the disc you’ve been waiting for because happily it’s region free (something I think all discs should be) so you can play it anywhere. That means you, as a true horrorhead, now have more choices in how you get your City Of The Living Dead fix, and that’s always a good thing.
Now just in case you are not familiar with this movie, I’ll give you the Cliff Notes version. There’s a city called Dunwich (no relation to infamous town created by H.P. Lovecraft) where a priest hangs himself, thereby cracking the gate to hell open. Soon the priest, or zombie, or whatever of the dead priest is popping up all over town, leaving horribly mangled bodies in its wake. Oh and did I mention the zombies? Yeah, can’t forget about them. Just like you can’t forget some of the most memorable gore scenes ever committed on film. Guy getting a drill through the head? Check. Another guy getting his brains squished out by a zombie-thing’s hand, and lets not forget the epic girl-puking-out-her-own-guts-in-proper-anatomical-order scene. Well that’s it for the two cent tour. The rest I leave for you to discover, and besides, if mentioning a woman barfing out her insides in glorious color isn’t enough to convince you to get this movie, then nothing I write here will convince you.
On to what Arrow Video does best; the extras. Once more there’s the double-sided sleeve art, and the double sided wall poster, not to mention a fifteen page booklet about the movie, and a set of six poster art postcards. In addition to those wonderful goodies, there are plenty of extras and featurettes included with this package. Ten of them to be exact, so I won’t be going into all of them here. Let’s just say that they cover pretty much all aspects of the movie and are unique to this edition of the movie. There’s also an audio commentary with legendary genre actor Giovanni Lombardo Radice, and another with lead actress Catriona Macoll. Topping things off are the usual trailers and still galleries.
This is a great addition to the library of any horror fan, and since it can be played in any and all BD players, that alone might be reason enough to pick up this disc. I, however, am just a huge fan of all the extras, attention to details, and overall great quality that Arrow punts into all their discs. For all those reasons, I can highly recommend an extended visit to this City Of The Living Dead.
