Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) poster & wallpaper
Get movie widget Recommend it Add to Favorites

Christopher George, Carlo De Mejo, Antonella Interlenghi, Robert Sampson, Janet Agren ... see more see more... , Catriona MacColl , Giovanni Lombardo Radice , Luciano Rossi , Venantino Venantini , Lucio Fulci , Michele Soavi , Daniela Doria , Fabrizio Jovine

This gruesome horror film from cult director Lucio Fulci posits a priest's suicide opening the gateway to Hell, freeing bloodthirsty zombies to roam the town of Dunwich. The main attractions are start... read more read more...lingly explicit special effects by Franco Rufino, including two of the horror genre's most memorable deaths. One involves perennial victim Giovanni Lombardo Radice (also known as John Morghen) having his head run through with a power-drill, and the second is the notorious scene of a woman vomiting up all of her internal organs in a nauseating torrent of blood and guts. Fulci does manage one nice moment of splatter-free horror, as hero Christopher George struggles to free a woman who has been buried alive. As his pick-axe enters the coffin repeatedly, it comes ever closer to her face, causing the audience to wince with each strike. Aside from these scenes, though, Fulci's direction is somewhat plodding, as he substitutes slow pacing and clouds of fog for real suspense. Horror fans will still want to seek this film out, however, if only for the effects work and a familiar cast including Catriona MacColl, Janet Agren, Carlo de Mejo, Antonella Interlenghi, and Daniela Doria. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

Flixster Users

58% liked it

9,909 ratings

Critics

50% liked it

10 critics

R, 1 hr. 33 min.

Directed by: Lucio Fulci

Release Date: August 11, 1980

Invite friends to see

DVD Release Date: May 23, 2000

Get It:

Stats: 588 reviews

report incorrect info

Photos

City of the Living Dead Fabrizio Jovine Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) City of the Living Dead Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) city of the living dead Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell)
Upload a Photo | View All Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) Photos

Your Rating


clear rating

Flixster Reviews (588)

  • DragonEyeMorrison
    August 15, 2011
    DragonEyeMorrison
    You can call this a dress rehearsal for The Beyond. Not as focused and effective as The Beyond, but full of crazy over the top moments. There are enough gory killings here to make a full top then list of great movie kills. Is going to disgust you more than scare you, but it will ... read morenever bore you.
  • bbcfloridabound
    August 15, 2011
    bbcfloridabound
    More blood and guts from Lucio Fulci. I watch this on Netflix Streaming before they jack up their rates. I saw no real point to this one. A priest commits suicide in a New England town, and opens the gates of Hell allowing the dead to rise from their graves and feed on the livin... read moreg. Special effects are pretty gory, with maggots galore. But still not a top notch zombie film, so I can only dish out 2 1/2 stars.
  • matertenebraum
    April 14, 2011
    matertenebraum
    Some films have articles, essays, even books dedicated to explaining how great they are. As a teenager it only took one simple sentence to put City of the Living Dead on my list of films I needed to see..."A woman pukes up her own intestines".

    Sadly, at the time the UK censors d... read moreidn't see the funny side of this, and the other delights contained in this film or it's companion The Beyond, so I didn't get to see them until much later. In some ways I can say COTLD does live up to it's reputation (it IS pretty disgusting) but in others, well, if The Beyond is pleasingly, nightmarishly surreal (and to me it is) COTLD is one of the most bafflingly illogical films I've ever seen.

    The story involves a psychic and a journalist rushing to close a portal to hell that's been opened by the suicide of a priest (how? why? how should I know, I only watched the film and that didn't help! The priest comes back as an undead overlord, but was this his intention?). I say rushing but in fact their journey is rather leisurely. Apparently saving the world isn't as important as stopping off for lunch on the way, which is rather odd as they're against the clock on this one - the portal must be closed by All Saints day.

    You may think that's a small thing to notice in the film except - and I'm about to give away the ending - they get there TOO LATE to close the portal! Before entering a graveyard for the final showdown with the undead priest they note that it's already All Saints day, they've blown it, yet the film continues into it's climax and a good vs evil face off from which our "heroes" think they're emerging victorious? You idiots! You already knew you blew it, what on earth is going on here?? Then there's the infamous final scene. Supposedly the films disjointed, inexplicable ending is the result of the last bit of footage being damaged and lost for ever, and what you do get is something you really have to see for yourself to (dis)believe. They certainly don't make 'em like that anymore.

    If it's gore you want you certainly won't be let down by the drillings, gouged heads, zombie attacks and of course A WOMAN PUKING UP HER OWN INTESTINES, but overall this film is slow moving, and with that ending (for gods sake, that ENDING!) more than a little frustrating. .
  • WrenchLT
    January 9, 2011
    WrenchLT
    After the eerie opening nothing much happens until the last 25 minutes. But gorehounds are treated to two of the most infamous moments of violence in Italian horror movie history! Also to be commended is the constant creepy atmosphere which is ever present. The film just lacks li... read morefe and the ending is another WTF moment... not the first for Fulci.
  • ajv2688
    January 8, 2011
    ajv2688
    A very exciting, very gory, very good horror movie, I was really impressed by the special effects and the acting in this movie. The story was pretty good too. I highly recommend this one to horror fans.
  • TheDudeLebowski65
    December 3, 2010
    TheDudeLebowski65
    Lucio Fulci has crafted some extraordinary films over his career. City Of The Living is one of his last great films. City Of The Living Dead is another gore filled Horror fest and this is one of Fulci's finest films. A horror classic and a definite must see for every horror fan, ... read moreCity Of The Living Dead features some of the most impressive gore sequences ever put on film. City Of The Living Dead does not disappoint in the gore department and the gore is downright disgusting. The film is one of Fulci's most haunting and inventive Horror films, and is one of his most solid films along with The Beyond and The House By The Cemetery. Like every other Italian Horror film, City Of The Living Dead has a thin plot, but it more than makes up for it with it's horror elements. Like I've previously said, this is a film that Fulci truly delivers some of sickest, most gross out gore of his career. An incredible film thats very underrated. Lucio Fulci has often been phased by Dario Argento, his rival, and thus Fulci never gets the credit he deserves. City Of The Living Dead is one of his last great films before he slowly lost his touch. City Of The Living Dead is a fine first entry to Fulci's Gates Of Hell trilogy and he would ultimately craft his masterpiece with the second film in this trilogy, The Beyond. A fun, intense ride for gore hounds, City Of The Living Dead is a definite classic of horror and is seriously underrated. Lucio Fulci is one of the greatest minds of the Horror genre, his vision is haunting, and unsparing, but thats what makes his films unique. City Of The Living Dead is a masterful work by Fulci, and his talents culminated with his follow up film, The Beyond. City Of The Living Dead has a dark atmosphere of hell on earth that is equally terrifying as the man who conjured up this macabre tale of Horror.
  • RCCLBC
    June 14, 2010
    RCCLBC
    What the?.....
    Total disapointment.
    Very hard to follow, poorly edited and mediocre special effects.
  • YosemiteSamFan
    October 17, 2009
    YosemiteSamFan
    Dissappointing movie; the artwork looked so freaky and cool I bought it. Not really a zombie movie, just a series of gorey small encounters with mysterious forces of evil. The plot consists of loosely tied horrific incidents in the village of Dunwich, caused when a priest presuma... read morebly opens the gate to Hell, which is a freaky red cave underneath a masoleum. Quite gory, but confusing. It wasn't the masterpiece which I consider Fulci's film "The Beyond". It had one of those WTF endings like they had run out of time, budget and film in the camera.
  • cancercapricorn2002
    October 1, 2008
    cancercapricorn2002
    This is not my favorite Fulci movie but its one of his best and its one that I can pop in and watch pretty much anytime.

    It's a goofy gorefest about a small New England town which is besieged by demonic forces after a priest's suicide opens the gateway to Hell. Fulci, being F... read moreulci, concentrates on the gross-out aspects of his story (a girl vomits up her intestines, a man's head is impaled by a drill, brains are squashed out of heads), but also manages to create a creepy atmosphere and even delivers a couple of decent scares.

    The scene in which the zombified Emily staggers toward her little brother until her eyes seem to pop out of the screen is one of the freakiest images I've ever seen! Emily's death is pretty scary as well; the priest's animalistic moaning in the dimly lit garage seriously creeps me out, as does the faceful of worm-ridden putrescence Emily receives.

    People have complained that this movie makes little sense. I won't argue. The concentration here is on nightmarish imagery, atmosphere and gory set-pieces, and if you know anything about Fulci, you should know that going in. The gibbon noises? I doubt Fulci honestly thought anyone would think they were ghosts howling. I think he and his sound designer just sifted through the library of sound effects and found the monkeys' cries bizarre and decided to stick them in there. Why not? Nightmares don't always make sense, so why should a horror movie?

    And the infamous ending? Who the hell cares what it means? The movie left me feeling creepy and disoriented, which is a success in my book. It's structured like a creepy dream from which you can't awaken, and I think we've all had dreams that made us say, "What the hell was that all about?"

    Overall, its fun for fans of spaghetti splatter or if your looking for a good horror movie to watch with a group of friends during the weekend
  • FilmFanatik
    February 13, 2008
    FilmFanatik
    Dark and surreal, this zombie film is one of Fulci's best.

View All Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) Reviews

Critic Reviews

Ian Berriman
September 16, 2010
Ian Berriman, SFX Magazine

Whilst not as outlandish as The Beyond, undoubtedly Fulci's finest fever-dream, City Of The Living Dead is still startlingly crackers. Full Review

Steve "Uncle Creepy" Barton
August 2, 2010
Steve "Uncle Creepy" Barton, Dread Central

City of the Living Dead is a film that deserves its place within your horror library. Bless your black horror loving hearts, Blue Underground! Now bring on The Beyond and Zombie please! Full Review

Sean Axmaker
May 29, 2010
Sean Axmaker, Seanax.com

... the story is a strange mix of supernatural weirdness, demonic invasion and rotting corpses hunting down the living with a sense of purpose. Full Review

Fernando F. Croce
November 16, 2009
Fernando F. Croce, CinePassion

Total cinema Full Review

Brian Holcomb
May 5, 2008
Brian Holcomb, CinemaBlend.com

Teleporting Zombies! Hanging priests! Bleeding eyes! Organ regurgitation! The plot is meaningless and the characters senseless. But these are pluses for films in this cycle. Full Review

Alex Sandell
September 28, 2005
Alex Sandell, Juicy Cerebellum

Drink less [than six beers], you'll be bored with the nonsensical plot. Drink more, you'll probably vomit when you see a girl in the movie literally puke her guts out. Full Review

Jake Euker
March 17, 2004
Jake Euker, F5 (Wichita, KS)

The very epitome of giallo; Fulci's masterpiece, but also among the worst films I've ever seen.

Scott Weinberg
July 25, 2001
Scott Weinberg, Apollo Guide

Yes, this is the one with the "intestines scene". Full Review

Emanuel Levy
July 26, 2005
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

No review available.

Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
March 27, 2004
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice

No review available.

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Cast

More Like This

Click a thumb to vote on that suggestion, or add your own suggestions.

  • Stacy
    Stacy (100%)
  • Final Destination 2
    Final Destination 2 (50%)
  • Dead and Buried
    Dead and Buried (100%)
  • The House By The Cemetery (Quella villa accanto al cimitero)
    The House By The Cemetery (Quella villa accan... (100%)

More Movies like Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell)

Facts

No facts approved yet. Be the first

Paura nella cittą... : Watch Free on TV

Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) Trivia

Movie Quizzes

No quizzes for Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell). Want to create one?

Video Clips

Upload a Video |

All Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) Videos

Meet Other Fans

Add Paura nella cittą dei morti viventi (City Of The Living Dead) (The Gates of Hell) to favorites

Recent News

No recent headlines. Got one?

Recent Lists

Make a List |

View All Lists

Most Popular Skin

No skins yet. Interested in creating one?