Fulci’s 1980 zombie flick is not the easiest of his “gore days” movies to get to grips with. But after a few watches it grows on you. The story line is more mystical than say Zombie Flesh Eaters. When a priest hangs himself he somehow opens up the gates of hell unleashing zombies on earth. A reporter (Christopher George) and a woman he helps along the way (Katriona MacColl from The Beyond) travel to the location of the priest’s death to investigate. That’s the basic premise of the whole movie. Simple as always.

Some of Fulci’s most famous gore scenes are featured in COTLD. For example the girl in the car who vomits up her intestines while seeing an apparition of the dead priest. And the most famous, the guy who has his head rammed into a work bench drill by an angry father. Great effects too, not cheesy.

Another thing worth pointing out is how different the zombies are here, they are not your average living dead, and they don’t stumble about all clumsy, they leap and are really quick. They don’t seem cannibalistic either because they are more like demons. They simply grab you by the back of your head and crush…Ouch indeed. Some say that this is The Beyond’s sequel, because of the mystical 7 gates of hell. In The Beyond a gate is in an old hotel in Louisiana and in this, Greenwich. The alternate titles to both films are… The Beyond = Seven Doors Of Death City Of The Living Dead = The Gates Of Hell

The film does have flaws of course, like the pointless maggot scene, which is blatantly just there to get at the squeamish people watching. Fabio Frizzi music work isn’t up to the greatness of Zombie Flesh Eaters either; because it just sounds like he took the score to that and played it backwards. And after you’ve seen this and think “What the hell, that ending made no sense whatsoever!” Well it’s because the final reel of film was damaged, so the final minute is missing some parts, and makes Katriona’s character look like a bit of a mental case. Still if you enjoyed Zombie Flesh Eaters and the Beyond, your bound to find something here that you’ll like.

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