City of the Living Dead

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This communicating with spirits beyond the grave stuff violates an obscure Manhattan ordinance.

In Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead, a strung out Margaret Atwood-looking medium (pictured, right) is operating a séance in New York City. It’s a scene made all the more otherworldly by both the ADR not matching the moving mouths (Italian style) and when one of the attendees, Mary, experiences a hellish vision: a priest swinging from a tree branch.

Mary drops dead, ostensibly from fright, and this odd demise has cops and journalists sniffing around, one of whom, Peter, played by Christopher George (Day of the Animals/Enter the Ninja), thinks there’s more to this strange caper than meets the eye. But he’s not one for,say, checking in with a coroner and seeing how it’s possible that someone in their late 20s/early 30s suffered a coronary. (Then again, when someone else drops dead later, apparently from fright, the coroner suggests, “That expression on her face is like pure fear, like something scared her to death.” Probably a good time to secure a second opinion.)

Peter’s first hunch is to head right down to the cemetery instead and lucky he did, because you see…Mary’s not dead! She’s scraping her fingernails bloody trying to extricate herself from a half-dug grave. The gravediggers must’ve been union guys, off at the stroke of 4:59 PM to finish their handiwork the next day. Good help is so hard to find.

City_of_the_Living_DeadThere’s backstory aplenty involving a non-canonical ancient Jewish text dating back to several hundred CE, the second parable from which speaks of resurrections of the dead. Mary’s priestly vision, apparently, was a premonition or some such thing. In film-speak, the fancy way of describing something altogether nonsensical is “non-linear.” In Fulci movies, it’s “Fulci-esque.”

Somehow, something opened the Gates of Hell, and residents of Dunwich are plagued by various visions and strange events. One such event is a structural issue suddenly appearing in the wall of a local tavern. This has barflies on edge, with one so spooked that he even says he’ll sell his business and get the hell out as soon as possible. Hopefully he’ll settle his tab first.

Opening the Gates of Hell in City of the Living Dead produces maggots, rotting baby corpses, frightened cats, load-bearing wall cracks in sleazy bars and a host of other things. A dad goes crazy and drills a hole through the head of his daughter’s rapscallion boyfriend (a top-drawer killing that made its way into our book, Death by Umbrella! The 100 Weirdest Horror Movie Weapons).

What more could you ask for?

**** (out of 5)

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Found

found_movieEvil brothers abound whether it’s Claudius in Hamlet, Egyptian mythology’s evil usurper Set, killer of brother Osiris, and of course Cain from Genesis. Similarly, Found (2012) explores a dangerous abusive psycho-sexual sibling relationship between Indiana fifth-grader Marty and 18-year old Steve.

Mop-topped Marty likes graphic novels (Found even begins with a stunning graphic title sequence), and of course, horror. One of his favorites overlaps with one of ours: the transcendentally sleazy Street Trash, the poster of which features prominently in the kid’s bedroom. His other favorite activity, which really resonated with this reviewer, was an interest in nocturnal crackpot radio, the likes of Gary Bell and paranoid chatter about hidden creatures and furtive plots.

Bitter Steve, meanwhile, rents a basement apartment from the folks and has a go-nowhere warehouse job. In the evening, he amuses himself by killing — predominantly African Americans (red-state racism here as compared with Get Out, which The Guardian described as revealing “the horror of liberal racism in America.”). However, unlike Blumhouse productions, this is hard horror, with a level of nastiness that is (very nearly) too much to bear.

Steve stuffs the heads of his victims into a bowling ball bag, temporarily storing the grim trophies in a closet before burying them in the backyard under cover of darkness.

When whiz-kid Marty is bullied at school by the hulking Marcus, a black Nelson Muntz who amuses classmates by flipping off teachers, Steve reveals his racism and poor impulse control, goading Marty to fight back – and when he doesn’t, Steve goes vigilante.

There are n-bombs aplenty, as Steve inherits his bigotry from pops, but that’s not even the half of it.

found_movie_horrorWhen Marty eventually discovers the contents of Steve’s closet, he uses it to get back at his one and only friend (the school’s fat kid) who’s gone rogue, bullying Marty for not being able to handle horror movie violence at a sleepover.

Will Marty eventually follow in big bro’s footsteps?

Will the sins of the father be visited upon both sons?

Whom will Marty side with?

The dysfunctional family dynamic is wonderfully explored, and even the prejudiced dad is not without his charms.

And Found was made on the cheap (<$10,000), which underscores how remarkable an achievement this was to have the lasting effect that it did.

The film almost perfectly captures the ordinariness of suburbia (this small-town Indiana could really be anywhere) and the evils that lurk within.

A sibling Bildungsroman, Found even trumps the dynamite Goodnight Mommy when it comes to fraternal terrors. Highly recommended.

**** (out of 5)