City of the Living Dead  | 1980 | Italy | Lucio Fulci

Another zombie outing for Italian splatter master Lucio Fulci, City of the Living Dead was Fulci’s first entry in his unofficial ‘Gates of Hell’ trilogy, made shortly after the release of Zombie Flesh Eaters. After a New York psychic called Mary has a near-fatal vision of a priest hanging himself and opening a portal to Hell, she and a reporter called Peter decide to head to the town in her premonition, a superstitious province known as Dunwich. In the town itself, the effect is immediate, unleashing supernaturally charged undead onto the local populace and threatening to engulf the world with their malevolence. Teaming up with locals Gerry and Sandra, Mary and Peter decide to try and close the Hell gate before the final hour of All Saint’s Day knells their permanent doom. Extremely similar in style and gore level to Fulci’s official video nasties (The Beyond, House by the Cemetery and Zombie Flesh Eaters), it’s unsurprising that the film ended up listed as an official nasty in certain trade magazines, leading to seizure by various police forces despite the Intervision VHS already having material missing.