City of the Living Dead (1980)

Another day, another Lucio Fulci zombie movie. I watch them because I enjoy them, but watching a lot of a director’s output over a relatively short space of time really shows up their strengths and weaknesses with startling clarity. City of the Living Dead is the second in Fulci’s popular quartet of zombie movies, following Zombie Flesh Eaters and preceding The Beyond. Seen in this context, City seems like almost a dry-run for The Beyond, setting up a lot of the latter film’s concerns and featuring Catriona McColl in a very similar role to the one she subsequently played. McColl is probably Fulci’s greatest asset in these films; although not an A-list performer, she’s incredibly well suited to this kind of movie, bringing a zippy lightness of touch without ever camping it up or being too knowing. She’s an engaging, naturalistic presence who carries much of the audience interest with her. Read more

Contamination (1980)

Considering how closely intertwined science fiction and horror are, it’s surprising how few films successfully keep one foot in each genre. Most people would agree that Ridley Scott got the hybrid formula down to a tee with Alien; at the very least, director Luigi Cozzi thought so, which goes some way towards explaining why Contamination turned out the way it did. Read more

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974)

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, aka The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, aka any other number of titles you care to throw at it (including, perhaps strangest of all, Don’t Go Near the Window) definitely belongs to the upper tier of the many, many zombie movies made on the cheap following the success of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. It tells the story of George, a Londoner, who travels north to the Lake District to meet a business associate. Following an accident on his bike, he accepts a lift from Edna, who is heading the same way to help admit her heroin-addicted sister to a clinic. Things go awry when Edna is attacked by a man who supposedly died the previous week, and when a string of other grizzly deaths take place, the local police are quick to point the finger of blame at George. Are the dead really coming to life, and can it have anything to do with the experimental crop treatments being carried out nearby? Read more

Phenomena (aka Creepers) (1985)

Phenomena remains one of Dario Argento’s most controversial films. Arriving in 1985, it sits on the cusp of the period when most viewers feel his directorial career went into terminal decline, and yet it arrived only three years after the masterful Tenebrae, his elegant and stylish return to the giallo - the genre he helped to define more than any other director. Mainly remembered for featuring a very young Jennifer Connelly in the lead role, Phenomena remains something of a mixed bag, but generally scores more hits than misses. Read more

The Beyond (1981)

Following the success of Zombie Flesh Eaters Italian director Lucio Fulci clearly didn’t believe in rocking the boat too much. The Beyond is another zombie splatter film, which again features innocent bystanders stumbling on an ancient and mysterious curse that causes the dead to come to life - this time in an old Louisiana hotel, neatly merging zombie carnage with rather more atmospheric haunted house overtones. Cue lots of breathless running around, gore and rather unconvincing dubbing. Read more

Zombie Flesh Eaters (aka Zombi 2) (1980)

Zombie Flesh Eaters is probably the most celebrated film from a period between the late 70s and mid 80s where Italian horror movies seemed to be competing with each other to produce the most disgusting and horrific images. Directed by Lucio Fulci (who, bizarrely, had directed kids’ movie White Fang only seven years earlier) was presented as a semi-sequel to Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, hence the film’s European title of Zombi 2 (where Dawn had been released as Zombi). This makes it sound like a bit of a cash-in, and by and large Fulci’s movie has got none of social resonance of Romero’s movies; but even though Fulci is concerned with just telling his own story, it’s still a great little self-contained horror flick. Read more