Paura nella Città dei Morti Viventi (A.K.A. City of the Living Dead) (1980)

City of the Living Dead is Lucio Fulci's first film in the ''Gates of Hell'' trilogy. And once again he manages to create a very, very entertaining movie. 

In the small New England town of Dunwich, a priest commits suicide by hanging himself in the church cemetery which somehow opens the gates of hell allowing the dead to rise. Peter, a New York City reporter, teams up with a young psychic, named Mary, to travel to the town where they team up with another couple, psychiatrist Jerry and patient Sandra, to find a way to close the gates before All Saints Day or the dead all over the world will rise up and kill the living.

City of the Living Dead is far from an average zombie flick. In fact, zombies are not the main thing in this movie. Certainly not the first +- 30 minutes. Fulci focuses more on the supernatural in this movie, and it turns out to create a very cool one.

The cast is fun. Carlo De Mejo does a decent job, although I would have liked a little bit more facial expression in the last scene. Christopher George is cool, Giovanni Lombardo Radice is great as always as the creepy guy and Fulci's favorite scream queen Katriona MacColl has a leading role again as well. Also look out for small role of Perry Pirkanen, who around that same time had been viciously killing a turtle in the jungle in front of the cameras of Cannibal Holocaust. 

City of the Living Dead starts fairly slowly. The music and atmosphere are great though so you will definitely be entertained even though not a whole lot is happening. When Fulci decides to up the tempo we mainly get to see some amazing gore. The ''drill scene'' and the ''puking guts scene'' are classic gore scenes in this genre. Especially the latter one is downright insane. 

The ending scene in the tomb is very atmospheric but kinda loses its power due to the lack of facial expression of Carlo De Mejo, who continually just stares in front of him like he's bored. The evenual ending isn't really clear to me either. I think Fulci was trying to get the audience to create their own ending in their head but in my opinion this attempt fails miserably.

City of the Living Dead is another one of Fulci's classics that doesn't disappoint. The atmosphere is great, the music is creepy and the gore is simply amazing. The perfect formula for a great Fulci movie, though somehow it still doesn't match up against the likes of The Beyond (1981) and Zombi 2 (1979).

Fun Fact (Source: IMDB)

For Daniela Doria's death scene, in which her character vomits up her internal organs, the actress swallowed and regurgitated a plate of tripe. In closeups a fake head was used, which contained a pump that spewed the organs out more forcefully.

Creepshow 2 (1987)

I yet have to watch Creepshow (1982) but since story didn't seem to be much of an issue in these series I thought I might as well give Creepshow 2 a shot before I watch the original. Although Creepshow 2 turned out to be an entertaining flick I still was slightly disappointed, mainly due to the huge popularity of these series among 80's fans.

"Creepshow 2" is divided into three stories, conducted by a leading segment where a boy that loves the horror comic book Creepshow buys seeds of carnivorous plant and is bullied by four teenagers. Meanwhile the Creep tells the tales of Creepshow.

                                                                            Tale 1: "Old Chief Wood'nhead"

''Old Chief Wood'nhead'' is about shopowner Ray and his wife Martha who live in a deserted town where no money is to be made anymore. In front of the store is a wooden statue of an indian warrior, which Ray is very fond of. They kill the couple and make a run for it. Then the statue of the indian warrior turns to life and looks for revenge. 

Old Chief Wood'nhead is definitely a disappointing segment. The story is slow and boring not to mention that the acting is absolutely horrible. When the wooden statue awakens things turn a bit more entertaining, mainly due to the decent kills. Still this segment is a very weak start for a film. 

-2 out of 5-

                   Tale 2: The Raft
''The Raft'' is about a group of schoolkids heading for a lake and its raft. As soon as they are on the raft they notice that a slimey water monster is circling the raft. It soon kills its first victim and there are many more to follow.

The Raft actually does have a good tempo. It only takes a couple of minutes before the group are on the raft and hunted by the sea monster. The gore effects in this segment were pretty cool, not to mention the booming 80's music featured in this story. The reaction of the group when their friends get eaten alive by the monster are way to amateuristic though, which kinda gets you out of the cool vibe this segment has. The ending is amazing though and totally makes up for it. 

-3,5 out of 5-

                                                                                                 Tale 3: The Hitchhiker
The Hitchhiker is about a woman who accidentally hits and kills a hitchhiker who was standing on the side of the road. She decides not to take the risk of destroying her life by going to prison and drives away like nothing happened. Soon after the hit and run she sees the hitchhiker standing on the side of the road again, and this time he's out for revenge.

Creepshow 2 saved the best for last as The Hitchhiker was definitely my favorite segment. The tempo is good and as soon as the hitchhiker is run over, the movie turns to horror with non-stop suspense. There are a few great jump scares and the gore scenes are pretty nice. Not to mention that this story actually is legitimately scary at times.

-3,5 out of 5-

Creepshow 2 turned out to be great entertainment but not much more than that. While the second and third segment are very cool, the first is just way to boring. I had hoped to see a bit more quality when I read that horror masters like Stephen King, George. A Romero, Tom Savini and Rick Wakeman joined together for the making of this film. The animation sequences between the stories were pretty cool though. 

Cannibal (2006)

For years now Cannibal on the internet has been known as one of the sickest films of all time. That's not really surprising when you know the true story that this film is based on. In short the true story is about a German cannibal named Armin Meiwes and his willing victim named Bernd Brandes, who wanted to be cannibalized. Sometimes I wonder how these individuals always manage to find each other.

The IMDB plot goes like this.
The Internet becomes a virtual shopping list for a man with an obsessive fetish for eating his fellow man. The technically inclined cannibal places a cyberspace advertisement for a willing victim, and his marketing efforts pay off when the gruesome madman receives a reply from eager prey. This macabre drama is a reenactment of the true story of Armin Meiwes, who was convicted of killing and eating his voluntary victim, Bernd-Jürgen Brandes. 

Cannibal is certainly not the most subtle film you'll ever see. The story doesn't have a whole lot of build up. The Man (the murdering cannibal) and The Flesh (the sicko who wanted to be eaten) quickly meet each other on the internet and decide to meet up in real life. What follows are 50 incredibly uncomfortable minutes filled with hairy legs, dicks, assholes and other kinds of homo erotics. It's all quite distasteful and I thought about shutting the movie down numerous times. I didn't do it though as my soul was already damaged by all the disgusting images and I might as well wait 'till it gets to the ''fun'' part where the cannibal starts slaughtering his ''meat''. 

After about an hour the movie starts to get bloody. ''The Flesh'' gets castrated and manages to take a piss right after his dick got cut off. Can it get anymore gross?! Apparently it can 'cause they cook the penis and have a nice dinner with candles and everything. This however isn't a success because the penis is so tough and leathery that they can't eat it. Eventually ''The Flesh'' dies, not before puking on the cannibal's back and squirting liquid shit all over the place, and the cannibal gets ready to get rid of his insides and carve him out like a pumpkin on halloween. This is where the movie, according to many online, really starts getting out of control with some of the nastiest shit you'll ever see. The gore didn't quite catch me though. Sure it was good but it was not on a level I had never seen before. 

What makes this movie so uncomfortable for the most part is the sick, gloomy and realistic atmosphere that this movie breaths. At times I had the feeling that I was watching a documentary that left nothing to the imagination. Another remarkable thing about this film is that there is hardly any dialogue. It's mostly just weird images supported by, some rather good, music. The use of light and camerawork creates a strange kind of feeling, almost like you're experiencing a nightmare. 

Does Cannibal deserve its reputation? I guess it does. It's all very, very gross but in my opinion it's mainly the story and strange camerawork that creates the type of vibe that just makes you feel uneasy. That doesn't mean I thought it was a very good movie though. The first 50 minutes that are largely filled with naked guys running around was getting on my nerves quite quickly. It's not like I'm homophobic but after a while I felt like it wasn't adding anything to the story. Cannibal is one of those films that is really hard to judge. It succeeds in what it tries to do: shock and make you feel uneasy. But was it a good movie? Not really in my opinion...