City Of The Living Dead Review

• 1st Sep 2010

One of Lucio Fulci’s classic works gets an HD facelift in this release from Arrow Films. Actually, saying that, I’ve never found The City of the Living Dead to be a ‘classic’. Sure it has some good set-pieces and the film gathers pace well but story wise, there’s not much imagination or flow as in Fulci’s more creative pieces like The Black Cat or Zombie Flesh Eaters.

CotLD is your basic zombie flick that never really takes off but one of the things this Blu-ray release has going for it is a seemingly uncensored cut. Unfortunately, I don’t think Fulci had Blu-ray in mind when he made his films. Undoubtedly, this is as good as the film has ever looked but to be honest, I couldn’t tell much difference from this print as from my own personal DVD copy.

There are some nifty little extras on this version of City of the Living Dead for Fulci aficionados: a Q and A session with the main characters from the film, and with Mr Fulci himself. There are also some brand new ‘making of’ documentaries which most will find interesting.

All in all, my advice is that if you already own a DVD copy of City of the Living Dead with a half decent print, then don’t upgrade to the Blu-ray but if you desperately want some new behind the scenes stuff, or have never owned the film then this will be a worthy addition to your collection.

Dan Beadle