CITY OF DEAD

The fall of a meteorite transforms some homeless people in a large American metropolis into flesh-eating zombies. Meanwhile, two rival gangs accidentally meet in a warehouse to negotiate a large quantity of drugs with a dealer, but the two gangs are about to be dismantled by a police team ready to make a raid. The zombies, however, reach the warehouse, thwart the raid, and attempt to penetrate the building to feed on the survivors who have taken refuge there. But how many emulators has George Romero generated? Many, too many, just thinking about it makes one aware of overlooking some. Since that robust young man from Pittsburgh rewrote and successfully launched the figure of the living dead, hundreds and hundreds of films have arrived over the years that have drawn heavily from his "zombie mythology" to narrate stories of the living as prey of the dead, of apocalyptic principles and armageddons already underway. Among lavish productions, remakes, and low-budget movies, therefore, the Romerian prototypes, "Night of the Living Dead", "The City Will Be Destroyed at Dawn" and "Zombi" above all, have often been (and will be) looked at. That said, it seems obvious that filmmaker Duane Stinnett also drew heavily from Romer's work and decides to narrate the destruction of civilization by making protagonists out of those who in their own way favor the decline of civil society: criminals and dealers. "City of the Dead" starts from a classic science fiction assumption according to which the threat comes from space, brought by a meteorite capable of resurrecting the dead for a not well-specified reason: the first (and almost only in the eyes of the viewer) to be transformed into zombies are some homeless people who, as per script, await the end of the world prophetically, while those who try in every way to survive are a small group of low-level criminals, two gangs that represent American "street" organized crime. The novelty mainly lies in the promotion to protagonists of a zombie movie of some run-of-the-mill criminals, who usually represent the typical cannon fodder of horror films. Two opposing ethnic groups are presented, in a rather stereotypical way, on one side blacks on the other Hispanics, both interested in the "roba" that represents their means of earning, their economic and social status; between them interpose a small group of policemen, quickly exterminated, of whom only the "newbie" clumsy and a mysterious "infiltrator" informant will be of value. The film, therefore, after an interesting premise, loads up with the most exploited clichés of the genre, presenting a siege situation and the degeneration of the relationship between the characters, natural enemies pushed into a situation of forced coexistence and collaboration, from which the hero and his nemesis must inevitably emerge, with predictable results. The staging is poverty-stricken, the makeup of the zombies is very crude, and the same location (the abandoned warehouse) seems more a necessity dictated by the budget than a real artistic choice; the splatter effects, however, although sparsely applied, are very well made, and the viewer will be able to witness an excellent dismemberment realized in a completely artisanal way. The cast is mostly made up of little-known actors, among whom it is possible to recognize the face of the convincing Noel Gugliemi ("The Night Doesn't Wait"; "Harsh Times"), in the role of the leader of the Hispanics Caesar, now trapped in the habits of the "gangasta", and Reggie Banniser, star of the "Phantasm" saga, here in the small role of the dealer Mitchell. In short, "City of the Dead" is a little film, a viewing that could also be pleasant, but one must start with the awareness that it is a zombie movie like many others, devoted to simple entertainment. In general, however, negligible.