'Fear in the city of the living dead', also released as The Gates of Hell) is a 1980 Italian supernatural horror film co-written and directed by Lucio Fulci.

It stars Christopher George, Catriona MacColl, Carlo de Mejo, Antonella Interlenghi, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, and Janet Agren.

The film was greenlit during production of Contraband, which Fulci left to begin working on City of the Living Dead.

It was followed by a release throughout Europe, including a screening at the Paris International Festival of Fantastic and Science-Fiction Film, where Fulci won the Audience Award,[5] and in the United States in April 1983.

[6] In New York City, during a séance held in the apartment of medium Theresa, Mary Woodhouse experiences a vision of a priest, Father Thomas, hanging himself in a cemetery of a village called Dunwich.

Mary, Peter, and Gerry arrive back at the graveyard as the clock strikes midnight and All Saints Day begins.

After Zombi 2 grossed over 1.5 billion lire in Italy, director Lucio Fulci began working on a new horror script with screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti.

[8] Sacchetti noted that Fulci had just reread Lovecraft before working on the film's script, stating he wanted to re-create a Lovecraftian atmosphere.

[7] Fulci did not want to work with Zombi 2 producer Fabrizio De Angelis again and convinced Renato Jaboni of Medusa Distribuzione and Luciano Martino and Mino Loy of Dania and National Cinematografica to contribute.

[7] The project was greenlit during the production of Contraband, which Fulci left with his assistant director, Roberto Giandalia, to finish principal photography.

[7] Early choices for the cast included Zombi 2 star Tisa Farrow as Mary Woodhouse, Fiamma Maglione as Sandra, Aldo Barberito as Father Thomas and Robert Kerman as Mr. Ross; they were replaced by Catriona MacColl, Janet Agren, Fabrizio Jovine and Venantino Venantini, respectively.

She called her agent from her hotel room to seek his advice; he told her to take the role, because "nobody was going to see the film anyway"—a prediction that MacColl later noted would prove to be incorrect.

[8] Fulci would later theorize that this incident led to his future illness, as he underwent heart surgery in 1985, suffered a ventricular aneurysm, contracted viral hepatitis and developed Cirrhosis of the liver.

[12] This scene was performed by having Daniela Doria spit up baby veal intestines and then having her head replaced with a replica for further vomiting.

[1] The film was distributed theatrically throughout Europe, including West Germany on September 11, 1980 and France on December 10, 1980, as well as the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal.

[5] This was part of a June 1984 news report on channel ZDF titled Mama, Papa, Zombie - Horror für den Hausgebrauch, about the availability of violent films to minors.

However, following this report, City of the Living Dead was banned in West Germany, while VHS tapes of the film released in 1983 (under the title Ein Zombie hing am Glockenseil) were confiscated after a 1986 hearing by the District Court of Munich.

[17] In 2018, Arrow Video released a limited edition 4K remaster of both the City and the Gates versions in the United Kingdom.

[20] Giovanna Grassi of Corriere della Sera found the film too dependent on gore, lacking atmosphere, and "incoherent and stretched beyond measure".

[20] A review by Pierre Gires of L'Écran fantastique found that the film left viewers in a series of "bloody and hallucinatory events that leave little room to breathe" and was "very well edited, with a lively pace".

[21] Geoff Andrews of Time Out found the film "laughably awful" with a "nonsensical plot", and that it "could just conceivably be the disreputable movie that surrealists would have loved.

"[22] Alan Jones of Starburst praised the film as being "what popular cinema was all about", adding that "Shadow, claustrophobic atmosphere [and] full on menace is the crux of this and there is no doubt in my mind that Fulci is the master of such manipulation.

Conner of the Santa Cruz Sentinel ("intense overacting"), Tom Brown of the Times Recorder ("horribly acted") and Eleanor Ringel of The Atlanta Constitution, with the latter stating that the only appeal of the film was in seeing the predominantly European cast attempting to adjust to "Fulci's muddled vision of Middle America".