Zombie (a.k.a Zombie 2, Zombie Flesh Eaters)
This was one film I confess I didn’t see during the video nasty era. It was just too difficult to get hold of and even though my local video store had an uncut copy it never seemed to be available. It wasn’t for the lack of trying though and the word from the school playground regarding the eye impaling scene was one that made it even more desirable a watch! I can remember managing to get the video box to look at and was a bit shocked at the level of gore on display, the rear cover showing the scene where a few hungry zombies tuck into a corpse on a table. Not like the Italians to hold anything back.
Plotline was a simple affair. An abandoned ship floats into New York harbour and is investigated by the local Harbour Patrol. On board they find the boat in an unholy state and hiding a fat zombie stowaway that proceeds to take a chunk from a patrolman’s neck. Eventually, after a standoff the zombie is dispatched into the sea by another patrol guy.
One of our film’s heroes Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow) is questioned as the boat belongs to her father who is working on research on a Caribbean island. In the meantime reporter Peter West (horror stalwart Ian McCulloch) is assigned to report on the boat by his boss (none other than Fulci in a cameo) where he teams up with Anne and after finding a note onboard they decide to travel to the island of Matul to investigate her father’s disappearance.
After arriving in the Caribbean Peter and Anne team up with a pair of divers, Susan and Bryan, who agree to help them find the island of Matul. On the island an outbreak of undead rising and attacking the locals is being investigated at the local mission by Dr Menard (Richard Johnson) who continues his work against his wife’s wishes.
For some unknown reason Susan decides to go for a swim while they are out on the ocean searching for the island. Here she encounters an underwater zombie who she manages to escape from. Fulci must have been impressed by Jaws as a tense battle between the zombie and a passing shark ensues! There is some fantastic underwater photography to be seen and both shark and human playing the zombie look very real.
Back on the island Dr Menard’s wife is attacked after zombies enter her house while she showers. She hides in a wardrobe only to be found by a zombie and in the film’s most outrageous scene has her eyeball punctured very slowly by a splinter of wood.
At the mission, Dr Menard has to shoot the body of his friend who has died of the zombie infection and has returned to life. His assistant begins to bury the body but spots a flare which leads him to Anne, Peter, Susan and Bryan’s boat. Dr Menard speaks to Anne about her father and tells them to go to his mansion where is wife is. There they find her mutilated and being eating by zombies so decide to head back to Dr Menard.
Along the way they manage to crash their Land Rover and have to travel on foot. There they rest in an old Conquistador graveyard and surprise, surprise the dead begin to rise! Susan has her throat torn open by the huge bulk of a zombie before it is dispatched by a crushed skull and the three push on to the Missionary.
There the undead begin to attack the Missionary and which eventually is burned down by molotov cocktails. After escaping Bryan is bitten by the reanimated corpse of his wife Susan and is locked in a room on the boat. While sailing across the ocean they receive a radio broadcast that New York is being overrun by the undead and the final shot shows zombies crossing the Brooklyn Bridge.
This is one my favourite Zombie movies and bears repeated viewing. Okay, we have the Itailan dubbing to contend with but it somehow it adds to the film’s charms. There are some great gore set pieces and Fulci’s zombies are just how zombies should be, that is, slow and shuffling and decidedly rotten.
Okay, time for rant. Zombies should not run. Ever. They are dead, will have rigor mortis and muscle wastage so how they can run like Usain Bolt in recent movies is beyond me. For me 28 Days Later is the culprit but I won’t blame this film for all of the running zombies seen since as in that film the ‘zombies’ weren’t undead, they were infected humans. In recent years only ‘The Dead’ has portrayed the undead in the same way Fulci did and for me that is refreshing after all of the ridiculous running zombie films released in the last ten years. Rant over.
You can now, finally, see the full uncut version of Zombie as it was passed intact a few years ago by the BBFC. I suggest you watch it if you haven’t already and be prepared for a good Italian gorefest by a modern master of the zombie movie, Lucio Fulci. It looks great courtesy of cinematographer Sergio Salvati (who I think got Fulci out of some holes) and has a fantastic creepy score by Fabio Frizzi and altogether is an excellent film.
Don’t delay, see it soon and enjoy the munching!
Splatter Score
Gore 8/10
Shocks 6/10
Overall 7/10
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