Zombie,
or Zombi 2 as it was released in Europe, was in indirect sequel to George
Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. Although it did debut the year after Dawn, neither
films have any relation other than Zombie trying to cash in off the success of
Dawn. The film opens up in New York City where we see an abandoned boat. The
police have been called to investigate, only to discover a zombie stowaway.
From there we meet Anne, the daughter of the owner’s boat. She is distraught to
hear the news because she hasn’t heard from her father other than that he is on
a tropical island conducting research. Hotshot reporter Peter West is assigned
to report on the boat. The two accidentally meet on the boat, only to discover
a mysterious note left by Anne’s father saying he has contracted a rare disease
on the island of Matool. Anne and Peter decide to figure out what is going on,
and depart for Matool. They meet up with a couple who is out to sea, and depart
in their boat for the island. Once there they meet Dr. Menard, a physician who
is investigating the strange occurrences on the island. The rest of the movie
is an all out zombie fest of the bloodiest kind.
First
of all, you have to talk about the makeup. The FX and gore are so good it’s
scary. Giannetto De Rossi was at the helm, and boy did he deliver. Just take a
look at a zombie from Dawn, and a zombie from Fulci’s film. Then consider that
the two films are merely a year apart. Among the superb gore work is: the
trademark eyeball scene, lots of nasty flesh being eaten, and zombies coming
out of the ground. It’s all just rather stunning. The next thing that really
sticks out is the cinematography. This film is shot so damn well. It doesn’t
look like you are watching a film from the late 70’s, or a foreign film for
that matter. While the American’s were putting out low budget, grainy horror
epics, the Italians were offering the world slick, hauntingly beautiful
masterpieces. The acting serves its purpose. I’m not so sure anyone is actually
paying attention to the acting anyway. The movie is chock full of mediocre to
slightly bad dubbing, but that’s always kind of fun. Lastly, the score by Fabio
Frizzi is awesome. There’s not much else you can really say about other than
that.
There
are some great memorable scenes in Zombie. Probably the most talked about is
the shark scene. In this part, one of the women on the boat that’s sailing out
to the island goes sea diving. Before too long she is face to face with a
zombie. This is interesting because this may be the first experience with a
zombie under water. A fight then ensues between the undead and a shark, which
is pretty incredible. This scene was also recently featured in a Window’s 7
commercial. The next and perhaps even greater scene is the eyeball scene. Dr.
Menard’s wife is home alone and has a zombie encounter. She manages to lock
herself in the bathroom, but the zombie’s strength shatters part of the door
and pulls her by her hair, impaling her eye on a large splint of wood. This
scene would later spawn more eyeball splatters in Fulci’s work.
While
there are as many zombie films as there are zombies in them, very few stand the
test of time. Right up there with Romero’s original trilogy, Zombie is
timeless. It’s epic, bloody, and fun as hell. If you are looking for the right zombie
movie for Halloween season, I can’t say there are many better than Lucio Fulci’s
ZOMBIE.
-Chris
Poster by Micah Moseby.
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