Strangers searching for a young woman's missing father arrive at a tropical island where a doctor desperately searches for the cause and cure of a recent epidemic of the undead.
Zombie is a 1979 zombie film directed by Lucio Fulci. The film was adapted from an original screenplay by Dardano Sacchetti to serve as a sequel to George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead, released in Italy as Zombi. It stars Tisa Farrow, Ian McCulloch and Richard Johnson, and featured a score by frequent Fulci collaborator Fabio Frizzi.
A sail boat arrives in New York without a living soul but a zombie that attacks two guards from the Coast Guard. The daughter of the owner of the ship, Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow), requests information about her missing father that was in the Antilles to the detectives that are investigating the crime without success. She meets the journalist Peter West (Ian McCulloch) and they decide to investigate what might have happened to her father. They travel to Matul Island with Brian Hull (Al Cliver) and Susan Barrett (Auretta Gay) in their boat. Once in the tropical island, they meet Dr. David Menard (Richard Johnson), who is trying to find a cure to a disease that brings dead back to life, turning them into zombies that eat human flesh.
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| When the earth spits out the dead, they will rise to suck the blood of the living! |
Not many people know about this gem by Lucio Fulci. It's known by many titles: Zombie, Zombi 2, Zombi Flesh Eaters, and so on. Zombie is without a doubt one of the all time classics of the zombie sub genre, kick starting a cycle in director Lucio Fulci's career of no holds barred horror movies that combined in your face gruesome violence and tons of overwhelming doom and gloom atmosphere. It contains a few set pieces that are extremely iconic to horror fans; who can see the slow eyeball piercing, the underwater battle between a zombie and a shark, the sight of the zombies rising from the earth, and the fiery climax and forget them?
Critics and viewers alike seem hell-bent on comparing George A.Romero and Lucio Fulci in an attempt to decide the ultimate zombie movie-maker. It's a shame this happens so often, as they were coming from very different places. Romero's films were about social commentary and black humour; Fulci's existed solely to entertain those who enjoyed being shocked and appalled. Another well-worn argument is that Fulci's films are "boring". Yes, if you've never watched anything other than MTV-influenced contemporary horror films where everything is shot in sludgy tones of green and blue.
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| The dead are among us. |
Overall, this film has pretty good atmosphere. The zombie effects are absolutely incredible—some of the best I've ever seen and appear to have been the influence for Capcom's Resident Evil video games. There are, however, from time to time some pretty stale looking zombies made for the purpose of having the head explode or something similarly gory happen, so not much movement happens in the faces. But that's a pretty minor complaint; overall the zombies still look awesome. The gore really flies and looks outstanding through and through. The acting is… well, passable. Not great, not terrible—you can never expect too much from dubs anyway. Every now and then it's pretty entertaining, whether intentional or not. If you can, go for the unrated version, in fact, if you can, go for the unrated version of every movie.
The underwater zombie/shark fight has to be seen to be believed - bizarre, surreal, unexpected and fascinating, it is a scene the likes of which you will NEVER see anywhere else. The first zombie attack at the cabin, resulting in the shocking and rightfully infamous eye piercing, is a knockout of suspense and intelligent framing and editing. Even the twist ending came as a genuine surprise, and seemed a natural conclusion to the story rather than a forced climactic gimmick.
Like most early horror films, Zombie isn't without its flaws. There's still quite a bit of overacting and the technique of zooming in closer and closer on someone's face whenever something gross or shocking is discovered gets a bit tiresome. But Zombie offers exactly what every horror fan loves; plenty of gore, excellent practical effects, a fairly decent story, and quite a bit of nudity. Zombie can definitely be considered a triumph for its time and is a bloody terrific zombie masterpiece from beginning to end.
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| Zombie vs Jaws |
Trivia:
While shooting on location in New York City, Captain Haggerty, who plays the large bald zombie who attacks the harbor patrol at the beginning of the film, walked into CBGB's (a tiny Bowery bar which was a flourishing punk rock venue at the time) in full zombie makeup complete with splattered fake blood and mud caked all over his face and body. Due to the outrageous punk styles in those days of the other bar patrons, he was barely noticed. Even the bartender never looked twice at him.
Despite being called "Zombi 2", the film is not a sequel to anything. When Dawn of the Dead (1978) was released under the title "Zombi" in Italy, this film was retitled "Zombi 2" to cash in on the success of the American film. This was done by the studio without Director Lucio Fulci's permission or knowledge, and he often told fans this wasn't a sequel, and that it is it's own film. He was relieved to find out the film's actual title "Zombie" was kept in the American release.
Hordes of the living dead stumble across the Brooklyn Bridge at the end of the film. Although a national state of emergency had been declared and the local radio station had been overrun by zombies, the traffic below still flows freely. This was due to budgetary constraints - there was not enough money to stop traffic on the bridge.
The newspaper office scene was filmed in a busy office building, and at one point the cast and crew inadvertently interrupted a meeting held by Rupert Murdoch, who angrily kicked them out.
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| The infamous "Eyeball" scene |
When the final scene of the zombies walking across the Brooklyn Bridge was filmed, it was cold drizzling rain that day and the extras playing the zombies had to keep themselves from shivering. Also, the fake blood had some ammonia in it to stop it from changing color. When it dripped into the actors mouths, they would spit it out when the cameras stopped rolling. All of the extras playing zombies in the New York scenes were paid $40 per day in two $20 banknotes which had a single staple through them so as not to overpay anyone. The director Lucio Fulci, spoke very little English, his only direction for the zombie extras had was "like... ah... this!"
The film was written before Dawn of the Dead (1978) was released in Italy, as an action/adventure thriller with no link to George A. Romero's films. The opening and closing scenes (which take place in New York) were added to the script later when the producers wanted to cash-in on the success of Dawn.
The make-up effects were done by renowned Italian Giannetto De Rossi. The make-up for the zombies was "caked" on in several stages and Lucio Fulci, the director, constantly referred to the extras as "walking flower pots".
Like many Italian horror films of the time, half the cast spoke only English and the other half only Italian. Many Italian films produced for international distribution filmed without sound and recorded several dialog tracks in different languages in the studio for later overdubbing. Because the actors are speaking a number of different languages (or some are speaking a non-native language phonetically), the dubbing in all versions of the film is not 100% synchronized. Ian McCulloch, Tisa Farrow, Olga Karlatos, and Stefania D'Amario were of the main English speaking cast, while Al Cliver, Auretta Gay, and Dakar were of the main Italian-speaking cast.
Several of the actors playing the zombies were actually brothers. They look so similar that some people have speculated that all the zombies were played by one man.
As shown in trailers before the film was released, airline "barf bags" were handed out to theater moviegoers due to the unusually high amount of violence and gore for a horror film of that time.
When first submitted to the BBFC in 1980, the movie was passed with an X rating with 1 minute, 46 seconds cut. Then, with the Video Recordings Act, it was banned in 1984 as a "video nasty". It was removed from the DPP list, and the original cinema release was re-rated in 1992 with an 18 rating. In 1999, it was once again re-rated, with only 23 seconds of cuts for an 18 rating. Finally, it was passed uncut with an 18 rating in 2005, with a 91 minute run time.
According to Ian McCulloch on the DVD commentary, the harbor patrol cops were actually off-duty policemen. The advantage was that no costumes were required as they brought their own uniforms.
Although 'Zombi 2' was made to cash-in on 'Zombi''s (Dawn of the Dead) success, script writer Dardano Sacchetti based his script to 'Zombi' on 'I Walked with a Zombie', 'Voodoo Island' and 'The Walking Dead', stating that he wanted to bring the zombie genre back to its Caribbean and Voodoo roots.
Scriptwriter Dardano Sacchetti chose to take his name off the credits due to his father's death during preproduction. As a result of his loss, Sacchetti felt uncomfortable about being connected with a movie about the dead returning to a semblance of life and then being destroyed.
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| We Are Going To Eat You! |
According to the production crew interviewed for the Shriek Show DVD, scenes were shot of the zombies coming out of the water in New York. They never made it into the final edit though.
René Cardona Jr. was originally cast to play the Underwater Zombie, however he got sick at the last minute and had to be replaced by Ramón Bravo, the shark's trainer.
Enzo G. Castellari was asked to direct this film early in its development, but turned it down on the basis that he was not a fan of horror and primarily made action films. However, he suggested his friend Lucio Fulci as a possible replacement.
The zombies in this film were modeled to resemble the original voodoo legends of the walking dead from Hatian and Caribbean legends of people after being supposedly reanimated from being dead. In contrast to the zombies in George A. Romero's 'Dawn of the Dead' and other zombie films, nearly all of these zombies walk with their heads down, their eyes closed, and with their arms always at their sides. Only three zombies featured have their eyes open.
Dr. Menard's wounded elderly friend Fritz's last name is Briggs. However, it is never ever mentioned in the movie at all.
Entertainment Weekly ranked this Number 10 on their "Guilty Pleasures: Testosterone Edition" list in their March 30, 2007 issue.
