Zombie Flicks: Zombie (Zombi 2) (1979)

I don't think I've ever said this before, so I'll say it now: despite being a child of the 90's, I was not a Fangoria kid growing up. In fact, the first place I learned of it was an ad near the end of a magazine covering the 1998 Godzilla movie. Said ad had images of some of the most recent issues' covers, featuring movies like Starship Troopers and Event Horizon, the latter of which had the horrific sight of a long stake going through the back of a guy's head and out his mouth (until I dug that magazine out just now and really looked at it, I assumed it was from one of those Italian cannibal movies). That cover, along with another that showed a nasty-looking zombie, disgusted and freaked me out enough as a sensitive and squeamish kid to where I wanted nothing to do with Fangoria, and I would try to avoid that page whenever I looked through the magazine. Even if I had been interested in it, my, at the time, strict parents would've put the kibosh on it. The point I'm getting to is that, because I wasn't a subscriber or even a casual reader, I had little-to-no knowledge of contemporary horror films, and I certainly didn't know anything about those from other countries or their own masters of the genre. It wasn't until I was in my late teens and saw Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments, the Masters of Horror documentary that premiered on Sci-Fi Channel around that same time, and the slasher documentary, Going to Pieces, that I slowly but surely began to learn about the wealth of horror to be found from Europe, as well as Italian maestros like Mario Bava, Dario Argento, and Lucio Fulci. The 100 Scariest Movie Moments was when I first heard Fulci's name, as both Zombie and his later movie, The Beyond, were featured. As for Zombie itself, I knew, thanks to the big special edition from Anchor Bay, that Dawn of the Dead was renamed Zombi when it was released in Europe, the 100 Scariest Movie Moments clued me in that there was a wholly Italian movie with basically the same title. It was featured at number 98 and Eli Roth gushed about how extremely gory it was, as well as described a scene where a zombie fights a shark as, "A horror geek's wet dream." However, the actual moment was the scene where the woman's eye is slowly penetrated by a sharp piece of splintered wood, which was just as wince-inducing and agonizing to watch as they described. 

A couple of years later, when I started getting online a bit more, especially with the advent of YouTube, I learned how the film was titled Zombi 2 in Italy in order to cash in on the success of Dawn of the Dead over there but, when it was released in the U.S. in 1980, it was changed to simply Zombie. I learned all this from the Angry Video Game Nerd's Chronologically Confused video about video game and movie sequel titles, as well as that there were further sequels to Zombi 2 and, when those came to the States, it was decided to just keep the original titles, making it seem as though the series inexplicably jumped from Zombie to Zombie 3. So, I knew that if I wanted to see Zombie, I should seek out either that title or Zombi 2, which I did, making this both the first Italian horror film I truly watched (I once saw Nightmare Castle on a public domain horror set but didn't pay attention to it) and, along with City of the Living Dead, which I saw immediately afterward, my first Fulci film. The first copy of the film I got in 2009 was a release from Shriek Show with that latter title but then, in 2012, I upgraded to Blue Underground's Blu-Ray release. That right there should tell you that I do like the movie, but, while I do, I don't think it's a masterpiece or even Fulci's absolute best film. It certainly has a lot of memorably gory deaths and setpieces, a setting that I like, it's something of a throwback to the old voodoo zombie flicks, with some great instances of atmosphere, and a really memorable music score, but it takes a bit for it to get going and it's hampered by some poor acting and woefully underdeveloped characters.

A seemingly abandoned boat drifts into New York Harbor, where it's boarded by two harbor patrol officers who find the quarters below to be in a horrible state of squalor. While investigating, one of them comes across a severed hand, before being attacked by a heavyset, decaying man. The man rips his throat open with his teeth, then goes up on deck and stalks towards his partner, who shoots and sends him over the side and into the water. Immediately, newspaper reporter Peter West is assigned to look into the case, which also involves Anne Bowles, who confirms to the police that the abandoned boat belonged to her father, whom she hasn't seen since he left for the Antilles Islands three months before. That night, Anne returns to the harbor and sneaks aboard the boat in order to look around herself, only to run into Peter, who's been tailing her. He suggests the two of them work together, and shows her a letter from her father, wherein he describes having caught some sort of strange disease on the island of Matul. After getting the okay from his boss, Peter and Anne fly down to the Antilles and manage to persuade a vacationing couple, Brian Hull and Susan Barrett, to take them to Matul. On the way, they stop so Susan can go scuba-diving and take some pictures of the coral reef, when she's attacked by a shark. While trying to elude the shark, she's then attacked by a rotted, living corpse on the ocean floor, whom she's able to escape, leaving the two of them to fight to the death. This seagoing zombie is indicative of what's happening on Matul, as a strange, possibly supernatural, illness is slowly killing people and causing them to resurrect as the living dead. British physician Dr. Menard, a colleague of Anne's father, is attempting to find a scientific explanation, but as more and more of his patients, as well as long dead Spanish Conquistadors, rise as flesh-eating zombies, it's obvious that he and the others, who become trapped on the island after their boat is damaged, are dealing with something that can't be explained and, very likely, can't be stopped.

When put into context, Zombie is a very significant film in Lucio Fulci's career, as it marks the exact moment he switched from being a prolific journeyman director to an Italian horror maestro. Ever since his directing career began in the late 50's, Fulci worked in almost every type of genre there is, with many of his credits throughout the 60's being various comedies, as well as the occasional musical and spaghetti western. Although he'd made some notable giallo films in the 70's, particularly A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, Don't Torture a Duckling, and The Psychic, his output throughout the decade was still quite diverse, including some sexual comedy films like The Eroticist and a pair of films based on the popular novel, White Fang. In fact, at the time, Zombie was just another job-for-hire for Fulci, and he was also the second choice after producer Fabrizio De Angelis' first turned him down. But once it became a surprise hit, the remainder of Fulci's career would consist almost exclusively of extremely gory horror films. Some would be better than others but it was clear that he'd finally found a successful niche for himself and, after staying fairly traditional and straightforward with Zombie, would go on to make the "living dead" subgenre his own with films like City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, and The House By the Cemetery.

Since these types of movies are all about the visuals, atmosphere, and gore, you rarely, if ever, have characters that are all that amazing or endearing, and the cast of Zombie is no exception. The four main characters have little to nothing to them, but I will say that I do kind of like Peter West (Ian McCulloch), as he brings some much appreciated sardonic wit to the proceedings, at least during the first act. When his boss first assigns him to the case of the abandoned ship in New York Harbor, he tells him, "Keep the British out of your prose, huh? Don't take advantage of the fact your uncle bought the paper," to which Peter responds with a cheesy smile and an innocent-feigning, "As if I would." That night, he meets up with Anne Bowles when she sneaks aboard her father's boat after it's been left moored at the port. After stopping her from screaming and alerting the policeman keeping watch, and admitting that he was tailing her, he suggests the two of them pool their information and see what they can come up with, which is when he shows her a letter he found from her father. When she makes a noise that alerts the cop, Peter comes up with a plan to get them out of there without being arrested: he has them act like a horny couple, with the cop finding them making out in the hold. They do a pretty good job of acting like they're really bickering when they get caught, with Peter saying it was Anne's idea to, "Have a romantic setting down by the water," adding, "She takes after her mother. They're both bananas!" Once the cop throws them off the boat, the two of them learn that the letter was sent by Anne's father from the island of Matul and decide to fly down there, with Peter talking his boss into fixing them with plane tickets, saying, "Thanks. You're beautiful," when he agrees. And upon arriving in the Antilles, Peter is able to use money to get a cab driver to take them down to the pier, where they meet up with Brian Hull and Susan Barrett. He's also able to talk them into taking him and Anne to Matul, but once they reach the island, he becomes little more than just another member of the ensemble. He initially scoffs at the idea of zombies but it doesn't take long for him to see them for himself. At one point, his ankle is badly injured when they crash a jeep while fleeing some zombies and he's forced to walk on it as they try to make it back to Dr. Menard's village hospital. In the end, he and Anne are the only ones who escape Matul alive, only to learn that the zombie plague has spread to New York.

While she may be a significant character in that it's her father's boat that comes sailing into New York Harbor with a zombie onboard, Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow) is probably the most forgettable of the cast. At the beginning, she proves to have a little bit of spunk and intelligence to her, as she's not satisfied with the police's story of what happened on her father's boat and sneaks aboard it late at night to search for clues. She also very nicely follows Peter West's lead when he comes up with a ruse to get them off the boat without being arrested and, according to him, after she reads the letter from her father, it's her idea to go to Matul. But, after that, Anne is nothing more than a bystander, often standing around with a goofy-looking, vacant expression on her face and having to be saved when she's menaced by zombies. During the climax, where she, Peter, and Brian Hull find themselves fending off a zombie siege in the hospital, the men do all the work while she does little more than hunker down behind them and supply them with Molotov cocktails to throw. And while she may be Mia Farrow's sister, I can safely say that Tisa got none of the talent, as her line delivery comes off as very forced and whiny, especially in the opening when she demands to know what happened to her father and when she's horrified at the thought of him having become a zombie. And as I've said, her facial expressions often look really silly.

You really have to feel sorry for Brian Hull (Al Cliver) and Susan Barrett (Auretta Gay), as they're just an innocent couple planning on cruising about the Antilles, when Peter and Anne come along and ask them to take them to Matul. Knowing all about Matul's sinister reputation, Brian is rather reluctant to take them, but when Susan insists, he relents, though he makes it clear they're going to drop them off when they get there. Unfortunately for them, one thing leads to another, with Susan going

scuba-diving (topless, mind you), getting attacked by a shark and then a zombie, and then, when they reach Matul, they find the boat was damaged when the shark slammed into it. With no other recourse, they shoot up some flares and are picked up and brought ashore by Dr. Menard. When he tells them what's been happening, Brian, despite Susan's description of what she saw when she was attacked by the shark, is just as incredulous about voodoo and zombies as Peter. He calls it, "Just plain superstitious horseshit," before going on to lay out its origins for the rest. But when they go to Menard's cottage to check up on his wife, they get more than enough convincing when they see zombies feeding on her corpse before getting attacked themselves. While fleeing the grisly scene in Menard's jeep, Brian hits a zombie in the road and then crashes the vehicle off in the jungle, forcing them to continue on foot. At one point, Peter has to rest his injured ankle, and Brian and Susan see what's up ahead. When they do, they find themselves in an ancient, Spanish Conquistador graveyard, and it isn't long before the long buried corpses rise from their graves and attack. One of them attacks Anne, prompting Brian to rush to her and Peter's aid, leaving Susan alone. That's when another zombie rises up and kills her by biting into her throat. Though they kill that zombie, it's too late to save Susan, with Brian being forced to leave her body in the jungle (honestly, try as he might, Cliver doesn't come off as broken up as he should). Following the last stand at Menard's hospital, the group attempts to flee, only to run into the now undead Susan. Brian is too taken aback at the sight of her to react, allowing her to bite him on the arm, though Peter puts her down for good. Though they manage to make it back to the boat, it's still damaged and can't go very fast. Even worse, Brian, as expected, succumbs to his injuries but, while he begs them to not allow him to become a zombie, they lock him up down below, as Peter says they need proof of what they've been through. That proves to be meaningless when they turn on the radio and hear what's now happening in New York.

Richard Johnson, who starred in the The Haunting, is both the best actor in the film and also has the best, most nuanced role in Dr. Menard. A physician and former colleague of Anne Bowles' father, Menard has been on Matul for some time, studying the bizarre and frightening phenomena of people dying and then returning as zombies. He's determined to find a natural, scientific explanation for it, and by this point, he's completely obsessed with his work, even as more and more of his patients at the small village hospital, as well as his colleagues, succumb to it, the village itself becomes a shambles, and his wife reaches her breaking point. Speaking of which, in his introductory scene, she confronts him about what's happening, how it's getting closer and closer to their side of the island, and that she wants to leave; in return, he acts all patronizing towards her and tries to downplay what's going on as simply her being hysterical. It comes to a head when she threatens to tell people what he's doing, that he's crazy and cruel, and he angrily smacks her. After that, he leaves her alone to go to the hospital, during which a zombie breaks into their cottage and kills her. When Peter, Anne, and the others arrive, Menard is the one who picks them up and tells them what's going on, as well as what happened to Anne's father, who caught the zombie plague and, according to Menard, decided to be a guinea pig for it. I say "according" because in the letter, Anne's father wrote, "They're taking care of me, as if were some sort of guinea pig," suggesting it was against his will. Also, when he inevitably died from it, Menard saw to it that he never became a zombie, as he shot him in the head just as he was rising back up, and sent the boat with the letter for Anne. However, Menard's recollection of his doing so, with him being very reluctant, doesn't match up with the opening, again suggesting that he may not be entirely truthful and that his wife may be on to something when she insinuates he's up to something nefarious. By the end of the movie, Menard's life has completely fallen apart, as he's told his wife is dead (he has no reaction to it and makes no comment, either), all of his patients have either died or become zombies, and he realizes how he's utterly failed to find an explanation for it all. Just as the siege on the hospital begins and they start barricading themselves, Menard falls victim to a reanimated friend, who rips his face open (oddly, he himself never reanimates afterward).

Menard's wife, Paola (Olga Karlatos), is already at her wits' end when she's first introduced and only becomes more angry and agitated when he tries to downplay just how much danger they're in, first in regards to his being unable to reach anyone on the radio and second with the increasing number of zombies. It doesn't help that she drinks heavily, to the point where she becomes so hysterical that she accuses Menard of breaking the radio in order to come up with a reason for them to remain on Matul so he can continue his research. She also flat out tells him that she hates him and threatens to expose his experiments to the outside, causing their fight to become physical when he slaps her. Even after that, she goes on to mock him, saying he's no better than any of the natives' witch doctors and that she doesn't care about his research at all, that she simply wants to leave. They part on a sour note when she says she no longer believes anything he says and he storms out of their cottage to drive into the hospital, leaving her to continue drowning her sorrows in booze. That night, after she gets out of the shower, a zombie enters the cottage and she dies in one of the film's most famous scenes, when her head is pulled towards a piece of splintered wood and her eye is slowly impaled.

Other noteworthy characters include Clara (Stefania D'Amario), the nurse who works closely with Dr. Menard and is very loyal to him, doing any sort of unpleasant task he asks, including shooting reanimated patients in the head and helping to bury them. While she doesn't have much to her, there is a significant scene between her and Menard where she's hesitant to refer to the reanimated corpses as zombies, as per her skepticism about voodoo, despite having seen them 

multiple times. Another is Lucas (Dakar), a villager who often helps out at the hospital with the more gruesome tasks, as well as warns Menard about the villagers who are leaving and heading inland to escape the growing zombie threat. Also, being a native, Lucas, obviously believes the zombies are a result of a voodoo curse, with his most notable line being when he tells Menard, "The father of my father always say, 'When the Earth spit out the dead, they will come back to suck the blood of the living," an obvious variation

of the quote from Dawn of the Dead, "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth." Both he and Clara end up dying during the final siege on the hospital, with Lucas being bitten and promptly becoming a zombie, then killing Clara himself. And finally, Lucio Fulci himself appears here as Peter Hunt's boss (he's dubbed with a hilariously bad New Yorker accent).

As his first real horror film, Zombie differs from Fulci's later work in several ways. One is that, as with many of his past films, it was a job-for-hire, and one where the screenplay was already set when he came aboard, so he wasn't able to have a hand in the writing process, as he had with many of the movies he'd made before. Starting with City of the Living Dead, he would often be involved in the films' very development and contribute to the writing, creating a style and feel that was uniquely his own, particularly with his "Gates of Hell"

trilogy: City, The Beyond, and The House by the Cemetery. Also, as a director-for-hire, there were things he didn't have control over, such as the shark scene, which was shot completely without him, and the movie being released in Italy as Zombi 2 (he said he was happy that the title was changed in other countries). His post-Zombie movies, for any of their individual faults and production issues, can more or less be described as purely his work. And finally, as such, they would become much more 

abstract and non-linear. Like Dario Argento, Fulci's emphasis would be on the visuals rather than the plot, leading to narratives and characters that tend not to make any logical sense. Zombie has some of the feeling of his later work, such as the distant feeling you have with the characters because of how underdeveloped they are and the sometimes lackluster acting, but the story and narrative are done in a much more traditional, straightforward manner.

As with most of his films, Zombie is well directed by Fulci and nicely shot by his frequent cinematographer, Sergio Salvati; you really need to watch it in high-definition (I personally recommend Blue Underground and Arrow Video's Blu-Ray releases) to get the most out of it. However, it stands in stark contrast to most horror films, as it's a visually bright and lush movie, owing to how much of it takes place during the day, with only a few key scenes, like Paola's death and the climax, taking place at night. Also, the

main setting is in the tropics, with thick, green jungles and almost constant bright sunshine, which aren't exactly elements you typically associate with horror. But Fulci makes it work, one by making it clear just how isolated everyone is on Matul, with Dr. Menard unable to reach anybody on his radio, the main characters becoming stranded due to their boat being damaged, and the idea that more and more zombies are appearing and inching their way closer to Menard's cottage and the village. Another

is through the atmosphere of growing dread and hopelessness he creates, as you see how things are getting worse and worse, with more of Menard's patients and friends dying off from the zombie plague, to the point where they're waiting for those who they know are doomed to die in order to fill up the mass graves they've dug (the sight of so many wrapped bodies with bloody bullet-holes in their heads is really disconcerting), and the village becoming a desolate ghost town due to all the

deaths and the villagers heading inland to escape. And then, there's the fear of the unknown over how nobody really knows what's causing the dead to rise, with suggestions that it's a voodoo curse or that, as Lucas says, the Earth is literally expelling them from its bowels, while Menard is frustrated and flabbergasted that he cannot find one single, rational explanation for it.

Besides its overall look, Fulci and Salvati bring a mostly subdued but still effective and well-done visual flair to the film's cinematography, with the shots of the boat in New York Harbor during the opening achieved through a series of impressive helicopter and handheld shots from the shore and the boat's deck, and with the closing shot in the city shot in a similarly wide, expansive manner. Also, despite how Fulci had nothing to do with it, the underwater sequence between the shark and the zombie is also shot very well and is impressively

put together and orchestrated, with the actor playing the zombie not looking like he has an oxygen tank hidden anywhere or like he's chained to the seafloor. In terms of using the cinematography in the actual filmmaking, Fulci has the movie open in a mysterious manner, as you first see a close-up of a dimly lit gun-barrel being pointed at the screen, followed by a shot of a shrouded, bound body rising up, only to get shot in the head. You then see a silhouette of Dr. Menard

as he puts the gun away and says to someone offscreen, "The boat can leave now. Tell the crew." Later in the film, you learn that this was the moment when Menard stopped Anne's father from becoming a zombie, but it starts things off on a note that has you wondering what it was you just saw and how it relates to the story you're about to see.

Fulci is also able to create some impressive lighting and shadow-play in the nighttime scene in the ship's hold early on, with the overhead lights swinging back and forth, and when Paola is stalked by the zombie before she's killed. Speaking of the zombies, when we first get to Matul, Fulci wisely holds off on showing them in all their glory for a bit. Instead, he relies mainly on creepy, lurking POV shots in the edges of the jungle, accompanied by the sounds of heavy breathing, or other such suggestions of their presence, like a distant shot of

a lone, shambling figure wandering the streets of the otherwise empty village (it may seem pointless after the scene on the boat and the shark scene, but it's still effective). When Paola is killed, you don't even get a look at the zombie that attacks her, save for a bit of his shadow and a closeup of his hand as he tries to force his way into the bathroom and then grabs her hand and pulls her through. In shooting the eye-gouging, Fulci makes sure to cover that in every way possible: a close-up of the splintered wood's approaching pointed tip from Paola's POV,

a wide shot of her head being dragged towards it, a reverse shot of it, an extreme close-up of her eye approaching the point, and so on. And speaking of POVs (I'm just setting up segue after segue, aren't I?), when the zombie Conquistadors rise from their graves near the end of the movie, you see some very well-done point-of-view shots of the dirt slowly falling off the camera, revealing the sunlight and trees above. The rise of the iconic zombie on the poster is done through POVs as well, with the camera acting as his eyes as he looks

down at Susan when he stands up, before cutting to her own POV as she looks up at him. Not all of the camerawork in the film is really great, though, as there are a few too many instances where it zooms in on people's faces as they stare straight ahead or off-camera (something you see a lot in Fulci's films and many Italian movies; thankfully, it's not as egregious as in a Jess Franco movie) but, for the most part, this is a skillfully-made flick.

While there was studio work done in the Province of Latina in Italy, a fair amount of the film was shot on location, most obviously in New York, with a lot of material in the harbor, on the Brooklyn Bridge for the ending scene, and in an actual office for the interiors of the newspaper where Peter works. The inside of the cabin on the boat was probably a set, but I'm not so sure about the morgue, where you see the police officer who was killed by the zombie beginning to come back to life. That could be a set, but I've seen bigger-

budgeted, Hollywood movies that have shot in actual morgues, so you never know (and if that is the case, I'm terrified that the specimens in jars seen at the start of the scene, which include an aborted fetus and a set of lungs, were real). They also actually shot out on the lovely Atlantic Ocean around the Dominican Republic, while the shark scene was shot around the nice coral reefs at Isla Mujeres, Mexico. 

Santo Domingo served as both the location for the marina where Peter and Anne first meet Brian and Susan, and for Matul itself. I absolutely love tropical settings in movies and this place is no exception, with its white sandy beaches, beautiful palms, and lush jungles, although in this case, while it's lovely from the outside, once you get onto the island, you realize that's just a veneer for an atmosphere of impending doom and horror. You need look no farther than the village and Dr. Menard's hospital to see the grim reality. The

hospital is actually an old, rundown church, with the back being Menard's office and laboratory, with his medical books, test tubes, microscope, and other equipment, while most of the building acts as a large sick room filled with the dead and the dying. It's absolutely nightmarish and disgusting to look at, as people are literally tied to cots, with all sorts of bloody wounds on their bodies and IVs attached to them that you know are doing nothing to help, the place itself is a total ramshackle that's falling apart, and you can almost smell the sickness

and death with all the buzzing flies, the close-ups of people deteriorating from the disease, and the hot, humid weather, which the pathetic ceiling fan in there is likely doing little to alleviate. Outside in the village is no better, as it's been abandoned by everyone to escape the threat of the zombies. There are shots of it where it looks like a ghost town, with the houses in disrepair, all sorts of debris littering the dirt streets, livestock roaming about, and an almost constant wind kicking up the sand. 

At one point, Clara finds Menard drowning his sorrows in a bay near the village full of abandoned and, in some cases, capsized boats. The lush jungles of the island interior prove to be no sanctuary as, besides the zombies, the sound of drums and chanting can be heard nearby, making it seem as though they're casting spells on the group as they make their way through. Even a seemingly innocent clearing turns out to be an old Conquistador graveyard, which is soon full of the undead rising from the earth. The most comfortable place on the island is Menard's small but lovely cottage up on a hill, although that's no haven, either, given what happens to Paola.

What makes Zombie stand out amongst the hundreds of other zombie movies out there is how its depiction of the undead is an interesting combination of the traditional voodoo zombies and the flesh-eating ones made popular by George Romero. In fact, the original screenplay by Dardano Sacchetti (who'd previously worked with Fulci and would go on to work with him on many other films) was intended to be more in the vein of films like I Walked with a Zombie and Voodoo Island, but then, producer Fabrizio De Angelis

bought it and had Elisa Briganti rework it to be more akin to Dawn of the Dead (Sacchetti is not credited at all on the final film, although he's said it was because his father died during pre-production and, at the time, he thought it was in bad taste to have his name associated with a film about the undead). Still, the voodoo elements from that initial script are here, albeit in a rudimentary fashion, with the main setting being a tropical island in the Caribbean and the talk of the zombies being the work of a voodoo curse, possibly placed

upon Matul by a witch-doctor. The zombies themselves act differently than what you typically get with the Romero-style zombies, in that, instead of walking around with their arms stretched out and constantly clawing at their intended prey, they shamble around with their heads usually held down and their arms at their sides, only reaching for their victims when they get close enough. Also, with few exceptions, they always have their eyes closed (that is, if they have eyes at all), and except for

some deep, ragged breathing and occasional moans, they make very little noise, both of which I find to be really eerie. I've heard that these attributes are often associated with traditional voodoo zombies but, at the same time, these undead are akin to the contemporary kind in that they eat human flesh, can be put down for good by a shot or blow to the head, and getting bitten by one guarantees that you'll die and become one yourself.

I really like the way the zombies are designed, as they look both creepy and nasty. You can tell that many of them have been dead for a while, as they often look rotted and caked with mud, dirt, and grime, while others who are more fresh having nauseatingly pale flesh, typically with ugly, bloody wounds. The centuries-old Conquistador zombies are especially gross, as they're so badly decomposed, with their heads almost looking like skulls, their eyes having rotted out, and worms often wriggling in their sockets or mouths (ugh).

Speaking of which, there are some standouts among the hordes, like the big heavyset one (Arthur Haggerty) on the boat at the beginning; the underwater one (Ramon Bravo) who fights the shark (that guy amazes me, as he was not only the shark's trainer but, again, looks like he was down there with no scuba equipment and he keeps his eyes open, in spite of the stinging saltwater); the one zombie you see wandering the village, who's a perfect example of how creepy these things are in the way they look and act; and, most memorably of

all, the zombie Conquistador (Ottaviano Dell'Acqua) with the worms in his one eye socket who kills Susan. Also just as unsettling to look at are those infected with and slowly dying from the zombie plague, as they're often badly sweating, with bloody wounds and mucus oozing from their orifices, moaning in pain, and are tied to their cots, usually with blood around their feet, suggesting they've either struggled to get free or they've

developed nasty sores from being stuck there for so long. The terrible conditions of Menard's hospital make it all the more skin-crawling, and the victims being wrapped up in white shrouds before they reanimate and then buried like that after they've been killed for good is disturbingly dehumanizing to me.

If you like your zombie movies with a lot of gore (and who doesn't?), makeup effects artist Giannetto De Rossi has you covered here, coming up with a number of grisly images and deaths that rival Tom Savini's work in the Romero films. Whenever the zombies claw or bite into someone, they rip big chunks of flesh out of large, bleeding holes, particularly when the cop at the beginning and Susan get their throats ripped out, with flesh tearing off in long strips and blood gushing everywhere. While the actual fake head and eye

they use for Paola's death doesn't look that great in high-definition close-up, the long buildup to her eye being slowly impaled, its being ripped sideways out of the socket, and the shot of it sticking in her eye, done through an appliance on Olga Karlatos' actual face, as well as just the idea of it, more than makes up for it. But as hideous as her death is, I think the aftermath, where you see the zombies feeding on her mutilated corpse, biting

flesh off the stump of her leg and pulling innards out of her gut, is all the more stomach-churning. And the zombies' own deaths consist of plenty of blood-spewing shots and whacks to the head, with the highlight being when Peter smashes open the head of the one who kills Susan, as well as instances of their being set on fire and having their body parts fall off.

After the opening credits, the film truly opens with a great scene where a boat drifts into New York Harbor, with no one at the helm, the wheel instead creaking back and forth by itself, and the deck in much disarray, with cans, rubbish, and other objects rolling about it. The boat passes by the Statue of Liberty and is nearly hit by a ferry. A harbor patrol helicopter flies by and radios it in, after which a patrol boat is dispatched. When they get close enough, one of the two officers onboard

attempts to get the attention of any possible crew with his bullhorn, but there's no response. The sergeant takes a look through his binoculars and, seeing no signs of life, they decide to check it out themselves, eager for the bonus they could get for towing it in. They have their pilot get alongside the it and, using a hook and rope, manage to secure themselves and climb aboard. While the one officer checks the deck, the sergeant looks down below in the cabin and finds it in a nasty state, with rotting

food on a table, clothes and linen tossed about, and what appear to be signs of a struggle. The sail suddenly collapses on him when he stands up in the opening to the hold and, as he fusses with it, he tells the officer to go down below and look around, while he fixes it. Upon trading places, the officer walks down into the cabin and, like the sergeant, is taken aback by what he finds down there, which also includes some nasty, centipede-like creatures flailing about. Looking around the cabin a little more, he pulls back a sheet and is horrified when a

a severed hand falls to the floor. Suddenly, a zombie smashes his way through a door and attacks the officer, pinning him to the floor. The officer fights with him, but only manages to rip some rotted flesh off his arm before he bites into his throat and tears it open. The zombie then climbs up onto the deck, where the sergeant has heard the officer's pained scream. He pulls his gun and orders him to stop, but the zombie walks towards him. Naturally, he ignores further orders to halt and stay away, leading the sergeant to open fire and blast various holes in him. The zombie is unaffected by this and merely falls over the side and into the water.

The movie slows down for a long while, as the characters of Peter West and Anne Bowles are introduced and, very quickly, meet up while searching the abandoned boat after it's been moored. In the midst of this is a scene at the morgue where two men examine the body of the officer, and the medical examiner theorizes that the large gash in his throat was a bite rather than a laceration, as the mortician felt. However, when the doctor points out the clues to this, the mortician

doesn't see it, much to his annoyance. As they prepare to perform the autopsy, the camera pans over to the corpse's face and down across the body, where the hand is revealed to be moving beneath the sheet. Following that, Peter and Anne fly down to the Antilles, meet up with Brian Hull and Susan Barrett, and get them to agree to take them to Matul. Meanwhile, on the island, we meet Dr. Menard and see his very tense confrontation with his wife, ending with him slapping her across the face and storming out. He tells his manservant,

Miguel, to make sure no one goes near the house and makes his way to the hospital. At that very moment, the group heads out of the cantina and onto the ocean, with a fisherman on the pier watching and, apparently knowing where they're going, crossing himself. Menard is shown in his lab, looking in a microscope, then taking a sample of his own blood and adding it to the culture he was examining. He looks back through to observe the result, although we don't get to see what it is.

The next major scene comes when, en route to Matul, Susan asks to stop for a while, as she wants to take some photographs of the ocean floor below. Brian stops the boat and she proceeds to remove her thin blouse, revealing that she's wearing nothing but a string bikini bottom underneath, and then puts on some scuba gear, including oxygen tanks, a respirator, and a mask, as well as grabs her underwater camera. She dips over the side and into the water, diving down towards the bottom and

taking pictures of the coral reef and all the colorful fish. Up above, Anne spots an island in the distance which Peter figures might be Matul, which they've been having trouble locating. Back down below, Susan gets the unwanted attention of a bull-shark. She swims away from it and hides up against a ridge of the coral reef, watching it swim towards her. It stays above her rather than coming down at her, and once it's passed over, she swims for the surface. She pops her head out of the water

and warns the others about the shark, before ducking back down as it comes at her again. Brian grabs a rifle and takes some shots at the shark, which turns its attention to the boat. It swims at the boat at full speed and slams into its side, knocking everyone off their feet. It then goes back down below to continue its pursuit of Susan, who swims down and hides behind a section of the reef. As she floats down there, a hand reaches out and touches her shoulder from behind. Turning around, she sees a seagoing zombie, who immediately attacks,

clawing at her. The two of them struggle for a bit, until Susan rips an abrasive plant off the coral reef and scratches the zombie's face with it. He lets go of her and she's able to swim back to the surface, while the shark comes in and tangles with him. The zombie grabs onto the shark and, as it struggles to get away, rips off a chunk of flesh and chomps on it. Despite this, the shark comes back around for another pass and the zombie, after swimming away from it for a bit, lunges at it and grabs onto it again. The two of them struggle as they swim up near the

surface, with the shark getting back at the zombie by chomping down on his left hand and ripping it off. Meanwhile, Susan has made it back on the boat and tells the others that she saw a man down there, much to their disbelief.

That night, on Matul, Miguel is keeping watch with his dog at Menard's cottage... until the two of them sense the presence of a zombie lurking nearby and run off like cowards. Inside, Paola is taking a shower, unaware that she's being watched through the window, as a zombie reaches out and rubs his fingers against the glass. Finishing her shower, Paola walks out into the bedroom, grabs a bottle of pills from off the nightstand, goes into the living room, puts on a blouse, and, sitting in front of a

mirror, takes one of the pills. She hears something outside and creeps to the front door, hearing what sounds like someone stalking around out there. When the sound stops, she breathes a sigh of relief and walks back into the living room, only to hear another frightening noise from nearby. She heads back into the bedroom and tries to close the door behind her, only to find it won't close all the way. She struggles with it, trying to force it shut, and it then becomes clear what's happening: a zombie is

on the other side, trying to force his way in. He proves to be much stronger than expected, as he's able to push back and open the door to where a lot of light pours in on the wall next to it. Paola, however, pushes back, mashing the zombie's fingers in the door and slamming them to try to force him to give up. After his fingers are mashed to the point where they're bleeding, he pulls his hand out and she's able to completely close the door and lock it. But just when she thinks she can relax, the zombie starts smashing his way through

the door's wooden slats. She attempts to block him by pushing her nightstand up against the door and she gets it up to where it doesn't seem like he'd able to get around it. That's when he smashes his hand all the way through, grabs her by the hair, and slowly pulls her towards the smashed door, impaling her eye on a long splinter and ripping it off sideways through her eye-socket, to where a big chunk of the wood is sticking out when she's pulled all the way through.

The next day, as the main group approaches Matul, Clara the nurse tells Menard that something has happen to Father Matthias, though she stops short of saying he's become a zombie. Regardless, Menard goes to the hospital to see if he can help. Following a short moment where Brian and Susan dive down to discover the boat was damaged by the shark, and Brian says they can either go ashore or fire some flares and hope that they're rescued, Menard is forced to shoot Matthias after he dies and begins to resurrect. While Brian fires flares up

into the sky, Menard and Clara take Matthias' wrapped body out to be buried. There, Lucas tells Menard that he's seen the flares and he goes to investigate, leaving Clara and Lucas behind to bury Matthias in a hole full of other wrapped bodies. Inside the hospital, a deathly ill woman raves about having seen a deceased loved one walking around, after which the film cuts to show a distant, lone figure shambling about the village streets. By this point, Menard has helped the others ashore and drives them to the village in his jeep. On the way,

he tells Anne how he meet her father, how he caught the zombie plague, and about the day he died. A flashback shows that, on his deathbed, Anne's father told Menard to see that his letter for her made it to her and that he would have peace after death. When he finally died, Menard watched over him until he began to rise, which is when he shot him in the head, though he had to really steel himself in order to go through with it (at least, according to this recollection of his, as I've said.)

The flashback ends with Menard telling Clara that the boat could leave, revealing it to be what was seen at the very beginning of the movie. They then drive through the village and arrive at the hospital, where Lucas comes running out and tells Menard that something has happened to Fritz, another assistant of his. Sending Lucas back inside, Menard tells the others that Fritz merely had an "accident," then asks them to go check on his wife, giving directions to their cottage. While they do so,

he speaks with Fritz, who's bedridden, with his left arm bandaged. To Menard's horror, he tells him that he was attacked by a zombie... in the village. He then has Clara tell Lucas to lock all the doors, as a zombie is shown to be wandering the village.

After driving for a bit, the others find the cottage. Parking the jeep and getting out, they head to the front door. Brian knocks a couple of times and calls for Paola, but doesn't get an answer. Peter opts to go inside and see for themselves, but they don't get very far through the door before they're stopped by the hideous sight of zombies feasting on Paola's massacred corpse. One bites at the stump of her right leg, another pulls out a handful of innards and eats them, another takes a chunk of flesh out of the end of her severed hand and eats it, and fourth is

munching on something else in the corner. Horrified to the point of almost getting sick, they try to run for it, only to come face to face with two more zombies at the door. As they shamble towards them, Peter and Brian manage to fight them off and clear the path to the door. They rush back out to the jeep, with Brian taking the wheel, and fly back down the driveway. They try to find their way back to the hospital, where Menard is forced to put down Fritz after he expires. While driving down the path through the jungle, the

group bounce a zombie that wanders in front of them off their bumper. The impact causes Brian to lose control and veer off the path, driving through brush and slamming into the trunk of a tree. Once they've stopped, Brian gets out and pops the hood, only to find that the radiator's shot. It turns out the same can be said of Peter's ankle, and now, they have to walk in order to make it to the hospital before dark. They make their way through the jungle, hearing the sound of drums and people chanting nearby. Regardless, they head on, while at the hospital, yet another of Menard's patients has died.

Coming to a clearing, Peter tells the others that he needs to stop and rest for a bit. Anne stays with him, while Brian and Susan opt to go on ahead and see what they can. But, they only walk a few feet, into another part of the clearing, when Brian stops and picks up an old helmet he says must be 400 years old. As he inspects it, Susan looks to her right and sees an old tombstone, and then both she and Brian spot an old gravestone on the ground behind him, as well as another tombstone. Brian theorizes it's a cemetery where many Spanish

Conquistadors are buried. Back with Peter and Anne, the two of them are lying down on the ground next each other, when Anne breaks down, frightened that they're not going to make it off the island alive. Peter kisses her to try to calm her, when a zombie begins rising from the earth behind them. Its hand breaks through the dirt and grabs Anne by her hair. Just as Peter realizes what's happening, another zombie hand breaks through near his feet and happens to grab his injured ankle. The zombies pull at each of them, and Brian,

hearing their cries, rushes to help, leaving Susan alone. That's when a zombie Conquistador slowly rises up across from her and, once he's standing completely erect and towering over her, lunges for her. He bites into her neck and rips open her jugular, sending blood pouring out of her neck as she collapses to the ground, screaming and gurgling at the same time. The others rush to the spot and Brian, seeing what's happened, fires some shots into the zombie's back. This only catches his

attention, as he turns around and slowly starts towards them. Peter then grabs a cross-shaped grave-marker, knocks the zombie to the ground with it, and smashes his head open, spilling his brains all over the ground. Brian walks over to Susan's bloody body and cradles her in his arms. He's reluctant to leave her behind, but both Peter and Anne tell him there's nothing he can do for her and that they need to make it back to the hospital before dark. He joins them as they head off into the jungle, but once they leave the spot, more zombies begin rising from their graves. At the same time, others are shambling their way through the village.

Come nightfall, the trio reaches the edge of the jungle, when Peter collapses to the ground. Saying he can't go any further, he implores them to leave him, as zombies slowly advance from the depths of the jungle behind them. Anne and Brian, however, help him to his feet and put his weight on them. They then spot Menard's hospital straight up ahead and head for the front door. Inside, Menard finds that his last remaining patient is dying, when he hears Peter, Anne, and Brian pounding on the door outside, yelling for help. He rushes to the door and

lets them in, as the zombies converge on the church. He then bolts the door again, as Peter tells him, "Out there! They're coming back to life! They're everywhere!" The zombies head for the church (one of them is a woman who's cross-eyed, which is the biggest fail with the zombies, as she looks so dumb), while those inside try to prepare for what's coming. Brian reinforce the entrances and windows, using various objects as barricades, while Menard tends to Peter's injured ankle and Clara provides Anne with some coffee. When

pressed about what the zombies are, Menard admits he doesn't know and tells them how it all started three months before; unbeknownst to them, the small army of the undead is advancing on the hospital. Menard goes on, "As a man of science, I don't believe in voodooism, but the phenomenon defies logical explanation. I've attempted to apply the disciplines of bacteriology, virology, even of radiology. We've performed tests: epilepsy, and for catalepsy. Nothing fits!" The zombies begin

ramming into the door from outside, shuttering both the inside of it and the barricade Brian has against it. Menard gives Peter a handgun and goes to fetch another in his office. He also points out where there are two drums of kerosene to Brian and he goes for them, closing a hatch on a window as he does. Other zombies start marching around the side of the building, while Peter and Anne close and latch the window above where they're sitting. Menard closes one in his office, while Brian has

Clara help him find some empty bottles. Peter sees a zombie attempting to crawl through an open window but he limps over, smashes him in the face with a shovel, and then whacks his skull open. He pushes him back out and closes the window. Brian, Clara, and Lucas prepare some Molotov cocktails in the next room, while Menard grabs a shotgun in his office and loads it with shells.

Just as he's ready for battle, Fritz resurrects, lunges at him, and bites off a chunk of flesh on his left cheek (yeah, I thought he'd shot him in the head before, yet he still became a zombie). Brian hears him cry out and goes back to see what happened, as he collapses to the floor and dies. When he walks in, Brian sees Fritz eating more of Menard, when he stands up and faces him. Brian fires at him with his rifle, but hits him in the torso. He shoots again, this time getting him in the head and putting him down (hopefully, it sticks this time).

Brian then inspects Menard (though, anyone with a brain can see he's dead), while in the room where Lucas and Clara are preparing the Molotovs, the patient who died earlier slowly rises up behind them. Neither of them notice until he bites Lucas on the arm and rips much of the flesh off. Lucas backs away, yelling in pain, and slumps against the wall, collapsing to the floor as he dies. The zombie, along with another reanimated patient, advances on Clara next. She backs up against the wall and, instead of running, just yells helplessly. Brian,

hearing her, grabs Menard's gun and goes to run back, when he spots another zombie coming through a window. It takes two shoots but Brian puts him down, blasting his head away, along with much of the hatch. He runs in and quickly blasts both of the zombies to the floor. He then grabs some of the Molotovs and tells Clara to do the same. But when she goes to do so, Lucas resurrects and bites into her neck. The zombies outside are starting to break through the front door and its

barricade, with Peter, Anne, and Brian putting up a small blockade of their own right in the middle of the room. Brian sends Anne to get some more bottles, when she runs into the undead Lucas. Hearing her yell, Peter whips around with a handgun and, after missing twice, manages to hit him in the noggin and drop him.

The front door and the barricade finally give way and the zombies shamble through the doorway. Brian and Peter, in turn, start hurling Molotovs at them, hitting them with four in a row (although, each time they toss one, the corridor to the door isn't on fire like it should be), and setting them ablaze. Despite this, they keep coming, and the men fire on them, with Brian also having to take down one creeping through a window on his left. It turns out Brian didn't shoot him well enough, so Peter has to take care of him when he sees him

slowly rising back up after falling in. They manage to put down a number of them with their guns, and when Anne hands them some more Molotovs, they set more ablaze. They keep this up for a little bit, until they run out of Molotovs. Naturally, the building itself is now on fire, with one zombie getting buried beneath the burning debris. The group heads out the back way, continuing to fire on the zombies, who keep shambling through the building at them. They duck into Menard's office and close the door, only to see more zombies

behind them. Peter and Brian manage to smash their faces in, allowing them to run outside, only to run into more zombies. Being out in the open air makes it easier to get by them while shooting and bludgeoning some that get too close. But just when it seems like they've got it made, Brian comes across a now undead Susan. The sight of her so shocks him that it gives her the chance to lunge forward and bite into his left arm. Falling back against a tree, clutching at his arm, and yelling in

pain, Brian yells for Peter to kill Susan, which he does, although he also hesitates for a bit before doing so as well. He and Anne take Brian and start making their way through the jungle to reach the boat, when they turn back to see the fire spread throughout the building and totally engulf it in flames.

By morning, they've made it to the boat and are shoving off, but slowly. Brian talks about heading to St. Christopher in order to repair the damaged vessel, when he suddenly slumps over in his seat in front of the wheel. They sit him back up and he talks about feeling cold. Realizing he's dying, he says he doesn't want to become a zombie and asks Peter to save him. They take him down below and Anne watches over him. He babbles something about Susan, before expiring after a long, pained moan. Anne goes back up to the deck and tells

Peter that he's gone. Peter says they must lock him up in the bilge and take him back to the U.S. as proof of what they've gone through, as well as to see if someone can figure out what's behind the phenomenon. He has Anne take the wheel and turns on the radio to see if they can lighten things up, only to hear a news report that zombies have completely infested New York. As the two of them exchange horrified glances at this news, it's revealed that Brian has, indeed, become one and is

attempting to escape the bilge. The door handle jiggles violently from the other side, as his deep breathing and moaning can be heard. The last shot is of the Brooklyn Bridge, as hordes of zombies shamble up it, while the news report ends with the anchor reporting that the news-station has been broken into and the zombies are at his door, after which he lets out a scream. (Note how, despite the supposedly apocalyptic scene, traffic down below is flowing in and out of the city like normal. Lucio Fulci didn't have the budget necessary to stop traffic but he could've at least put up something to block the view of it.)

Composer Fabio Frizzi had worked with Fulci before, mostly on his spaghetti westerns, and would continue working with him for much of the rest of his career, scoring some of his most significant post-Zombie films. As for his score for Zombie itself, it's probably the most memorable one for any of Fulci's horror films. The main theme, which you hear quite a few times, is downright iconic, with its constant electronic beat and memorable, swirling melody that manages to be eerie, creepy, and yet, at the same time, kind of sad and tragic, perhaps alluding to what all these innocent people have become and the effect it's having on their loved ones. In stark contrast to that and some of the frightening music and sounds heard during the first act (such as some really unsettling electronic sounds heard onboard the boat), when Peter and Anne first arrive in the Antilles, we're treated to some nice, Calypso-style music, and when Susan goes scuba-diving, there's a magical-sounding theme that alludes to how wondrous it is down there, with no allusions at all to what's about to happen with the shark and the underwater zombie. On Matul, however, the soundtrack is often made up of ominous tribal sounds and drums, never letting you forget about the pall of voodoo that hangs over the island, as well as the possible but not entirely concrete origins of the zombies. Sometimes, when a zombie is rising from its grave or is about to attack, there's a theme akin to a mixture of tribal sounds and electronics, and there's a similar piece that's a full-on action theme. For the scene where Paola's eye is gouged out, Frizzi came up with an electronic, rhythmic piece that he actually based on, of all things, the Beatles song, A Day in the Life! As odd as that sounds, it adds to the tension, with the music building and building as her eye is pulled closer to the splinter. And finally, there are some brief instances of emotional music, such as one used for the flashback of Menard shooting Anne's father.

While not a perfect film, or even Lucio Fulci's best, by any means, Zombie is still very entertaining and well-made. It's well-shot and directed, has a great setting that allows the story to hearken back to the old voodoo zombies while, at the same time, keeping the contemporary, flesh-eating version of them, there's gore and gruesome imagery-a-plenty, the music score is awesome, and there are plenty of exciting and suspenseful scenes and setpieces. However, after a great opening, it does take a while for the movie to reach Matul and truly get going, and the characters and acting aren't exactly the greatest, although Ian McCulloch and Richard Johnson do manage to bring up a little with their caliber. I recommend it for any fans of zombie flicks or Italian horror, but I'd advise you to temper expectations and not go in expecting one of the greatest of all time.