‘Zombi 2’ is gory fun

In the enthusiastic spirit for the current zombie craze, I recently revisited a Lucio Fulci classic from 1980.

The first thing to get out of the way is the title. George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (which itself is a sequel to Night of the Living Dead) was released in Italy under the title, Zombi (Italian for zombie, I’m assuming). To cash in on Dawn’s success, Fulci’s film was morphed into an unofficial sequel to Romero’s film. Thus, it was named Zombi 2 in Italy.

In the United States, the film is widely known as simply, Zombie. So, yes, this is the strange occurrence where a movie is known as both Zombie and Zombi 2.

Enough exposition and more brains-eating.

Zombi 2 is actually a well-made horror flick. It’s definitely better than most Eurotrash films, and yet it still has a few wooden moments. Fulci, who pretty much owned the giallo movement for quite a few years, knew that atmosphere was key. So, from the opening credits to the final eerie scenes by the Brooklyn Bridge, Zombi 2 is enlivened with an uneasy dread that seeps in through the music and gory visuals.

There are many memorable sequences in the 91-minute film, perhaps none more than the zombie-vs.-shark scene and the eyeball-into-a-splinter death. The shark scene is unbelievable, even some 30 years after the movie’s original release. How Fulci was able to film an actual shark going head-to-head with a swimming zombie is beyond me. This is not the age of CGI; this is an actor and a shark and some blood.

The splinter scene is gut-wrenchingly difficult to sit through. It’s an impressive feat of special effects, but the deafening music and varied close-ups spoil any of the dramatic effect. It comes off as a cheap gore gag (albeit a well-executed one).

The story of Zombi 2 is paint-by-numbers: A journalist and the daughter of a scientist team up in New York City after seeing the carnage left by a zombie on a wayward yacht. Their mission is to head to the Caribbean and find the daughter’s father, in order to see what experiments this scientist is actually conducting in the jungles. What they find is a bloody rampage of corpses come back to life.

Tisa Farrow, Richard Johnson and Ian McCulloch play the leads, and thankfully they are good actors. Too often these European horror films struggle to resonate due to bad acting. But luckily that is not the case with Zombi 2.

The actual zombies are impressive; kudos to the make-up, special effects and production teams. There are actual scenes where it looks like decayed corpses are coming back to life.

One can easily pick apart Zombi 2, and, in some ways, it deserves such scrutiny. One particular plot development still baffles me: How did the scientist’s yacht make it all the way to New York City’s harbor with no captain at the helm?

Anyway.

It’s better to come at Zombi 2 with a mind ready to be scared and grossed out. Just try to enjoy yourself in all the campy, gory fun. There are plenty of brains to go around.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Zombi 2 (aka Zombie)

• Directed by Lucio Fulci

• Written by Elisa Briganti and Dardano Sacchetti

• Starring Ian McCulloch, Tisa Farrow and Richard Johnson

• Running time: 91 minutes

• Rated R for horror violence/gore and nudity

• Bubble score: 2.5 out of 4
  

• Click here to purchase Zombi 2 on DVD.