Zombie (Aka: Zombi 2) (1979): Review

After her Fathers boat is found mysteriously abandoned in the Staten Island harbor, daughter Anne Bowles sets out, with reported Peter West, in search of answers, to the Caribbean-island of "Matul." It is there that her father was last heard of. What they discover is an island overrun with the undead. They soon fine themselves in a war of survival, trying desperately to escape the island so that they may return home.

As the film opens, we are witness to a body wrapped in cloth, slowly rising from a table, it is then shot in the head. It is obvious that this is a reanimated corpse. A boat is then found adrift by two men of the coastguard, upon arriving onboard one is viciously murdered by a bloated corpse found on board. After this, the daughter of the boats owner teams up with a reported and off to the island of Matul they go in search of answers.

I remember when I first saw this film in the video store. It was in one of those over-sized VHS boxes that dominated the shelf. On the cover was an overly-decayed zombie with an eye-socket full of maggots, this immediately grabbed my attention. Upon first viewing, I wasn't that impressed with the film. It wasn't until I rediscovered this film, many years later, on DVD that I was able to truly appreciate it.

There are several great scenes in this film. You see a zombie rip out a mans throat - exposing the blood squirting jugular, an underwater shark & zombie encounter, the infamous eye gouging scene, zombies taking over the city, and much more! It's definitely not a film for everyone, apparently, as it has very mixed reviews. In my opinion, even though It's a very-dated classic, it's still a good film, it just took some time for it to grow on me.

The special effects are obviously dated, but still pretty good for their time. The color of the blood used isn't as fake looking as the blood used in Romero's original, "Dawn of the Dead," but it still lacks realistic ness The voice dubbing isn't all that great. It's apparent that some speak English very well, while others barely speak it at all, and are totally dubbed. I have yet to see any of the other films in this franchise, but this film isn't so bad. If you like classic zombie films, then this is just that, so you may want to give it a viewing if you haven't already, but keep in mind that Fulci's films sometimes tend to be an acquired taste.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

3 comments:

  1. The eye gouge, the shark vs zombie moment, and that chilling moment at film's end when the zombie's are crossing the Brooklyn Bridge - those three scenes make this film worthwhile.

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  2. Aside from Shark vs Zombie and Eye gouge, the scene that sticks out in my mind is conquistadore zombie (I made up a Top 5 Scenes in Zombie list a while back)

    Conquistadore zombie is the zombie on the cover of the box...he's like buried 2 feet deep and it takes him like 20 min to tear open that brunette girls neck.

    Awesome scene

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  3. The first time I saw this one I thought it was so ridiculous, but after the second, third, and sixth viewings i was totally hooked.

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