Zombie
Directed by Lucio Fulci
Starring…a bunch of badly-dubbed Italian people
Lucio Fulci’s 1979 cheapie zombie flick, titled simply Zombie
Worst. Optometrist. Ever.
The paper-thin plot of Zombie revolves around a young girl and a New York City reporter (yeah, right) who hitch a ride with a seafaring couple to a remote, uncharted island to find out what happened to the girl’s father, whose abandoned boat washed up in New York harbor with a zombie in tow. The trip to the island takes up the majority of the first half of the film, which gives Fulci enough time to throw in some unnecessarily gratiutous female nudity (Ah, the Seventies…) and an original but puzzling scene in which a zombie battles a shark underwater. This is the most famous scene in the movie, and while it sounds awesome on paper, the actual execution is flawed at best.
The stuntman in this scene should be commended for actually engaging in hand-to-fin combat with the shark, but the entire sequence makes no sense within the confines of the story. For starters, the zombie moves much faster underwater than any of his undead brethren do on land. I understand how hard it is to commit to one’s character when you have a large man-eating fish heading towards you, but as impressive an image this is, the actor’s sudden non-Zombiness took me completely out of the movie. Secondly, once the scene is over, and both combatants have taken a bite out of one another, following the rest of the movie seems rather futile. We’re forced to follow these bozos as they make their way to “Zed-Word Island”, when what we really want to see now is “Zombie Jaws.” Alas, Fulci never revisited this concept, which is a shame, because that would have been a lot more entertaining than anything shown in this flick.
Reporter Guy, Mousy Lady, Sailor Dude, and Naked Chick finally make it to the island, where they meet a scientist who worked with Mousy Lady’s father. He explains to them his half-witted scheme to try to come up with a scientific explanation for the zombie outbreak on the island while at the same time acting as the local hospital’s executioner, shooting all of the newly deceased in the head before they rise again. Everyone seems to take this news rather nonchalantly, as does the scientist when he finds out that his lovely but high-strung wife has become a buffet for a small group of zombies. The movie ends with the undead taking over the island, with countless bodies rising from surprisingly very shallow graves to join in on the fun. People die in gruesome ways, and our two heroes manage to escape, only to receive some shocking news from the mainland.
"Show me your war face, Marine!"
Look, I know this ain’t Shakespeare. These types of movies are only made to show gruesome deaths and hot ladies, and budget constraints can sometimes force the filmmakers to pad them out with bad dialogue in order to get it to feature length. I also know it’s not fair to compare this movie to later ones, made with bigger budgets and better production values, but…tough shit, I’m doing it anyway. Aside from the shark scene, Zombie does one original thing in that it attributes the zombie outbreak on the island to the native’s practice of voodoo, but it never really gets any deeper into how the dead come back to life. Anytime someone asks how this could be possible, a character just shrugs his or her shoulders and says “It’s voodoo.” Joe Quesada must have seen this movie and taken notes.
I don’t mind turning my brain off and enjoying a good zombie flick, but my only demand in return is that the flick be fun, and sadly, Zombie is just too slow, poorly dubbed, and badly acted to be much of a good time, unless you watch it in a group, Mystery Science Theater 3000
Seemed more like “Zombie and Shark make sweet love”.
Always wanted to see this, and Zombi II and III. Not to mention other Fulci films. He’s a director I always pass up.
And, although I get what you mean with alotta your points, Ben, don’t feel the need to put up padding when talking about enjoying a movie that is supposed to be a guilty pleasure. Just sayin’.
People should know what they’re in for when it comes to the movie’s cover.
How can you not like Zombie 2? I think the eye scene is stronger than zombie vs shark
Fun fact: Zombie is actually “Zombi 2.” “Zombi 1″ is the Italian renaming of a recut version of Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead”. Which is funny, because this movie has fuck-all to do with “Dawn.”
And yes, I know this is a guilty pleasure movie, but aside from the eye gouging, the naked chick’s underwater wrestling match with the zombie, and the aforementioned shark fight, the rest of the movie was not very pleasurable to me.
Another fun fact is the original zombie actor that was going to appear in the famous “Zombie vs Shark” scene bailed at the last moment. The zombie in the movie is actually the sharks trainer
That explains a lot about his movements during the scene. Zombie-esque or not, that guy’s got some brass ones.
Ah such a terribly great film. I remember this film’s trailer announced that they’d offered air sickness bags to its customers in case they needed to vomit from all the gore.
That man is raping that shark!