Review: Zombi 2 ;Gli Ultimi Zombi
Director: Lucio Fulci
Zombi 2 has an intro that packs quite a punch. After that however, it gets a bit slow but the finally is well worth the waiting. The last half hour gets pretty climatic an the ending is somewhat amusing.
The, ahum, story is as follows; a boat drofs into the harboar of New York. Turn out that there is a dead, or rather not-so-dead sienctis aboard. Conviently his daughter lives in NY and she meet up with a curious journalist who smells a story. They set off to find the tropical island whre the travelling zombie-sietist came from. On their way they meet up with a boat owning couple (handy hu ?). When they get there, the tropical paradise harbours an army of flesh eating ghouls !
The zombies look great. Unlike the ‘Dawn of the Dead‘ zombies they don’t have that strange blue shade (which in all honesty does kind of make them look like flesh-eating Smurfs at times) it’s all good old fashion rottenness.
There are some great renewing shots like the 180°-from-pretty-face-to-festering-undead camera angle. Or the aquatic zombie sequence which seems funny at first but then you can’t deny it’s beauty and artistic value.
Of course, you get treated to Fulci’s famous eye-poking fetish in one of the film’s most tense secens.
As for acting… wrong film ! :-p
The script sometimes has a nihilistic ‘Sound of Music’ feel to it ; ‘no,no,no,no don’t do that’ or ‘oh,oh,why,why,why did you do that ?!’
There are also various charters who clearly don’t speak English and have thus been voiced over. A technique which was not very refined – as you hear character say ‘let me have my peace’ and he says peace with his lips set for a clear long ‘O’ / But then again I guess that’s a certain acquired charm European horror has.
In case you are wondering how exactly Zombi 2 is a sequel to Zombi (the European release of Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead) – well it’s not, it’s just a rip-off opportunist name.
So why is the image displayed here saying Zombi instead of Zombi 2 ? Because the film was released order a number of alternative cash-in pseudonyms such as; Island of the Flesh-Eaters, Zombi Flesh-Eaters, Island of the Living Dead. The US release title was Zombi. Witch is confusing because Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead was actually made after Fulci’s film was written. After the success of Dawn Of The Dead Fulci added the ending and the NY start to the film in order to get some vague link to Romero’s Zombi. So Fulci released his film as Zombi 2.
There is also a Zombi 3 – which is …(you catching on right ?) not a sequel to Zombi nor to Zombi 2.
But hey don’t let that scare you off, this is just a very entertaining film. Good laughs, good ‘wow’s -It’s not exactly brain food, brains are food in this case.
Reviewed by: LordLeviathan, added August 18 2005
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