Zumbi 2 - A Volta dos Mortos

A 1979 hit in Italy, "Zombie" has been imported by Jerry Gross to capitalize on the public's fancy for gory horror films. State-of-the-art makeup effects by Gianneto de Rossi are sure to please fans of the form, and far out-distance the dreams of '60s gore pioneer Herschel Gordon Lewis ("Blood Feast").

Pic was shot as an unauthorized followup to George A. Romero's hit "Dawn of the Dead", which was released in Europe under the title "Zombie". New pic is titled "Zombie 2" in Italy, but qualifies for original "Zombie" tag in the U. S. Story has Tisa Farrow traveling from New York to the tiny island of Matul, near St. Thomas, in search of her father, whose sailboat mysteriously returned to New York harbor with only zombies aboard. Accompanying her is an intrepid reporter Ian McCulloch (hinted comically to be working for the Post), and the handsome couple (Al Clliver and Annetta Gay) who charter their boat.

Island doctor Richard Johnson is coping with the zombie epidemic, blamed on local voodoo rites. Stealing implausibly from the mythos in Romero's "Dead" films, these zombies can be destroyed by a gunshot in the head. FIlm's open-ending sets up a sequel, as the zombies overrun New York City (staged cheaply by a radio news report and a single shot of the zombies shambling across the George Washington bridge).

Director Fulci adopts a leisurely pace and goes after daylight horror, playing off the grisly, cannibalistic attacks against picture postcard beauty of the island and New York harbor. Emphasis on blood reaches the ludicrous extreme of 400-year-old zombie conquistadores bleeding profusely when shot down, fresh from their graves.

Though the makeup's the star, Farrow is appealing as the vulnerable heroine, styled here as the spitting image of her sister Mia. Having made a dozen Italian films, British character actor has all the worried, bedraggled expressions down pat, while Ian McCulloch fails to make an impression. Pleasant nude turns by Gay and Karlatos fit with the self-imposed X rating, as Jerry Gross has copied Romero's successful marketing strategy for "Dawn of the Dead".

This is my original review written in July 1980 after a screening on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Surely the best film Fulci has ever directed, involving several zombies on a Caribbean island. As with all Fulci films, the movie suffers from rather bad dubbing, but all Fulci films seem to have this problem, so it`s almost a hallmark for the director. The gore is graphic & over-the-top, but when you`ve seen a zombie deep in the ocean fighting with a shark, nothing is over the top. A few memorable scenes, (the eye scene has to be the highlight) but this is movie is all about escapism. If you can handle the explicit gore (and if you`re watching Fulci, you better had!) this is a definite `lads night in movie`. Just don`t try to find too many subtexts in it`s, ahem, plot. (7 out of 10)

A sail boat arrives in New York without a living soul but a zombie that attacks two guards from the Coast Guard. The daughter of the owner of the ship, Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow), requests information about her missing father that was in the Antilles to the detectives that are investigating the crime without success. She meets the journalist Peter West (Ian McCulloch) and they decide to investigate what might have happened to her father. They travel to Matul Island with Brian Hull (Al Cliver) and Susan Barrett (Auretta Gay) in their boat. Once in the tropical island, they meet Dr. David Menard (Richard Johnson), who is trying to find a cure to a disease that brings dead back to life, turning them into zombies that eat human flesh.

"Zombie 2" is a horror classic of Lucio Fulci with a simple, but interesting screenplay. The unforgettable story begins like Nosferatu, with an empty boat arriving in a harbor with a zombie instead of a vampire; shows the naked body of two beautiful actresses, Auretta Gay and Olga Karlatos; is very gore, with a death that slightly recalls the famous scene of Buñuel in "Un Chien Andalou", when the zombie perforates the eye of Paola Menard; and has a very scary and impressive make-up, with zombies eating human flesh and biting and killing people. The sister of Mia Farrow, Tisa Farrow, has a good performance in this cult-movie. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Zombie - O Retorno dos Mortos" ("Zombie: The Return of the Dead")

Note: On 05 Jun 2018, I saw this film again.

Now this is how a zombie film should be made! Whilst Lucio Fuci never had the creative genius of Dario Argento in Profondo Rosso, Tenebrae and Suspiria, he certainly knew how to make a good old fashioned zombie/gore movie. In Zombi 2 or Zombie Flesh Eaters (what a title!) as it was known in the UK, a ship drifts into New York with a very large, hungry zombie on board. This leads to two investigative journalists, including gore stalwart Ian McCulloch, with two holiday makers going to the Island of Matul. After meeting a shark wrestling zombie en route, they arrive at Matul where things are not going well. The hospital run by Dr. Menard has turned into a morgue where daily zombie killing has become the routine. Things go from bad to worse as the zombies grow in number and various dismemberment, eye gouging, jugular bites etc ensue. What makes this film so good are various factors. Apart from being one of the first gore films I ever saw, it has no social commentary or hidden meaning and does not try to be a comedy (although some may argue with this). It is a good, honest gore film. The special effects are nice and gruesome, with fantastic zombie make up, great zombie attacks and loads of maggots and worms. The crazy underwater battle between zombie and shark is totally original and not surprisingly has never been tried since. The infamous eye scene whilst a bit creaky still makes the viewer cringe. The acting and dubbing are dodgy but don't detract from the zombie mayhem, the music is great with calypso music to greet the heroes and throbbing effects to welcome the zombies. I cannot recommend this highly enough for good old fashioned zombie related thrills. Also look out for The Beyond and City of the Living Dead in a similar vein.

This was my first ever video nasty, originally viewed in the mid 80's, and for that reason it shall always have a special place in my heart. The first thing that struck me was that the budget must have been relatively high. Fulci was never a great one for narrative coherence (this is probably his most conventional film) and typically for the Italian films of the time this must have been pitched as a sequence of set-pieces (the shark battle, the fiery finale, and of course, the infamous eyeball scene). Unfortunately for the most part these are fairly flatly directed and fall short of their potential for tension. The earlier expository scenes are especially protracted, and throughout Fulci has a tendency to leave shots hanging well past their sell-by date. That said, the film is not completely artless, and whereas it lacks suspense, it does have a degree of atmosphere about it. After the political correctness of the 80's and the 'post-Modernist' knowingness of the 90's, Zombie Flesheaters, with its excessive gore and its leering nudity, its risible dubbed dialog and its a complete lack of humour, with its simplistic plotting and comic-book characterisation, is probably most interesting if viewed from the perspective that firstly, that there was ever a market for this sort of thing and secondly, that people thought that films like this needed suppressing. Yes it's true, they don't make them like this anymore!