Lucio Fulci is considered one of Italy’s masters of horror. From this film, I couldn’t tell you why. I’ve seen this movie on greatest horror lists, but I don’t know why. It’s not scary and often boring. As I have said many times before, gross things are not inherently scary. Bad things happening to people are not inherently scary. It takes context and tension to make things scary. The threat of gross stuff and death is scarier.
After her father’s boat washes up in New York with a zombie on it, Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow, THE LAST HUNTER) sets out to discover what happened to her dad. A newspaper reporter Peter West (Ian McCulloch, MOONLIGHTING) teams up with her, which leads them to take a boat with Brian Hull (Al Cliver, THE BEYOND) and Susan Barrett (Auretta Gay, OMBRE) to the Caribbean. When they arrive on an uncharted island, they meet Dr. David Menard (Richard Johnson, LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER), who has been working to uncover the mystery of zombies much to the dismay of his beautiful wife Paola (Olga Karlatos, PURPLE RAIN).
The film often feels that attempts at gross shocks will elicit screams — try yawns. The film was made in response to the success of DAWN OF THE DEAD. In Italy, George Romero’s masterpiece was called ZOMBIE, which made this film called ZOMBIE 2. That’s how much of a rip-off it is. DAWN OF THE DEAD had its gross moments too, but they were done with tension and fear. They came as a harbinger of worse things to come. Here they exist just to show off how gross the filmmakers can be with make-up effects. The only shock that really creates any tension at all is the famed scene where Karlatos’ beautiful eye approaches a splinter.
The story is filled with horror clichés like women taking showers, staying when you should be running and making out right after a zombie attack. The pacing is awful — often having characters stand around waiting for zombies to catch up with them — and the dialogue dubbing is a joke at times. The acting is pretty weak, especially from Farrow. There’s also a scene where a zombie battles a shark underwater that is hilariously ridiculous.
Despite some good zombie design and an interesting performance from Johnson, this film skirts by being unwatchable by the skin of its teeth. There are other Fulci films like THE BEYOND and THE PSYCHIC that are also praised. They have to be better than this one. I hope.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
