ZOMBIE FLESHEATERS, aka Zombie
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ZOMBIE FLESHEATERS aka Zombie (US), Zombi 2 (It.) and others; Variety Film, Italy, 1979; 98 min |
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This exciting film begins with an abandoned yacht drifting Mary Celeste-style
into New York harbour aboard which a zombie attacks a policeman before
falling overboard. Reporter Ian McCollough accompanies Tisa Farrow in following
the trail back to a Carribean island where Richard Johnson is having to
contend with a voodoo curse causing graves to spit out reanimated corpses
left, right and centre. The film ends in a massacre with the zombies overrunning
the island and forcing Farrow back to New York where, in a somewhat anti-climactic Romero-esque
twist, the zombie plague has already swept across the nation.
Forgoing Romero’s sense of humour — although scenes in which a zombie and
a shark attempt to eat each other underwater and another in which a radio
announcer provides a running commentary as his studio falls prey to the
zombies (“... Zombies are entering the building! ... They’re at the door!
... Aargh!”) provide some unintentional comic relief — Fulci’s film prefers
to concentrate on atmosphere and the gruesome incidentals of the anthropophagous
dead concept. As a result, the film is an eye-popping (literally, at one
point) gorefest which showcases some superlative special effects work from
Italian maestro Gianetto de Rossi.
Richard Johnson’s appearance confirmed him as The Respected Actor Most
Likely To Turn Up in Disreputable Italian Horror Films — he had previously
appeared in Ovidio Assonitis’s Exorcist
rip-off The Devil Within Her (aka Beyond
the Door) (1974) and Sergio Martino’s Island of the Mutations
(1978). Ian McCollough and Tisa Farrow also continued their own anything-for-money
relationships with spaghetti horror, appearing in dross like Luigi Cozzi’s
Contamination (1981) and Aristide Massaccesi’s Anthrophagous
The Beast (1980) respectively.
Zombie Flesheaters played to packed houses in Italy as Zombi
2 (Dawn of the Dead played in Italy as Zombi), and as
a result Fulci spent most of the next five years in similar projects. The
gothic City of the Living Dead (1980) came
next, to be followed by The Beyond (1981),
each trying to outdo its predecessor in its gore quotient. Competing with
Fulci’s burgeoning oeuvre came an avalanche of morti-viventi films splattering
across Italian screens, including Andrea Bianchi’s ultra-violent Burial
Ground (1980) and Umberto Lenzi’s lacklustre Nightmare City
(1980). Indeed, Bianchi’s film joined a re-release of Jorge Grau’s excellent
The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue (1974) and several other
pictures besides in trying to persuade Italian filmgoers that it was Zombi
3.
Dir. Lucio Fulci; Prod. Fabrizio de Angelis, Ugo Tucci; Scr. Elisa Briganti; Star. Richard Johnson, Ian McCullough, Tisa Farrow; With Stefania d’Amario, Ugo Bologna, Al Cliver (Pier Luigi Conti), Auretta Gay, Olga Karlatos, Monica Zanchi
UK Vid. VIPCO, QRT 98 min (unrated) & 95 min
(re-released BBFC:18), Beta & VHS (18 version VHS only)
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