|
|
|
Zombie
Anchor
Bay Edition
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
6
|
|
 |
|
6 |
|
10
= Highest Rating |
|
|
Having
seen this Lucio Fulci gorefest on videotape about
15 years ago, I wasn't looking forward to screening
Anchor Bay's recent re-release of the film on
DVD. Back then I hated the flick —
thought it was a shoddy, cheap looking Euro-ripoff
of George Romero's living dead movies.
I'm not a Fulci fan, either, having been soundly
disappointed with his horror films City
Of The Living Dead and House
By The Cemetery. An early '70s giallo
by Fulci, Don't Torture
A Duckling, did prove interesting so I'm at
least willing to give the late director's work
a chance. To date this policy has been rewarded
with only the so-so The
Beyond, a weak, flawed chiller that nonetheless
had its merits. Thus Zombie,
on my return visit, proved a surprisingly effective,
well-crafted gut-muncher. It
can still be pretty dumb, though.
Known in Europe
as Zombi 2, the film was intended to cash
in on the huge success of Romero's Dawn
Of The Dead — which co-producer Dario
Argento had christened Zombi for its release
on the Continent.
(Confused?) A psuedo-prequel
of sorts, Fulci's movie attempts to provide an
explanation for why the living dead have risen
to kill and feast on humans. In the opening, a
derelict sailboat drifts into New York harbor,
seemingly without a soul aboard. (Post-9/11/01,
the numerous shots of the World Trade Center towers
can't help but pull you out of the movie.) Patrolmen
of the Harbor Police board the deserted craft
to investigate. One of the cops is attacked by
a huge zombie and has his throat ripped out. His
partner pumps the ghoul full of bullets, knocking
the thing overboard. The bizarre incident soon
has Brit reporter Peter West (Zombie
Holocaust's Ian McCulloch) investigating for
a New York tabloid. West hooks up with Ann Bowles
(vacuous, saucer-eyed Tisa Farrow), daughter of
the boat's owner, who's determined to learn her
father's fate. Lately her dad's been living on
a remote island in the Lesser Antilles; she hasn't
heard from him in months. The pair decide to travel
to this island, named Matoul, and find out what
happened to him. Meanwhile, the coroner begins
his autopsy of the murdered harbor cop. Neither
he or his assistant notice the corpse starting
to twitch...
In the Caribbean, Peter and Ann persuade a
vacationing American couple, Brian (Pierluigi
Conti, a.k.a. "Al Cliver") and his photographer
girlfriend Susan (Auretta Gay), to take them out
on their boat in search of Matoul. The story then
switches to the object of their quest, which is
anything but a tropical paradise. A curse
seems to haunt the island. An atmosphere of doom
and decay pervades all. The inhabitants are dying
from a strange, unknown wasting disease; still-healthy
natives whisper in fear of voodoo and the walking
dead. A medical researcher living among them,
Dr. Menard (veteran British stage/screen actor
Richard Johnson), dismisses their tales as fantasy
but knows differently. He's witnessed the phenomena
with his own eyes. In the island's ramshackle
church, which serves as a makeshift hospital,
he's seen
plague sufferers die and then shortly thereafter
begin moving again. These zombies immediately
attack the living for food, devouring them. If
not fatal, the bite of a zombie infects the victim
with the plague. While Menard struggles to find
a scientific explanation, his beautiful wife Paula
(Keoma's Olga Karlatos)
is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She believes
the native stories of witchcraft and zombies and
(smartly) wants to get away from the island ASAP.
But her husband refuses to leave, straining their
marriage to the breaking point. She turns to booze
and pills to cope. (The Menard character's hitting
the bottle, too. Johnson and Karlatos, despite
some less than sterling dubbing work, effectively
convey this domestic train wreck in just one scene.)
With Menard back at the church tending patients,
Paula is left alone at their cottage. That night,
after taking a shower, she is attacked by a zombie.
In the film's most notoriously harrowing scene,
Paula is pulled through a broken door —
her right eye pierced excruciatingly slowly by
a jagged shard of wood. Ocular damage is a hallmark
of Italian splatter films and this is probably
the most famous instance of it. Even over 20 years
old, it's pretty strong stuff... (If this bit
can't raise a grimace or wrinkle your nose in
revulsion, then you are definitely a hard case
indeed.) Fulci sets up this nightmare with a terrifically
executed stalking sequence showing the zombie's
P.O.V. from outside the house. It's all exceedingly
creepy and the highpoint of the film.
Happenings on the island are interspersed
with Ann and Peter's Caribbean cruise. They're
having trouble finding Matoul. Brian tells them
that it isn't on any of his maps of the area.
They stop the boat so Ann can get a little underwater
photography done. She nonchalantly strips down
to a tiny thong, dons scuba gear and dives overboard.
In one of the loopiest sequences ever in a zombie
flick, Ann is attacked by an aquatic ghoul who's
apparently strolling along the sea bed. She manages
to get away when a hungry shark intervenes to
take a chomp out of the zombie. But the zombie's
even hungrier! Shark and zombie have an underwater
battle a la Thunderball,
with each literally getting a piece of his opponent.
It's an utterly crazy, nonsensical scene —
all the more striking because it's astonishingly
well choreographed and filmed, featuring excellent
underwater cinematography.
Reminiscent of Jaws,
the shark even attacks the boat, damaging it so
that the four travelers soon find themselves stranded
on a nearby island. You guessed it — Matoul. They
meet up with Dr. Menard, who explains (somewhat,
at least) what's going on. Naturally skeptical,
they're soon convinced when they drop by the Menard
cottage to call on the doctor's wife... only to
find her grisly remains being feasted on by the
living dead. Racing back to tell Menard, Brian
manages to wreck the doctor's truck, leaving them
stranded in the jungle with nightfall approaching.
Zombies are everywhere now, and not everyone will
survive the trek to the church. Eventually everyone
that's left barricades themselves in the church
as a horde of icky ghouls surrounds the building.
With a few guns and Molotov cocktails, the humans
desperately try to hold them off until some way
can be found to escape. Which some are able to
do, primarily so Fulci can throw in an ending
that ties in (sort of) with Romero's living dead
pics.
Slow at times, Zombie
nevertheless delivers in the gore department.
With its infamous eye-gouging scene, among others,
gorehounds will be rewarded for sitting through
the dry spells. The zombie makeup is pretty ghastly,
certainly better than that of the first two Romero
films. Having only previously seen Zombie
via Pan &
Scan VHS, the quality of cinematography displayed
by the DVD's 2.35:1 widescreen transfer came as
something of a revelation. When the director's
compositions are seen in their proper aspect ratio,
it's a much better looking film than I
could've imagined —
almost like watching an entirely different flick.
Fulci even pulls off a genuine scare here and
there. (As usual though, he mostly relies on shock
and disgust.) Composer Fabio Frizzi's cheesy theme
is memorably catchy, too. This Casio keyboard-drum
machine ditty is used throughout the movie to
good effect, especially during the shark vs. zombie
battle.
Which brings us 'round to Zombie's
big weakness. No, it's not the instances of clumsy,
badly dubbed dialog or even the terrible performance
of space cadet Tisa Farrow. Parts of the film
are just plain stupid, the zombie-shark bit being
the prime example. But if you're not expecting
very much — I certainly
wasn't — it can
make for an interesting (if squishy) ride.
|
|
|
Anchor
Bay originally released Zombie
on DVD in the late '90s. There weren't any subsequent
pressings and it eventually disappeared from the
market. Fans of the flick were reportedly dissatisfied
with the first disc, but I never gave it a look
and don't know what the supposed problems were.
I can
report that, while certainly not a pristine remastering
of the film, AB's February 2002 release is a fairly
good deal considering the low price.
As previously mentioned, the movie fared terribly
on cropped VHS. The widescreen presentation really
helps things. The print's still somewhat dark-looking
and there's a good deal of grain evident, but damage
is minimal. (The daylight exterior scenes and underwater
sequences look okay.) Audio quality is more problematic.
The disc, which offers both Dolby 2.0 and 5.1 Surround
mixes as separate tracks, actually sounded better
when played on a PC. The 5.1 mix is the better of
the two, but be aware that dialog can still sound
tinny and muffled at times (Menard's native helper
Joseph is sometimes unintelligible). The music isn't
served well, either.
Extras: The disc features an audio commentary
with star Ian McCulloch and Jason Salter, editor
of Diabolik magazine. This was one of the
most boring discussion tracks I've heard in a long
time; McCulloch struggles gamely to fill lots of
dead air while Salter contributes little if anything
of substance. (All but the most rabid of Fulci fans
can skip it.) The theatrical trailer is included
— its offer of free "barf bags" to movie patrons
is amusing — along with two U.S. TV commercials
and three radio spots. In place of the usual Chapter
Listing insert card is a 4-page booklet with some
brief but insightful liner notes.
3/03/02 |
•
Home
| Reviews | Top
•
|
