Zombie Flesh Eaters was my 'gateway' Italian film. I remember taking my first inexperienced puffs of Zombie Flesh Eater before moving on to the stronger The Beyond. My mind was blown and I yearned for different genres. Before you know I was reaching highs by popping tabs of The Case Of The Bloody Iris and snorting Enzo Castellari's The Big Racket before hitting rot bottom by getting hooked on Alfonso Breschia sci-fi films and having to watch the odd Jess Franco film just to take the withdrawal symptoms away.
Fulci's film ushered in a new era of Italian zombie rip-offs films and a general notion to add more splatter to a film industry that wasn't exactly shy with gore to begin with. The 79-82 era of Italian film is still my favourite, even compared to the 72-73 giallo-fest, the 75-77 Cop film fever, or the 1967-69 avalanche grim spagehtti westerns. I never get sick of these films, ever, and despite their many flaws, dubbing, dodgy effects and sometimes dodgy editing, I'd rather watch Zombie Flesh Eaters a thousand times than sit through another full season of The Walking Dead. Which I'll end up doing as well because my wife won't let me stop no matter how much I weep.
A seemingly empty ship drifts on the Hudson river and the cops are brought in to investigate. They find that the ship is full of crap and needs a good clean but they also find a huge zombie that tears out a cop's throat, gets shot up and bunch of times, then falls in the river. Looks like we've got a zombie invasion on our hands. Well, there probably is but most of the action takes place on a tropical island.
The boat belonged to Tisa Farrow's father, and she's not heard from him in ages. Meanwhile, journalist Ian McCulloch is sent to investigate by his editor Lucio Fulci so Tisa and Ian both independently sneak onto the boat to the tune of Linda Lee's There's No Matter (the b-side of her single Love Was The Magic, which makes me think that English isn't Linda Lee's first language, nor is her name possibly Linda Lee (it's Rossana Barbieri)). Once on the boat, some jolly japes with a cop follow and shortly afterwards they are both heading for the island of Matoul, from where the boat came from, as well as a letter to Tisa from her dad saying he's contracted some sort of weird disease.
After finally getting to the Caribbean, they blag a lift in the form of American (Italian) tourists Al Cliver and Auretta Gay, who are just trying to relax and weren't really planning to get caught up in the zombie apocalypse. They lengthy journey to Matoul is intercut with action on Matoul, as burned-out Doctor Richard Johnson struggles with an epidemic of the dead rising while his nervous, anxious, sexy wife Olga Karlatos wants to get away from there as quickly as possible. None of this is boring in the slightest, as to keep things interesting, Fulci has a zombie fight a shark!
That's right - Auretta does a bit of topless scuba diving and the next thing you know a zombie turns up to cop a feel. After rubbing coral in his face, a real tiger shark shows up and this mental case dressed as a zombie goes toe to toe with it. No CGI either.
Eventually they do make it to the island but too late to save Olga Karlatos, who gets killed in such a gory way that the BBFC cut it right out of there, even in the first release since it was banned as a Video Nasty. The film builds momentum following this as the zombies decide to stop pussyfooting around and a huge bunch of them go and attack the hospital with most of the main characters inside, characters armed with petrol bombs and guns.
This isn't just a cheap splatter film and Fulci doesn't just rip-off the recent Dawn of the Dead - his zombies are filth covered, look like they stink, and recall the old voodoo zombies pre-Night of the Living Dead. He uses inventive camera work to gradually build the threat of the living dead. There's a shot of a deserted village with a figure staggering aimlessly in the background. Al Cliver fires a flare with the setting sun behind him. Richard Johnson looks like he hasn't slept in six months. The low budget shows through now and again but as a whole the film ticks every box. It's gory and creepy.
Mind you, Ian McCulloch, Tisa Farrow and Al Cliver aren't the most emotive of actors, but you can't win 'em all!
Fulci's film ushered in a new era of Italian zombie rip-offs films and a general notion to add more splatter to a film industry that wasn't exactly shy with gore to begin with. The 79-82 era of Italian film is still my favourite, even compared to the 72-73 giallo-fest, the 75-77 Cop film fever, or the 1967-69 avalanche grim spagehtti westerns. I never get sick of these films, ever, and despite their many flaws, dubbing, dodgy effects and sometimes dodgy editing, I'd rather watch Zombie Flesh Eaters a thousand times than sit through another full season of The Walking Dead. Which I'll end up doing as well because my wife won't let me stop no matter how much I weep.
A seemingly empty ship drifts on the Hudson river and the cops are brought in to investigate. They find that the ship is full of crap and needs a good clean but they also find a huge zombie that tears out a cop's throat, gets shot up and bunch of times, then falls in the river. Looks like we've got a zombie invasion on our hands. Well, there probably is but most of the action takes place on a tropical island.
The boat belonged to Tisa Farrow's father, and she's not heard from him in ages. Meanwhile, journalist Ian McCulloch is sent to investigate by his editor Lucio Fulci so Tisa and Ian both independently sneak onto the boat to the tune of Linda Lee's There's No Matter (the b-side of her single Love Was The Magic, which makes me think that English isn't Linda Lee's first language, nor is her name possibly Linda Lee (it's Rossana Barbieri)). Once on the boat, some jolly japes with a cop follow and shortly afterwards they are both heading for the island of Matoul, from where the boat came from, as well as a letter to Tisa from her dad saying he's contracted some sort of weird disease.
After finally getting to the Caribbean, they blag a lift in the form of American (Italian) tourists Al Cliver and Auretta Gay, who are just trying to relax and weren't really planning to get caught up in the zombie apocalypse. They lengthy journey to Matoul is intercut with action on Matoul, as burned-out Doctor Richard Johnson struggles with an epidemic of the dead rising while his nervous, anxious, sexy wife Olga Karlatos wants to get away from there as quickly as possible. None of this is boring in the slightest, as to keep things interesting, Fulci has a zombie fight a shark!
That's right - Auretta does a bit of topless scuba diving and the next thing you know a zombie turns up to cop a feel. After rubbing coral in his face, a real tiger shark shows up and this mental case dressed as a zombie goes toe to toe with it. No CGI either.
Eventually they do make it to the island but too late to save Olga Karlatos, who gets killed in such a gory way that the BBFC cut it right out of there, even in the first release since it was banned as a Video Nasty. The film builds momentum following this as the zombies decide to stop pussyfooting around and a huge bunch of them go and attack the hospital with most of the main characters inside, characters armed with petrol bombs and guns.
This isn't just a cheap splatter film and Fulci doesn't just rip-off the recent Dawn of the Dead - his zombies are filth covered, look like they stink, and recall the old voodoo zombies pre-Night of the Living Dead. He uses inventive camera work to gradually build the threat of the living dead. There's a shot of a deserted village with a figure staggering aimlessly in the background. Al Cliver fires a flare with the setting sun behind him. Richard Johnson looks like he hasn't slept in six months. The low budget shows through now and again but as a whole the film ticks every box. It's gory and creepy.
Mind you, Ian McCulloch, Tisa Farrow and Al Cliver aren't the most emotive of actors, but you can't win 'em all!