Either Mattei or Fragasso or possibly both directed the rest of the movie. But during this time Fulci was very sick and he couldn’t finish the film. We know that Fulci directed a good chunk of the film, somewhere between 50-60 minutes, maybe more. Fulci is definitely the credited director but you’ll also find lots of places list Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso (who both had cameos in the film) as uncredited directors. A quick Google search will likely pull up a variety of stories. I don’t know all the details and I’m not sure anyone really does. That’s been a bit of a mystery over the years. Is this really a Fulci movie? I don’t know. Of course it also contains some other Fulci standbys like horribly hilarious line readings and a mostly nonsensical plot. It’s not the classic that Zombi 2 is, but it’s a lot of fun and contains plenty of that signature gore Fulci was known for. I’m definitely on the side that loves the movie. I think it’s mostly mixed which is more than understandable. Over the years I’ve had a really hard time gauging how horror fans feel about Zombi 3. This movie is about watching zombies rip people to shreds. It’s like Vanishing Point except with zombies. He broadcasts the undead uprising over the airways. Have I mentioned the DJ yet? No, well the film also has a DJ that sort of serves as a narrator. The ashes of the burned staff members gets caught in the wind, spreading the infection all over. This is also where the military finds him and they wipe out the entire staff at the hotel, burning their remains. That’s where he starts to turn and spread the infection. The infected terrorist ends up making it to a hotel/resort that is located in the middle of the jungle. Unfortunately they may already be too late. The military quickly gets on top of things in order to find this now infected individual so they can quarantine him before it spreads. Basically Death One is about to cause a whole lot of problems. This is a crucial moment in the “plot” because we learn that not only does Death One reanimate the dead and turn them into zombies, it also turns the living into zombies. Unfortunately the clumsy oaf drops the serum breaking it open where he then proceeds to touch it by mistake. A gun fight breaks out with many ending up dead but one terrorist doesn’t manage to escape with Death One. In an attempt to resign from the project, Holder goes to deliver Death One to the military but things go terribly wrong as he’s ambushed by a group of terrorists set on getting that serum. Holder decides he can no longer be affiliated with this project. Death One does reanimate the dead but in doing so turns them into flesh eating zombies (the Brits were onto something with their title!) and Dr. The intentions are good and after many failed attempts they achieve success, or so they think. The idea is to reanimate the dead, much like Herbert West. Alan Holder (Robert Marius) leads a team of scientists working on a serum called Death One. Now onto this often overlooked gem of Italian schlock that is Zombi 3 (I guess)….ĭr. Anyway check out the Wikipedia page on the Zombi film series, it’s fascinating. By the way that’s a UK company releasing Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 as Zombi 3 (technically it’s released under both titles but the slipcover reads Zombi 3). It’s all a bit of madness that I wanted to touch on a bit before diving into my review of the Blu-ray of Zombi 3 released by 88 Films. Why not call it Zombie 2?! Who was in charge of this blunder? Things get more hectic as you dive into the other Zombi “sequels” which continue in numerical order even in the US where we never had a Zombie 2. The confusion is when we get to the US where Zombi 3 is known as Zombi 3, a sequel to Zombie. In the UK this was released as Zombie Flesh Eaters 2, again making sense. From Italy’s perspective this makes sense, it’s the “third” Zombi movie. This gets confusing when Zombi 3, also directed by Fulci (mostly, we’ll get into that later), is released in Italy. Up to this point I think everything is pretty easy to follow. Now because Zombi 2 was only a sequel to Dawn of the Dead in Italy, it was released in the US as Zombie and in the UK as Zombie Flesh Eaters. The maestro Lucio Fulci was hired to direct, a zombie fought a shark and even though it wasn’t really a sequel a worthy successor to Dawn of the Dead was born. In order to capitalize on this success an unofficial sequel was released in Italy the following year called Zombi 2. In Italy the film was re-edited by Dario Argento and released as Zombi and it was quite successful. George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead was released in 1978 and was a big hit. That last sentence either makes perfect sense to you or confuses you more. In large part that confusion is a result of the films being released as sequels without ever actually being sequels. The Dawn of the Dead/Zombi 2/Zombie/Zombie Flesh Eaters series can be a confusing one to keep track of.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |