Zombi 2 (1979)

Zombi 2 (also known as Zombie, Zombie Flesh Eaters, and Woodoo) is a 1979 zombie horror film directed by Lucio Fulci working from a screenplay by Elisa Briganti and Dardano Sacchetti. It is perhaps the best-known of Fulci's many genre films and made him a horror icon. When the film was released in 1979 it was condemned for its extremely bloody content, notably by the UK's Conservative government.

Though the title suggests this is a sequel to Zombi, the Italian title of George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead, the films are unrelated.

Plot
What appears to be an abandoned yacht drifts into New York Harbor. As two Harbor Patrol officers investigate, a huge, decomposing, flesh hungry ghoul attacks the officers; biting one in the neck. The remaining officer shoots the hulking zombie and it topples overboard. The body of the deceased officer is deposited in the morgue.

Anne Bowles is questioned by the police because the boat belonged to her father. All she knows is that her father left for a tropical island to work on some research. Reporter Peter West is assigned by his news editor to report on the mysterious boat and there he meets Anne. While on the boat, Anne and Peter discover a note from her father explaining he is on the island of Matool (Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands) suffering from a strange disease. They decide to continue the investigation together.

Upon their arrival in the tropics, they enlist the aid of a seafaring couple, Bryan Curt and Susan Barrett, to assist them in finding the island. Matool is a cursed place where the dead have risen to attack the living. Dr. David Menard, a resident on the island and physician at the local mission, is investigating its secrets. His contemptuous, high-strung wife Paola wants to leave the island in fear of the increasing zombie attacks, but Dr. Menard insists on continuing his research. The group is nearing the island when Susan decides to go for a dive. Anne and Peter look on as she brazenly goes into the water topless. While in the water, Susan encounters a shark, which tries to attack her, but she manages to hide among the coral reefs. She immediately surfaces and begs for help as the shark prepares to attack her. Bryan gets a gun and shoots the shark, but the shark hits the boat, causing them to lose control. Susan dives under again and tries to escape, and the shark narrowly misses her in its attack. As she is hiding in a coral reef, however, a zombie attacks her, but she manages to avoid the creature by slashing its water-bloated face with a piece of coral. The shark then turns and attacks the zombie, which proceeds to tear a chunk out of the shark; the two creatures battle until the shark mangles and severs the zombie's arm, after which the shark swims away, while the zombie seemingly gives up and heads in the opposite direction. Susan manages to get on the boat as Anne, Peter and Bryan help her. She explains what she saw to them. Meanwhile, Dr. Menard and his nurse continue to study the zombies. Some of them are newly bitten, some are on the stage of zombiefication and some are already decomposing. Menard's local assistant Lucas appears at the door, and asks him how to kill the zombies. He also says that the zombies are attacking everyone on the island. Night falls and Menards wife, Paola, takes a shower. The camera shows a zombie spying on her from outside the house. Paola get out of the shower and she sees the zombie. The zombie comes in and tries to open the door just as Paola was trying to close it. She manages to close the door and barricaded herself by putting the weight of her body against the door. While blocking the door the zombies hands breaks through the door and grabs her hair. In possibly the most famous scene from the movie, Paola's eye is pierced by a large splintered piece of wood and she is then killed off camera. The boat finally arrives at the dock.

Back at the hospital the nurse wakes Dr. Menard from a deep sleep. She tells him that Matthias died because of the infection. Dr. Menard waits for his friends body to reanimate and proceeds to shoot him in the head. As Lucas is digging the burial of Matthias and the others that died from the contagion he saw a flare gun fire. He follows it and discovers the crew from the boat. Dr. Menard tells Anne about her Father and when the contagion started. As they arrive, Lucas says that something happened to Fritz. He tells the group to go to his mansion where Paola is located. He approaches Fritz and he says that he was bitten. The group arrive at the mansion where they discover the horribly mutilated corpse of Paola being hungrily devoured by zombies. A swarm of zombies attack them but they escape. They get in the jeep and drive down the road when they lose control and drive off the road. Peters knee is badly hurt. The group traverse through the jungle when Peter takes a rest. Anne takes the time to examine his wound. Susan and Bryan explore the surroundings when Bryan finds an old helmet. It appears that the group has stumbled onto a Spanish Cemetery. Anne and Peter are laying on the ground and proceed to have an ill timed love session when a zombie grabs her hair and another zombie grabs Peter's foot. Bryan hears Anne's scream and he follows it and leaves Susan. In another famous scene, a petrified Susan watches in horror as an ominous, worm infested zombie Conquistador rises through the earth, lunges at her and tears out her throat. Bryan saves Anne and Peter but fails to save Susan. He shoots the rotting zombie in the back twice but it still stands, until Peter grabs a nearby wooden cross and smashes the zombie's head, destroying it. The group then head back to the hospital. More and more zombies rise from their graves.

The group finally arrives at the hospital and barricade themselves inside. Dr. Menard asks what happened to Paola. The group explains that she is dead. Dr. Menard tells them that it's a voodoo curse that is making the dead rise. He also explains he is still searching for an answer to stopping the curse. The zombies then begin their assault on the hospital. Dr. Menard goes to look for bullets, but is attacked and killed by a reanimated Fritz. Bryan sees the attack and shoots the rabid Fritz in the head as he ravenously gnaws on the doctor's cheek. The ones that have been infected in the hospital begin to reanimate and a frothing black zombie bites a huge chunk of flesh and muscle out of Lucas' forearm, Lucas lets out a blood curdling scream then silently dies of his horrific injury while the zombies start attacking the nurse. Peter hears her scream and tries to help her but a zombie breaks out the window. Peter shoots the zombie. He helps the nurse and continues his defense against the undead. The nurse goes to get some supplies but a reanimated Lucas grabs and bites her. The zombies finally destroy the main door and break in. Peter and Bryan shoot at the zombies while Anne throws Molotov cocktails at them. They manage to stop some of the zombies and escape the hospital which is now burning down. The last of the group are on the road heading to the boat and all the while destroying more zombies but a reanimated, blood caked Susan appears in front of Bryan and bites his arm. Peter shoots the reanimated Susan in the head. They reach the boat and sail away. Now out at sea, Bryan is showing bad signs of contagion. He dies and they lock him in one of the rooms on the boat, taking the reanimated Bryan with them as evidence. When they reach the open ocean, however, they receive a radio report that a plague of zombies has attacked New York City. As the credits roll, the zombies are walking on the Brooklyn bridge, leaving an unknown fate to Peter and Anne.

Pre-production
Zombi 2 serves as a sequel to Zombi, a re-edited Italian release of George A. Romero's 1978 film Dawn of the Dead; Zombi had been edited by Dario Argento and given a new score by the Italian band Goblin, and proved successful upon its release in Italy. As Italian copyright law allows any film to be marketed as a sequel to another work, the film was quickly greenlit and financed by producer Fabrizio De Angelis; director Lucio Fulci was De Angelis' second choice for the project, and was hired based on his handling of violent scenes in his previous films Sette note in nero and Non si sevizia un paperino.

Screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti had already worked with Fulci on Sette note in nero. Sacchetti has since stated that his initial script for Zombi 2—originally written under the title Nightmare Island—had been influenced by The Island of Doctor Moreau and had been intended to return to "classic zombie tales" such as I Walked with a Zombie, The Walking Dead or Voodoo Island. Sacchetti began work on this script in July 1978, before it was optioned by Angelis' company Variety Films that December and re-tooled as Zombi 2. Lead star McCulloch was cast primarily on the success in Italy of the 1975 BBC television series Survivors, which had impressed producer Ugo Tucci.

Filming
Production occurred during June and July of 1979. Filming took place in Latina, Italy, as well as in New York City and Santo Domingo. Several of the actors' contracts had specified being provided with trailers for the duration of production; however, none were present when filming started and only Johnson was able to convince the producers to provide one. McCulloch and Johnson had known each other for many years by the time they collaborated on Zombi 2, having first met while they were members of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1962, with the younger McCulloch coming to idolise Johnson's work.

Music
The score to Zombi 2 was composed by Fabio Frizzi, who frequently scored Fulci's works, including Sette note in nero, I quattro dell'apocalisse and Sella d'argento previously. Zombi 2 marked the first time the two had worked together on a straight horror movie as opposed to their previous spaghetti western and giallo thriller work; Frizzi would go on to compose for many more horror films with and without Fulci. Frizzi's work on Zombi 2—particularly "Seq. 6", the sequence composed for the eye-gouging scene—was inspired by the melody of The Beatles' 1967 song "A Day in the Life". Elsewhere in the score, Frizzi included Carribean musical cues, which he noted were intended to "pleasantly deceive" the audience. A medley of the score was later included as part of Frizzi's 2013 Fulci 2 Frizzi live tour, including the 2014 live album release Fulci 2 Frizzi: Live at Union Chapel. The score itself was released on vinyl by Death Waltz Records in 2015, with new artwork by Tom Beauvais.

Release
Zombi 2 was first released in September 1979 in Italy, before being released in English-speaking markets in 1980. The film would go on to gross over ₤3,000,000,000 worldwide, significantly higher than its ₤410,000,000 budget. Zombi 2 has also been released under the titles Sanguella, The Island of the Living Dead, Zombie Flesh Eaters, Zombie, Zombie The Dead Walk Among Us, Gli Ultimi Zombi, Woodoo, L'Enfer de Zombies, Zombie 2: The Dead Are Among Us and Nightmare Island.

Upon its release in the United Kingdom on 2 January 1980, the British Board of Film Classification required a total of one minute and forty-six seconds of material to be cut in order to obtain an X rating; its most recent home release on 1 August 2005 passed for an 18 rating with no cuts required. However, the 1980 release found itself classified as a "video nasty", having been considered a breach of the Obscene Publications Act. This classification, and the de-facto "ban" it involved, has subsequently been used for publicity when advertising future home releases Zombi 2 has been released several times on home video, beginning with a 1981 VHS version by VIPCO following the theatrical cuts directed by the BBFC. VIPCO produced an uncut release, marketed as the "strong uncut version", on VHS the following year; this is the release which was widely confiscated as a "video nasty". Further VHS releases followed in 1991 and 1994, with the latter being edited for widescreen viewing. The film was first released on DVD by VIPCO in 2004, with minor cuts, and uncut by Anchor Bay Entertainment in 2005. Other DVD releases include a 2004 version by Cornerstone Media, and a 2012 DVD and Blu-Ray version by Arrow Films.

Reception
Zombi 2 grossed higher in the domestic Italian box office than its predecessor, leading to future sequels—Fulci began directed Zombi 3 before illness forced him to hand over the reigns to Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso, the latter of whom would also direct Zombi 4.

In a contemporary review, Tom Milne reviewed a 89 minute English-language dub in the Monthly Film Bulletin and compared the film to Dawn of the Dead. While noting that the cast was competent and the film featured "sometimes effective make-up work", Milne opined that the film "lacks-for all weaknesses of Romero's film—even a tenth of the minatory charge harboured by Zombies." The review noted that the censorship trimmed a "promisingly gruesome sequence" with a corpse undergoing an autopsy. In Italy, La Stampa described the film as "pedestrian", as well finding it hard to bear Olga Karlatos' character's death scene. In a 2012 review for The Guardian, Phelim O'Neill described the film as "the ultimate undead movie", praising its commitment to gory scenes and convincing effects. O'Neill felt that the film stood the passage of time well, and explained that this was "because it delivers, plain and simple". He also highlighted Frizzi's work on the score, and summed the film up as "a real influence on what followed". Anne Billson, writing for The Daily Telegraph in 2013, included Zombi 2 in her list of the top ten zombie films, describing its opening scenes as "sublimely creepy" and the eye-gouging scene as "memorably nasty". Writing for the Daily Mirror, James Kloda praised Fulci's directing, finding that he consistently made evocative use of particular shots to accentuate the film's action or horror. Kloda felt that the film "can often blind with its shock violence but is well worth the look". Writing for AllMovie, Robert Firsching described Zombi 2 as a "relatively well made shocker" which "led to the zombie-gore film becoming the dominant motif of 1980s Italian horror". Firsching rated the film three stars out of five. Empire‍‍ '​‍s Kim Newman awarded the film two stars out of five, chalking up much of its "video nasty" reputation to the "eye gouging" scene, comparing this unfavourably to similar material in 1929's Un Chien Andalou. Newman did compliment several sequences as interesting, particularly one underwater scene depicting a zombie attacking a shark, but found that overall the film did no "keep up the pace or plausability sufficiently".