In 1979, Lucio Fulci was contracted to direct a follow up to Romero's smash hit "Dawn Of The Dead". What better director could deliver the gory goods, other than Lucio Fulci? Um,...well, I guess no one. When I first saw this film as a youngster, I was pretty disapointed by it. It just was too gloomy, and not as much fun as "Dawn Of The Dead". But as I've gotten older, I've actually learned to appreciate Fulci's film more (boy, did I mature!). Recently I went back and viewed the film in it's full aspect ratio, with a gorgeous print supplied by The Roan Group on laserdisc (I know, I'm the only one in the world still watching laserdiscs!). I have to say I liked it a lot more! I look at it with a new angle now. I see it as a great Italian comic book, pop culture masterpiece! The film begins with a lone boat floating into New York, that is inhabited by the hungry dead. Thus having the old world coming to haunt the new. The police investigate the boat, only to have them become infected with the new zombie trend (come on, everyone's doing it). Tisa Farrow (box office magnite and sister to Mia) and Ian McCulloch (he made a real cinema career killing Zombies), with the aide of a friendly couple on holiday, travel to the zombie infested island to investigate what the heck is going on. On the island, a mad doctor (Richard Johnson) is mucking around with Zombie Voodoo (don't try this at home kids). Within these proceeding, lots of gut munching carnage follows. But as I was mentioning, after reviewing this classic again, Fulci tends to show real cinematic flair. His use of zooms are a little over the top, but he does have nice color and stylised shots. His soundtrack is really cool as well, which gives it an errie quality. He does rip off a lot of ideas of other films, but it's done in a comic book way. The underwater Zombie that takes on a shark was surprisingly well shot (obviously "Jaws" was still making an impact in Italy), and the music that flows throughout is groovy. The movie is pretty gory, and Lucio Fulci likes to shoot it as if it was a sex scence in a porn. Long slow shots of overflowing blood. The scene where Olga Karlatos loses site on escaping from the zombies, is er...repulsive (my roommate Jason said, "yeah, that's pretty disturbing!"). Another gory scene has Al Cliver (looking like Nick Nolte's stunt double in "The Deep") as the last of the holidaying couples that eventually gets a love bite by his now zombie girlfriend (in a pretty unintentionaly funny scene). Lots of maggots squirm out of empty eye sockets, as these decomposing zombies take over the world. The film contains a pretty grim ending, but it's fun anyways!
