Lucio
Fulci is one of the most compulsive filmmakers of all time. In terms of sheer
lunatic grandiosity, he is perhaps outdone only by the libidinous fever dreams
of Jess Franco and Jean Rollin. Rollin with his fixation on dystopian ruins and
Franco with his obsession over the female form. Fulci however is impassioned
with violence, both of the body and of the mind. Another way to put it – Franco
and Rollin made great films, but Lucio Fulci made Zombie (1979).
Above I
may make some seemingly eloquent statements about film, directors, and their
works, but make no mistake… I am a troll. A burly, drooling, celluloid-obsessed
troll who likes nothing more than a good, bloody, gory horror show. And Mr.
Fulci delivers on all counts with Zombie,
a film so full of guts, grue, and glorious gratuitousness that it has certainly
earned its place in the neurotic witch hunts of overbearing conservative
parents and the hallowed shrines of gorehounds everywhere. Eye-gouging,
throat-ripping, gut-munching, head-exploding delightfulness. And better yet, it’s
a total rip-off of a much better movie and it’s absolutely shameless about it.
A clue
to this lies in its Italian title Zombi 2.
This of course is one of many titles that include Island of the Living Dead and Zombie
Flesh Eaters. George A. Romero’s Dawn
of the Dead (1978) was a major success in Europe, especially in Italy where
it was released as Zombi. Fulci’s
film was certainly conceived as a cash-in even though it bears no real
connection to Romero’s classic otherwise. Nevertheless, Zombie deserves a place of its own in the annals of horror, if only
because it dares to do the silly things that Dawn of the Dead refused (helicopter blade decapitations not
withstanding…)
And what
wonderful silliness it is! There is a bevy of gruesome delights in this
exploitation shock-a-thon that include (but are not limited to) zombie heads
crushed by crosses, eyeballs impaled on splinters, numerous gurgling
throat-rippings, and even a zombie fighting a shark! Yup, you heard that right.
A zombie fights a shark. Underwater. And it’s 1979, so it’s really under water.
With a real tiger shark. And I’m assuming a real zombie.
Trivia
fact: said zombie was played by the shark’s trainer, whose make-up was not
intended for underwater use and the resultant effect of it clouding off in the
water evokes an unexpectedly real look of decay. This sort of happenstance
typifies Fulci’s devil-may-care brand of success – things just seem to go
better than expected. The same cannot be said of the aforementioned Franco,
whose filmography ranges from surprisingly watchable to expectedly abysmal.
Perhaps Lucio Fulci simply directs with a surer hand, or it could be luck.
Either way Zombie sports several of
these instances where the constraints of time and budget serve to help rather
than hinder the picture.
Another
example of this is the zombie make-up. Dawn
of the Dead features stellar make-up and prosthetics work by legendary
effects guru Tom Savini, whose later work on films like Friday the 13 (1980), Maniac
(1980) and Romero’s sequel Day of the
Dead (1985) would make him as close to a household name as an FX-expert
could hope to be. Zombie had to rely
on clay-based make-up and even dirt on location to create the walking dead. Such
limitations provided the happiest of accidents with the dead appearing
realistically decayed, crawling with worms and maggots, crusted with dirt and
rotted leaves. The overuse of spraying blood and oozing gore makes this a
nastier, more gleefully deranged flick than Dawn
as well, designed to appeal to the bottom-line grindhouse crowd. But of course,
that’s the way we like it!
The
island location also gives Zombie a
bit of a more unique flavor than its counterparts. The isolation gives our
heroes nowhere to run and creates its own little pocket of hell on earth. This
little atoll is a bit quirky though, as it sports both an underdeveloped island
community on the one hand, while on the other Doctor Menard’s home is
practically a mansion complete with electricity, running water, and an
apparently inexhaustible supply of alcohol.
Speaking
of alcohol and quirkiness, the doctor’s wife Mrs. Menard is one of the most puzzling
parts of the film. There is never an explanation given for her outbursts of
hatred towards her husband, but her demise is certainly satisfying and the
goriest moment of the movie. Buffet of entrails anyone? Discovered by our
intrepid protagonists, she is splayed out in a frothy mess of what happened to
be real guts (of the slaughterhouse variety) while zombies lazily munch on her
viscera. Also, her character provides an occasion for Fulci to indulge one of
his signature compulsive obsessions: eyes.
In his
masterpiece, The Beyond (1981), Lucio Fulci makes bountiful use
of close-ups to focus on the eyes of his actors, often in moments of mental
anguish. Zombie is comparatively
restrained on this count with the notable exception of Mrs. Menard. During her
scene of hysteria, we are treated to several zooms on Greek actress Olga
Karlatos’ gorgeous green eyes. And later, much like The Beyond, we get to see in excruciating detail her eye being
impaled on the splinters of a busted door frame. The scene is the film’s
standout sequence, and is still the most-talked about whenever Zombie comes up in conversation.
All these
things make Zombie a delightful slice
of exploitation cinema. Though Dawn of
the Dead has certainly had more impact on the walking dead as a genre,
there is nothing quite like the unceremonious relish of Fulci’s gut-munching
shlock-fest. Banned in the UK as a video nasty, its tagline says it all – We are going to eat you! It is pure
lowest common denominator and that is the highest compliment I can conceive.
Bloody good stuff indeed.
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