Zombie (1979) - Lucio Fulci's zombie movie classic. Kind of killing the suspense of what I think of it, huh? Known variously as Zombi 2, Zombie Flesh Eaters and Gli Ultimi Zombi among various other titles worldwide. Following on the heels of Dawn of the Dead (1978), released as Zombi in Italy and other countries and hence why Zombie is also called Zombi 2 to appear related, Fulci defined the zombie movie and those who would follow in his tracks arguably more than Romero did with Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. Romero is obviously the granddaddy of the genre, but Fulci pumped his movie full of atmosphere, a feeling of apocalyptic doom in the air, deliberate pacing, and of course gut wrenching gore earning him the nickname the Maestro of Maggot Mayhem.
A mysterious, abandoned boat is adrift in New York Harbor. Events subsequently on that boat and the contents found on board set a reporter and a woman on a trip to an uncharted Caribbean island looking for her missing father, and into the grips of an unexplained epidemic causing the dead to rise from their graves.
The premise of Zombie is simple, and this premise would end up being copied for many movies to come. From the opening scene of voodoo drums beating in the background, a corpse tied up in a sheet used as a death shroud slowly rising as a man turns and fires a bullet into the head of the corpse, death is in the air as a tempo is set in place for the film to follow.
A constant presence of voodoo and superstition lingers throughout the film. From locals talking about the things they have heard to patients in a ramshackle mission hospital talking to their recently deceased while in a state of delirium, death lingers in the air. Flies abound, bodies wrapped in sheets are piled into a mass grave, all have been shot in the head. Despair is all around. This is not a redneck jaunt through a shopping center but a story of survival with an air thick with the apocalypse at hand.
Fulci successfully brings this story to the screen in a sickeningly beautiful presentation. The pacing is deliberate. There are no running zombies in this. The dead rise as though they are corpses; their movements punctuated by sounds as though rotting ropes are being twisted. The music is haunting, from voodoo drums to fully realized compositions. It is a masterpiece setting a standard not even equaled by Fulci.
I give it 5 Daggers.
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