Zombie (1979)
The final battle approaches between zombies and vampires (and I don’t count chupacabras in the latter category!), and I’m here for another volley. What I have today is a trendsetter, in that after this movie just about every Italian zombie flick zombie wanted to be named “Zombi (whatever number).” From what I’ve seen, though, all but this one (originally to be called “Zombi 2,” since Romero’s Dawn of the Dead was released as “Zombi” in Italy) were lacking one key element: quality.
That's right, folks. A ZOMBIE fighting a SHARK underwater. Screw pirates versus ninjas!
Premise: 3/5
Yeah, that’s right, I said “quality.” You may not believe it after my earlier reviews of “Zombi3” and “Zombi 4: After Death,” but this one was actually GOOD. It’s not the masterpiece Romero’s “Night” and “Dawn” were, but to be fair those are pretty much classics. However, I swear this one is a good horror movie in and of itself. And this one actually had a coherent plot and rational behavior from its characters—something the later movies would completely abandon!
It starts off with a mysterious yacht floating into New York City harbor space, with apparently not a soul on it. As the coast guard investigate, a dirty stinking fat man comes out from belowdecks and takes a bite out of one of the officer’s necks before being shot several times and falling into the bay. The boat belongs to a medical research scientist, although the only clue to his fate is in a letter addressed to his daughter Ann, something about a horrible disease he presumably succumbed to. Peter West, a journalist, decides to help Ann get to the bottom of what happened to her father, and before you know it they’re off to the remote island of Matul. Or, at least, they’d like to be—no flights go there and few boatmen even know what island they’re talking about, and it’s nowhere to be found on any map. Fortunately (well, not fortunately for THEM) there is a young couple (Brian and Susan) with their own boat who are on vacation and roaming the area, and they don’t take much convincing to help Ann and Peter find Matul.
They would’ve been better off visiting the Grand Canyon—eventually after a shark bashes into their boat and ruins part of the boat’s engine, they find the island, although it’s curiously underpopulated and of the few natives, most seem to be suffering from the same disease that killed Ann’s father. There is one doctor and a nurse on this island who are doing everything they can to cure this problem, but they’re getting nowhere fast since their facilities are piss-poor and there’s no working way to contact the outside world. Soon it becomes all too evident that the people dying of this disease are coming back as flesh-hungry monsters, and things go from bad to worse in a heartbeat. The few who do survive to make it off the island have a nasty surprise waiting for them when they finally get back to NYC.
I don't know what he looks so sulky about. He just ate a chick's throat!
Cast: 2/5
Another shock to the system! A non-1 rating for the cast. I kind of wanted to give this category a 3, but some of the actors are just so bland or bad that I couldn’t justify it. However, most everyone (particularly our heroes) does at least a decent job in their roles. Richard Johnson as Dr. Menard (the doctor trying to cure the zombieness) is quite good, as is Ian McCulloch who plays Peter West. The two main females need some work, though, Ann (played by Tisa Farrow) is usually okay, but tends to have a vacant stare sometimes like she’s trying to process what the emotion she’s conveying should look like; Auretta Gay, who plays Susan is basically nothing *but* blank stares and screams. They definitely don’t have the chemistry or understated skill of the characters in Dawn of the Dead, but they get the job done gamely enough.
What did I tell you about Italian directors and eyeballs? They seriously hate them!
Technical: 4/5
I would definitely say that for the time, this movie had some killer effects. The zombies were particularly great, with make up that gives you the impression that some of these have been dead for a long time, all caked in mud and dirt with leathery skin. And don’t let me forget to mention that some of them have actual LIVE worms squirming in their eyesockets or gaping wounds. These are some grisly mofos, no doubt. I also loved the way they moved, they were the best-looking stiff shambling corpses I may have ever seen. And their shuffle was so devoid of malice and arthritic, yet implacable and, I guess, inevitable. They showed no *desire* for the flesh of the living, or any emotion whatsoever, they existed solely to find something to eat, and eat it. Creepy cool, and kind of blows away the zombies in Romero’s “Night” and “Dawn.”
And the gore! Flesh-ripping, blood-spurting, bite-taking nastiness everywhere, and a slow eye-impalement that was just so fucking gruesome I had to watch it a couple times. It still grosses me out now, honestly, as does the flesh feast that Ann’s party stumbles on when they go to check on Dr. Renard’s unfortunate wife. The zombies also get their fair share of being killed gruesomely, with headstones crushing skulls, half their heads being blown off, burning rafters crushing them, antlers through the head, and one zombie gets his arm taken off by a shark. Yeah, there’s a zombie vs. shark fight in the movie! How cool is that? And really, I’m not too sure how they managed to film it, since it’s clearly a real shark and a real actor in zombie makeup clashing under water, where the zombie actor obviously doesn’t have any scuba or breathing gear. I thought it was pretty impressive, since it was all “real” (obviously the shark was overfed before the scene was shot to keep it sedate, as it really didn’t go in for any bites, but the zombie guy is actively wrestling with it a little bit and, as I said, has no scuba equipment or anything). Good, good stuff.
Blood buffet!
For the less-good stuff, there’s no deal-breakers, although the sometimes lethally-slow pacing in the first part of the movie comes close. There’s a lot of buildup and suspense in the movie, but sometimes it kills the flow and your mind starts to wander until you hear the trademark rotting heartbeat/ragged breathing of the undead approaching. Also, the movie quality is a little shady (I need a remastered version!) and sometimes the sound production is too loud in the wrong places (when you can hear insects over character dialogue, you know it’s bad). The soundtrack is a little too weird in places, as it seems to occasionally forget there’s a line between creepy and corny. Overall, though, these things didn’t detract too much from my enjoyment of the flick.
Other cool thing about the zombies, aside from how flammable they are, is how each one looks so different from another, but aren't just dudes covered in cheap white paint and fake blood.
Popcorn Factor: 3/5
I think this is a must-see for zombie fans. It’s not perfect, and it’s not even “great,” but it is a damn good film and about as completely separated as you could want from Zombi3 or After Death. As I mentioned before, at times the pacing is a little too slow and methodical, but generally this works more to the movie’s favor than against it. It also makes the sudden zombie assaults more effective, as opposed to the later movies’ “zombies exist and so RAARRRR” mentality. Once the survivors get to the church/hospital near the end of the movie, the action doesn’t really let up and can get very Romero on your ass. If you’re lucky enough to find this for rent somewhere, definitely do yourself the favor—for every flaw, there’s usually something incredibly awesome, even if it is just the amazingly cool gore effects.