Zombie Flesh-Eaters

Alternate titles : Zombie, Zombie 2, Zombies 2, Gli Ultimi Zombie, Island of the Living Dead, Island of the Flesh-Eaters, L'enfer Des Zombies, Woodoo, Sanguelia

Tagline : "When the Earth spits out the dead..."

Arguably the best film that cult Italian director Lucio Fulci ever made was this low budget zombie pic, which he made to cash in on the success of George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead".

Starting off in New York, two Police officers are boarding an abandoned sail boat drifting in New York's Hudson bay, when they are attacked by a blood stained zombie which bursts out from the decks below. One of the officers is killed by the creature before being shot "dead" by the other policeman.

The boat had belonged to an eminent scientist who went missing in the Caribbean months earlier. His daughter, Anne (Tisa Farrow), upon hearing of the incident fears the worst and decides to try and find out what happened to her father. Aided by newspaper reporter Peter West (played by British Actor Ian McCollough) who believes there's a big story behind this, they head off for the Caribbean in the hopes of finding the remote Island he was heading for.

Teaming up with a couple of American tourists, Bryan (Al Cliver) and Susan (Auretta Gay), who are on a sailing holiday, eventually they do discover the Island of Matuul, which to their horror they find over run by a lot of slow moving, cheesy looking zombies.

After being chased several times around the Island, they are helped by a Dr Menard (played by Shakesperian actor Richard Johnson), who's there on missionary work and is convinced the virulent plague ravaging the island is somehow responsible for the dead coming back to life. But before he can prove his theories, they find themselves under siege by the living dead and a spectacular shoot out ensues.

Displaying all the usual low budget trademarks of Italian cinema, the film makes up for its lack of budget with excessive gore. So much so, that older UK releases were all heavily censored, to varying degress, by the BBFC. Indeed, the version I originally watched on VHS in the 1990s was practically bloodless and it was only after getting an uncut import I was able to fully appreciate how brutally marvelous it was. Fortunately, the film is now available in the UK in all it's uncut glory and comes highly reccomended to all lovers of zombie movies and Italian cinema!

Overall Marks : 7/10.

Terrifying Trivia

• Alternate tag lines to the one listed above are, "When the earth Spits out the dead...they will come back to suck the blood from the living.", "When the earth spits out the dead... they will come back to tear the flesh from the living.", "The dead are among us.", and finally "We are going to eat you!" (that last one's a classic).
• Tisa Farrow is the sister of actress Mia Farrow. She also starred in Antonio Margheriti's "The Last Hunter" and Joe D'Amato's "Anthropophagus" (Grim Reaper).
• Music composer Fabrio Frizzi also scored Fulci's "City of the Living Dead" and "The Beyond".
• Cosmetic effects man Gionetto DeRossi also worked on "The House by the Cemetery", "City of the Living Dead" and "The Beyond".
• Al Cliver also starred in Lucio Fulci's "The Beyond" and "The Black Cat".
• Cult TV fans may remember Ian McCollough from the seventies BBC Sci-Fi series "The Survivors".
• Director Lucio Fulci has an uncredited guest role as the newspaper editor.
• In the USA the film was called Zombie. In Italy it was called Zombie 2, which was a marketing ploy to cash in on the success of "Dawn of the Dead" which was entitled "Zombie" in that country (confusing or what?). But for its UK and Australian release it was re-named Zombie Flesh-Eaters.
• The original UK cinema version was VERY heavily censored by the BBFC, which cut out virtually all the gore. The original UK video release was fully uncut, but this was withdrawn after being listed as a "Video Nasty" and the distributors prosecuted under the "Obscene Publications Act".
• The UK re-issue in the early 90's was of the cut cinema version, which also missed out the pre- credits intro due to print damage, showing Dr Menard shooting a zombie. A more complete version was passed in 1999, dubbed the 'extreme version', which only missed out the "eye splinter" and subsequent "gut munching" scenes. The film was finally passed uncut in 2005.

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