Both Arleigh and I have devoted a lot of time on the site to talking about our mutual admiration for the films of Italian horror director Lucio Fulci.  While Fulci will always have as many detractors as defenders, the fact of the matter is that Fulci has been a major and often unacknowledged influence on the direction of horror cinema.  To cite just one prominent example, the disturbing and graphic body horror of The Walking Dead has less to do with Romero and everything to do with Fulci.

Fulci remains a controversial figure and that’s not surprising.  For every Fulci lover, there’s a detractor.  For every good horror film that he made between 1979 and 1982, there’s a terrible one that he made in the years leading up to his   mysterious death.  But what everyone seems to agree on is that his 1979 epic Zombi 2 is one of the best (and most important) of the post-Romero Zombie films.  Zombi 2 may have been produced to take advantage of the popularity of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead but Fulci created a film that transcended its origins.

(Personally, I prefer Fulci’s film to Romero’s but that’s a discussion for another day.)

Zombi 2 is a film that’s provided us with a few scenes that we love here at the Shattered Lens.  Whether it’s the scene where a zombie wrestles with a shark or the very first Fulci’s signature eyeball impaling, Zombi 2 is a film that is full of memorable scenes.  Tonight, I want to highlight another moment from Zombi 2 — the conquistador scene.

As this scene begins, the film’s star are already fleeing from an army of zombies when they discover that it’s not just the recently deceased that they have to fear.  This is a scene that manages to be shameless, silly, and disturbingly effective at the same time.  In other words, it’s pure Fulci.