Tag Archives: Zombi 2

Scenes I Love: Zombie Vs. Shark

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Okay, so I realize that this is a pretty familiar scene.  Along with being one of the highpoints of Lucio Fulci’s seminal Zombi 2, it was also used — out of context — in a television commercial a few years ago.  I can’t remember what the commercial was for but I do remember being ticked off whenever I was on twitter and I saw people who had probably never even heard of Lucio Fulci going, “Awww!  I love the Shark/Zombie makeout commercial!” 

(Oh!  Wait, I do remember — it was one of those “Windows So-and-So was my idea!” commercials.  God, I hated that advertising campaign.)

Anyway, here’s a scene I truly love, shown in its proper context — the Zombie/Shark fight from Lucio Fulci’s 1979 masterpiece Zombi 2.  One thing I always wondered was whether or not that the shark came back as a zombie shark.

I kinda hope it did.

Song of the Day: Main Theme from Zombi 2 (composed by Fabio Frizzi)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy Labor Day!  In honor of this holiday, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge a unique genre of film that truly sparked my love affair with cinema.  That genre, as you may have already guessed, was Italian horror. 

Today’s song of the day comes from one of the greatest of the Italian horror films, Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2.  While the film’s very true artistry is often overshadowed by its infamous reputation and the score itself is clearly a product of its time (the late 70s), I think that Zombi 2 was a cinematic high point in general and a masterpiece of horror in specific.   And a large part of that was due to Fabio Frizzi’s operatic yet foreboding score.

Here then is today’s song of the day, Fabio Frizzi’s Main Theme from Zombi 2.

6 Trailers That Will Save The World

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to another edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation trailers.

1) Psychomania (1971)

Also known as the Death Wheelers.  This is one of those trailer that can pretty much speak for itself.  (Though I will point out that co-star George Sanders committed suicide shortly after filming completed.)

2) 10 Violent Women (1982)

Not surprisingly, this movie was directed by Ted V. Mikels.  What makes this trailer memorable (for me) is the blandly cheerful narration.  I don’t know who that is providing the narration but you hear his voice a lot as you explore the world of grindhouse trailers.

3) The Twilight People (1973)

Made in the Philippines (as were many exploitation films in the 60s and 70s — I always expect to hear someone say, “Made in the Philippines — where life is cheap!” whenever I watch one of these trailers), The Twilight People is best remembered for featuring Pam Grier as the Panther Woman.  I love how the trailers for Filipino exploitation films always seem to promise us that we’re in for “blood…blood…and more blood!” like some nightmarish 1950s feminine hygiene film.

4) Cop Killers (1973)

“Do you think we killed niiiiiiine people for nuthin, maaaaan?”  This trailer plays like one of the many “fake” grindhouse trailers that every toadsucker on Youtube is making nowadays.  (And, by the way, that trend is getting increasingly obnoxious as it’s obvious that a lot of these trailers are being made by jerks who have never even seen a genuine grindhouse film.)  However, Cop Killers is a real film and this is a real trailer.  Every time I go down to Half-Price books, I come across the DVD for this movie.  They want $9.00 for it.  And every time, I end up grabbing this DVD, planning on buying it, just to then come across a movie or book that I want more.  So, I haven’t seen Cop Killers yet but I’m sure that eventually, I’ll break down and get it.

5) Convoy Busters (1978)

Feel bad for all those cops getting killed Cop Killers?  Don’t worry, the fraternity of blue meanies got their revenge in plenty of other films, including this 1978 Italian film.  Convoy Busters was directed by Ruggero Deodat0 (of Cannibal Holocaust and House On The Edge of the Park fame) and is also known as Cop on Fire.  (Apparently, it was retitled to take advantage of the international success of Sam Peckinpah’s Convoy.)

6) The Psychic (1977)

This is the (very) American trailer for Lucio Fulci’s Murder To The Tune of Seven Black Notes.  This film is actually one of Fulci’s more subtle and interesting films and, considering that it’s a Fulci film without zombies or a huge amount of gore —  it has a surprisingly large number of fans (including Quentin Tarantino).  At the time of its release, however, it failed at the box office and so hurt Fulci’s reputation that the producers of Zombi 2 were able to hire him cheap whereas previously, they wouldn’t have been able to afford him.  Hence, it can be argued that the success of Zombi 2 was directly the result of the failure of The Psychic.  (That’s what we call the circle of life.)

6 Trailers From 1981

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi and welcome to the latest installment of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers.  I apologize for being a few days late with this installment. 

This week, I’m highlighting trailers from the year 1981.  1981 not only saw the release of Lucio Fulci’s twin classics The Beyond and The House By The Cemetary, it was also the year that my sister Melissa was born.  (Happy birthday, Melissa Anne!) 

You may notice that, despite citing them above, I did not include the trailer for either one of Fulci’s films in this post.  I’m saving them for a future edition.  Instead, let’s start with Alien Contamination and end with Christiane F. and see what waits in the middle.

1) Alien Contamination

Earlier in this series, I featured the trailer for Luigi Cozzi’s Star Wars rip-off, Starcrash.  This is the trailer for Cozzi’s attempt to rip-off both Alien and Lucio Fulci’s classic Zombi 2.  The film is pretty dull but I have to give the trailer mad props for actually making this movie look like it might be kinda fun.

2) Scanners

In this trailer, David Cronenberg proves that nothing sells a film like an exploding head.

3) Dead & Buried

I haven’t seen this film but I’ve read several favorable reviews of it.  While the trailer isn’t nearly as graphic as some of the other trailers that I’ve featured in this series, I still like it.  With the ominous narrator and all, it has a nice retro feel to it.

4) The Evil Dead

Speaking of retro, here’s the trailer to the original Evil Dead. 

5) Copkiller a.k.a. Order of Death

I recently ordered this Italian film off of Amazon but I have yet to sit down and watch it.  The trailer, for me, is memorable just because it’s a chance to see both Harvey Keitel and Johnny Rotten (who were both quite the sexy beast back in 1981) occupying the same space.

6) Christiane F.

Some people, I know, would disagree with me referring to Christiane F. as being an exploitation film.  I’m sure that the film’s award-winning director — Uli Edel — would disagree with me.  However, Europe’s art films were often sold as America’s grindhouse movies and, just from anecdotal evidence, that was often the case with Christiane F.  Besides, I love this trailer if just for the music alone.

Film Review: Zombie 5: Killing Birds (dir. by Claudio Lattanzi and Joe D’Amato)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Thanks to the wonderful people at Anchor Bay, I recently watched Zombie 5: Killing Birds, one of the last of the old school Italian horror films.

Admittedly, when I first hit play on the DVD player, I was expecting the worst.  Of all the various official and unofficial sequels to Lucio Fulci’s masterpiece Zombi 2 (which, of course, was itself an unofficial prequel to Dawn of the Dead), Zombie 5: Killing Birds has the worst reputation.  While most Italian horror fans seem to agree that Zombie 4 is enjoyable on its own stupid terms and even Zombi 3 has a few brave defenders, its hard to find anyone willing to defend Killing Birds.  The general consensus has always seemed to be that Killing Birds is a generic and rather forgettable splatter film that, title aside, had absolutely nothing in common with the Fulci classic.

Having now seen Killing Birds, I can say that the general consensus, in this case, is largely correct.  Killing Birds is generic, predictable, and ultimately forgettable.  However, taken on its own terms, it’s a perfectly enjoyable way for a lover of zombie cinema to waste 90 minutes.  As long as you don’t compare it to Zombi 2, i’ts a perfectly tolerable piece of trash that actually has one or two memorable moments tossed randomly through its running time.  At the very least, its a hundred times better than Umberto Lenzi’s similar Black Demons.

The film deals with a bunch of grad students who, while searching for a nearly extinct species of Woodpecker, end up spending the night at a deserted house in Louisiana.  Many years ago, a brutal murder was committed at this house and, well, you can guess the rest.  The grad students end up falling prey to a bunch of zombies, largely because the students are all remarkably stupid.  Meanwhile, B-movie veteran Robert Vaughn shows up as Dr. Fred Brown, a blind man who spends his days studying birds.  There’s a lot of birds in this movie and its never quite clear how they link up to the living dead but they certainly do look menacing flying past the camera.

With the exception of Vaughn (who overacts just enough to keep things interesting without going so far over the top as to become ludicrous), the film’s cast is likeable but not memorable.  Everyone’s playing a stereotype (i.e., the leader, the computer geek, the slut, the girl with looks and brains) and no one makes much of an effort to be anything more than a stereotype.  While this certainly keeps Killing Birds from displaying anything resembling nuance, it’s also strangely comforting.  Its lets a neurotic viewer like me know, from the start, that there’s no need to think too much about anything she might see for the next hour and a half.  Since this movie was made in the late 80s, most of the men sport a mullet and all of the women wear those terribly unflattering khaki pants that I guess were all the rage back then.

As I stated before, the film does have its occasional strengths.  Some of the deaths are memorably nasty (even if the gore effects are decidedly cut-rate, pun not intended).  As well, the film does an excellent job at capturing the hot, humid atmosphere of the Louisiana bayous.  I’ve spent enough time in that part of the country that I can attest that the movie perfectly captures the stagnant heat and the way dehydration can cause your mind to play tricks on you.  While the zombies themselves are hardly as impressive as Fulci’s, the filmmakers wisely keep them in the shadows for most of the film and, if nothing else, this allows the viewer to imagine something scarier than what they’re actually seeing.  Finally, this movie does have one of the most effective nightmare sequences that I’ve ever seen.  Lasting barely a minute and not really having much to do with the overall plot, this nightmare still features some rather disturbing imagery.  One image, in particular, has so stuck with me that I found myself paying homage to it in a my own writing.

Though the movie’s director is credited as being Claudio Lattanzi, it is pretty much an open secret that the movie was actually directed by the infamous Joe D’Amato (who, regardless of what else he may have done during his storied life, also directed one of my favorite movies ever, Beyond The Darkness).  I’ve read a few interviews where D’Amato said that he allowed Lattanzi to be credited as director because he wanted to help Lattanzi’s launch his own career.  To judge by the movie itself, however, it seems more probable that Lattanzi wasn’t delivering the movie that D’Amato wanted and D’Amato stepped in as a result.  Regardless, Killing Birds is hardly the best example of D’Amato’s work but, at the same time, it’s hardly the worst either. 

In the end, Killing Birds is a movie that will probably be best appreciated by those who already have a good working knowledge of Italian exploitation films.  It’s hardly a masterpiece (and, despite enjoying it, I would hesitate to even call it a “good” movie) but it’s not really deserving of all the criticism that it’s received over the years either.  As a bonus, the Anchor Bay DVD come with a lengthy interview with Robert Vaughn in which he discussed his career in B-movies and, while Vaughn says nothing about Killing Birds during the interview, he’s still interesting and enjoyable to listen to.  Unlike a lot of “reputable” actors who have made B-movies, Vaughn never condescends to the films that both started and ended his movie career.

My Top Ten Books About The Movies

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I love movies and I love books so I guess it would stand to reason that I love books about movies the most of all.  (I also love movies about books but there are far fewer of those, unfortunately.)  Below are my personal favorites.  I’m not necessarily saying that these are the ten greatest film books ever written.  I’m just saying that they’re the ones that I’m always happy to know are waiting for me at home.

10) Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture by Theodore Gershuny — This is one of the great finds of mine my life.  I found this in a used bookstore and I bought it mostly because it only cost a dollar. Only later did I discover that I had found one of the greatest nonfiction books about the shooting of a movie ever written!  Gershuny was present during the filming of a movie called Rosebud in the early 70s.   I’ve never seen Rosebud but, as Gershuny admits, it was a critical disaster that managed to lose a ton of money.  The book provides a fascinating wealth of backstage gossip as well as memorable portraits of director Otto Preminger and actors Robert Mitchum (who was originally cast in the lead role), Peter O’Toole (who took over after Mitchum walked off the set), and Isabelle Huppert.   If nothing else, this book should be read for the scene where O’Toole beats up critic Kenneth Tynan.

9) Suspects by David Thomson — A study of American cinema noir   disguised as a novel, Suspects imagines what would happen if George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life fell in love with Laura from the movie of the same name.  Well, apparently it would lead to Sunset Boulevard’s Norma Desmond having an affair with Chinatown’s Noah Cross and to one of George’s sons, sensitive little Travis, getting a job in New York City as a Taxi Driver.  And that’s just a small sampling of what happens in this glorious mindfuck of a novel.

8 ) Profondo Argento by Alan Jones — Long-time fan Alan Jones examines each of Dario Argento’s films (even Argento’s obscure historical comedy The Five Days of Milan) and proceeds to celebrate and (in many cases) defend Argento’s career.  Jones also interviews and profiles several of Argento’s most frequent collaborators — Daria Nicolodi, Asia and Fiore Argento, Simon Boswell, Claudio Simonetti, Keith Emerson, George Romero, Lamberto Bava, Michele Soavi, and many others.  Jones’ sympathetic yet humorous profile of Luigi Cozzi is priceless.

7)  Spaghetti Nightmares by Luca Palmerini — Spaghetti Nightmares is a collection of interviews conducted with such Italian filmmakers as Dario Argento, Ruggero Deodato, Umberto Lenzi, Lucio Fulci, and others.  Among the non-Italians interviewed are Tom Savini (who, as always, comes across as appealingly  unhinged) and David Warbeck.  (Sadly, both Warbeck and Fulci would die shortly after being interviewed.)  What makes this interesting is that, for once, Argento, Fulci, et al. are actually being interviewed by a fellow countryman as opposed to an American accompanied by a translator.  As such, the subsequent interviews turn out to be some of the most revealing on record.

6) Sleazoid Express by Bill Landis and Michelle Clifford — Landis and Clifford’s book is both a history and a defense of the old grindhouse theaters of New York City.  Along with describing, in loving and memorable detail, some of New York’s most infamous grindhouses, they also write about some of the more popular movies to play at each theater.  Along the way, they also offer up revealing profiles of such legendary figures as David Hess and Mike and Roberta Findley.  Reading this book truly made me mourn the fact that if I ever did find myself in New York City, I won’t be able to hit the old grindhouse circuit.

5) Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci by Stephen Thrower — Fulci has always been a terribly underrated director and, indeed, it’s easy to understand because, in many ways, he made movies with the specific aim of alienating and outraging his audience.  It requires a brave soul to take Fulci on his own terms and fortunately, Stephen Thrower appears to be one.  Along with the expected chapters on Fulci’s Beyond Trilogy and on Zombi 2, Thrower also devotes a lot of space to Fulci’s lesser known works.  Did you know, for instance, that before he became the godfather of gore, Fulci specialized in making comedies?  Or that he also directed two very popular adaptations of White Fang?  Thrower also examines Fulci’s often forgotten westerns as well as his postapocalyptic sci-fi films.  And, best of all, Thrower offers up a defense of the infamous New York Ripper that, when I read it, actually forced me to consider that oft-maligned film in a new light.  That said, Thrower does admit to being as confused by Manhattan Baby as everyone else.

4) Immoral Tales by Cathal Tohill and Pete Toombs — Tohill and Toombs offer an overview of European “shock” cinema and some of the genre’s better known masters.  The book contains perhaps the best critical examination of the work of Jean Rollin ever written.  The authors also examine the work of Jesus Franco and several others.  This is a great book that reminds us that the Italians aren’t the only ones who can make a great exploitation film.

3) Eaten Alive by Jay Slater — This book offers an overview of the Italian film industry’s legendary cannibal and zombie boom.  Along with reviewing every Italian movie to feature even the slightest hint of cannibalism or the living dead (this is one of the few books on Italian cinema that discusses both Pasolini and Lucio Fulci as equals), Eaten Alive also features some very revealing interviews with such iconic figures as Catriona MacColl, Ian McCullough, and especially Giovanni Lombardo Radice.  Radice, in fact, also contributes a memorable “guest” review of one of the movies featured in the book.  (“What a piece of shit!” the review begins.)  Memorable reviews are also contributed by Troma film founder Lloyd Kaufman who brilliantly (and correctly) argues that Cannibal Holocaust is one of the greatest films ever made and Ramsey Campbell who hilariously destroys Umberto Lenzi’s infamous Nightmare City.

2) The Book of the Dead by Jamie Russell — If, like all good people, you love zombies then you simply must do whatever it takes to own a copy of this book.  Starting with such early masterpieces as White Zombie and I Walked With A Zombie, Russell proceeds to cover every subsequent zombie film up through George Romero’s Land of the Dead.  Russell offers up some of the best commentaries ever written on Romero’s Dead films, Fuci’s Beyond Trilogy, Rollin’s Living Dead Girl, and Spain’s Blind Dead films.   The pièce de résistance, however, is an appendix where Russell describes and reviews literally ever zombie film ever made.

1)  All The Colors Of the Dark by Tim Lucas  — This is it.  This is the Holy Grail of All Film Books.  If you’ve ever asked yourself if any book is worth paying close to 300 dollars, now you have your answer.  This one is.  Tim Lucas offers up the most complete biography of director Mario Bava ever written.  In fact, this may be the most complete biography of any director ever written!  Lucas examines not only Bava’s life but also every single movie that Bava was ever in any way connected to, whether as a director or as a cameraman or as the guy in charge of the special effects.  This is 1,128 pages all devoted to nothing but the movies.  This is the type of book that makes me thankful to be alive and I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Tim Lucas for writing it.

Review: Zombie (dir. by Lucio Fulci)

Posted on by Arleigh

1979 saw the release of a film titled Zombi 2. It was suppose to be an unofficial sequel to Romero’s own Dawn of the Dead which was released in Italy under the title of Zombi. many thought this pseudo-sequel was a way to cash-in on the success of Romero’s film in Italy. This wasn’t true for the fact that it’s director and producers had already been working on their own zombie film as Romero started on Dawn of the Dead. It was by coincidence that both were released within the same year and in order to try and tie the two films together their titles reflected it.

Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 (or just plain Zombie in the US) has no connection whatsoever with Romero’s own Dawn of the Dead except for the zombies and the rules governing their destruction. This is not to say that Fulci’s Zombi 2 wasn’t good. In fact, I would say that Zombi 2 was, and still a great horror movie that’s been unfairly compared with Romero’s ultimate zombie classic. The two films tell different type of stories even when sharing similar plot devices and rules. Where Romero used the backdrop of the zombie epidemic as a damning visual commentary on the growing consumerism culture in the United States, Fulci’s film eschews any such social observations and goes for pure horror instead.

Zombi 2 helped begin the Italian cinema’s love of zombie movies and Fulci’s film still stands as the best of the lot. Starring Tisa Farrow as Ann, the daughter of a missing doctor working in the Carribean, and Ian McCulloch as reporter Peter West who helps Ann try to solve the mystery of her father’s disappearance in one of the Carribean Islands. The only clue they have being the mysterious reappearance of a boat belong to Ann’s father. A drifting yacht which, when inspected by NY Harbor Patrol, a disfigured, obese man violently attacks one of the patrolmen before falling overboard into the city harbor. From that moment on, Ann and Peter head off to her father’s last location on the Carribean island of Matool. Once on Matool, Ann and Peter discover that one of her father’s colleagues, a Dr. Manard, has been trying to solve the mysterious disease, or curse as the native islanders call it, which her father became afflicted with. A disease which seem to kill those it infects and then return them to life to attack the living.

These two are soon joined by a vacationing couple who seem to have arrived on Matool at the worst time. Ann and Peter soon enlist the aid of Brian and Susan, but before they could solve the island’s deadly mystery the island’s dead, both past and recent, rise up from their resting place and doom the remaining inhabitants. One sequence involving these zombies has gone down in horror history as one of the most cringe-inducing scenes on film. It involves the torturously slow sequence where a woman’s head is dragged forward toward a door splinter aimed directly at the woman’s eye. This gore-sequence in addition to the scenes of the zombies attacking and feeding on the visiting Westerners and the remaining living islanders were very well done and all due to make-up FX master Giannetto de Rossi. There’s even a spectacular sequence where a zombie tries to attack and feed on a live shark. Even to this day I still marvel at whichever stuntman volunteered for that action shot.

Zombi 2 has been called a dumbed down attempt to capitalize on Dawn of the Dead. I wholeheartedly disagree with this obeservation. Zombi 2 was never meant to be socially relevant, but one whose only goal was the scare, disgust and disturb its audience with scenes of extreme violence and gore. In this respect Fulci succeeded with the final cut of Zombi 2. The acting itself was very well done considering that half the cast spoke in English as their natural language while the other half were saying their lines in Italian. The dubbing of the Italian-spoken lines were done particularly well. A rarity when it comes to dubbed films.

The final few minutes of Zombi 2 where the Matool survivors make it back to New York through its harbor makes for a great ending. With a city radio station recounting the growing zombie crisis which seemed to have begun while Ann and Peter were on Matool, the final shot of zombies walking on the pedestrian level of the Brooklyn Bridge with cars below them seeming to be rushing out of the city to escape the crisis still makes for a haunting scene. Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 might not have been the iconic, cultural and societal masterpiece that was Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, but it more than holds its own when seen as a pure horror film.