One moment in: Zombie Flesh Eaters

 ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS

ZOMBI 2

Director – Lucio Fulci

Writers – Elisa Briganti, Dardano Sacchetti (uncredited)

1979, Italy

Stars – Tisa Farrow, Ian McCulloch, Richard Johnson

Probably the film that saved Italian cinema and part of a particularly notorious strain of extreme splatter that would fuel the  Eighties’ Banned Films list. The eye-gouging is the other scene, but the shark-versus-zombie is the sequence that stands out. It registers high on the WTF!? chart because whereas the eye-gouging is special effects, that’s a real shark.

Fulci is not an elegant filmmaker (although I did find that quality in 'Don't Torture a Duckling'), but he knows how to lay out a set piece. It’s only the set-pieces that matter; or at the RottenTomatoes critic consensus says “Zombi 2 [‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’’ original title] is an absurdly graphic zombie movie legendary for some gory scenes and nothing in between.” Yes, but it scores high on the schlock meter. One moment you can laugh at the dialogue and inattention to detail and the next admire the boldness of the set pieces. So two people got past that guard on the boat, and then he just shakes his head upon finding a couple canoodling on a crime scene? And there’s no escaping the fact that the main reason the zombies get to chomp on the cast is that they stand still long enough for the undead to shamble up. Yet it’s not in the So Bad It’s Good camp. It’s the kind of laughable inattention to internal logic and detail that brings out the nit-picker and in me, although I am less likely to dismiss an entire film on what I see as flaws now (say, far less likely to reject the roast meal because I don’t like the swede), and I do not gravitate towards schlock. However, there is something in Fulci that always intrigues me, and I put it down to the set-pieces. The final cellar scene in ‘The House by the Cemetery’ is another favourite. Although it’s the gore-pieces that get the renown, ‘Zombie flesh Eaters’’ scene of the rising of the dead from the graveyard is equally effective (hey this helmet must be 400 years old!). 

So, the scene goes: exploitation objectification of Auretta Gay as she undresses and stays topless to do a spot of underwater photography (regardless of any urgency in the search for a missing father); a bit Jacques Cousteau; then the threat of a shark; then the appearance of a zombie – underwater! – then a showdown between shark and zombie. Ramón Bravo as the zombie gets up close to tussle with the dangerous fish and it’s most satisfying. There’s an inherent pasted-together veneer to Fulci’s direction that makes any clumsiness and continuity issues in this sequence irrelevant. Is there a little inconsistency with how big the shark is portrayed? Didn’t the zombie tear a chunk from the shark? Just the verve and audacity of the concept, and the knowledge of the perils involved with filming (it would just be CGI if done now), make this fun and unique. You even get ripping sounds when underwater foliage is torn off to fend away attacking zombies, and chomping sounds from the shark. Meanwhile, Georgio Tucci’s* score throbs along most leisurely and incongruously. 

And then the characters never mention it again. 

Wikipedia says: “The underwater scene featuring a shark attack was devised by Ugo Tucci, and was shot without Fulci's approval, by Giannetto De Rossi, in Isla Mujeres, with the zombie portrayed by a local shark trainer.”** It is, of course, the kind of juvenile mash-up concept that leads to ‘Sharkotopus’, or ‘Freddy vs Jason’, or ‘Frankenstein meets the Wolfman’ and its ilk; the kind that can be more silly than inspired. But this is an occasion where it works, and of course one cannot help but think of ‘Jaws’ and in terms of a face-off between two mighty monsters. We can go meta with it: low-budget battling mainstream takeover. There’s no higher, smoother art required from Fulci – the typically negligible logic, drama, characters, dialogue, and dubbing undermine that from the start. But, again, the execution of the set pieces is all. 

The film looks great: Sergio Salvati’s cinematography capturing the anti-Gothic crisp brightness of the crewless boat on the New York City Harbour and then of the tropical island. It also means there’s no shadows for these undead – Romero’s ‘Dawn of the Dead’ showed how these monsters weren’t interested in dark corners – and these zombies look great and disgusting. Again, there’s almost a juvenile edge to this too – worms in eye-sockets!! – and how they regularly seem to have freshly blood-stained chins is a bit of a mystery.

Compared to Romero, this is unintentional comedy, but Fulci was capable of far worse (‘Zombi 3’***). It may be mockable for its flaws but its set-pieces still make this enjoyable. And notorious. 

·       * Music by:  Giorgio Cascio      (as Giorgio Tucci), Fabio Frizzi          and (uncredited) Adriano Giordanella and Maurizio Guarini.

·       ** Albiero, Paolo; Cacciatore, Giacomo (2004). Arriva il "poète du macabre", ovvero: Zombi 2 (1979), in Il terrorista dei generi. Tutto il cinema di Lucio Fulci (in Italian). Un mondo a parte.

*** As a friend chides me: "the Zombie 3 reference isn't really fair cos he only directed like 20%, the rest was Bruno Mattei."