When a sailboat is found floating in New York Harbor, the harbor patrol is sent to check it out. The patrolmen find no one on board except a zombie. The boat belongs to a man named Bowles (Ugo Bologna). The authorities contact his daughter, Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow) but she hasn’t seen her father in months and has no idea what is going on other than her father being involved in research. News of the boat and the zombie reach the local paper, and the editor (Lucio Fulci) assigns reporter Peter West (Ian McCulloch) to the story.
Peter contacts Anne who tells him that her father went to an island in the Caribbean called Matool. A letter addressed to Anne from her father is found on the boat. It says that he contracted some kind of tropical illness and that he thinks it may be fatal. Anne wants to go to Matool to find her father. Peter agrees to go with her so he can get the story.
In the Caribbean they hire Brian Hull (Al Cliver) and his girlfriend, Susan Barrett (Auretta Gay), a couple on their vacation, to take them to the island. Before they reach the island Susan decides to do a little scuba diving. While she is underwater, she is chased by a shark and attacked by a zombie. She manages to get away. The zombie then attacks the shark. The fight damages the boat.
On Matool, Dr. David Menard (Richard Johnson) has been trying to find a cure for the zombie situation. Refusing to believe that Voodoo has anything to do with the phenomenon, he spends his time in research while his wife, Paola (Olga Karlatos), wants desperately to leave the island. That night she is attacked by the zombies. Her demise is spectacular.
Brian, Susan, Anne and Peter manage to get to the island where they find the place swarming with zombies.
“Zombie” AKA “Zombi 2” AKA “Zombie Flesh Eaters” was released in 1979 and was directed by Lucio Fulci. It is an Italian horror film and a video nasty.
When George Romero did “Dawn of the Dead” in 1978 it was released in Italy as “Zombi”. Fulci’s 1979 film was released in Italy as “Zombi 2”, even though Fulci never intended it to be a sequel to Romero’s film. In the U.S. Fulci’s film it was called “Zombie”. In a few other countries it was released as “Zombie Flesh Eaters”. Then in 1988 Fulci released “Zombi 3”, which again, was not a direct sequel. Eventually the films were generically labeled the “Zombi” series. Other zombie movies were done, and some were tenuously associated with the “Zombi” title depending on which country they were released in, but only the three Italian “Zombi” movies are part of the quasi-Zombi canon.
The movie is probably one of the better zombie films despite the low budget. The make-up and special effects are great. In some theaters, due to the amount of violence and gore in the film, vomit bags were distributed to patrons. In order to make the film coalesce more with Romero’s “Dawn off the Dead”, the filmmakers added the beginning and ending scenes in New York Harbor and the Brooklyn Bridge. Those two scenes elevate the movie and make it much more chilling. Add to that a shark eating zombie and other gross and disgusting things and no wonder you have a cult movie.
Lucio Fulci has a cameo as Peter’s editor. The zombie that bit the shark was Ramon Bravo. He was also the shark’s trainer.
*If you're looking for the zombie movie with the splinter in the eyeball, this is it.