Video Nasty : Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979)

So, how do I review a movie that's been reviewed a billion times on and offline, without it becoming a boring read. Well, I don't know, but I'll give it a shot.

Zombie Flesh Eaters is one of the most infamous Video Nasties, and is special in a few ways compared to the other ones. It's one of the very few Nasties that has no sexual violence,which seemed to be the main reason why most of them was banned. It has however enough of the other criteria, which is Cannibalism.

Originally planned to cash in on the success of Dawn Of The Dead aka Zombie, the producers named this project Zombie 2. They wanted Enzo G. Castellari to direct it first, but since he was too busy or unwilling, they turned to Lucio Fulci, a very talented director of anything from Western to Giallis in Italian cinema, who they figured would do a good job since he had included quite a lot of rough violence in some of his earlier films. With Lucio running things the movie became quite different from what the Producers had planned, but never the less was and is a big commercial success to this day.



Plot:

A ship arrives in New York, and the Police soon finds out the very hard way that there's a Zombie starving for human flesh aboard. the Police manages to shoot the Zombie so that he falls overboard, but did they shoot it in the head?

The daughter of the boat owner, Anne Bowles, played by Mia Farrows younger sister Tisa, and a reporter, rents a boat to take them to the tropical island Anne's late dad was working at to try and find out what's going on. At the island it's getting increasingly ugly as there seems to be more and more Zombies appearing, and we know how easy it is to become a Zombie, you only have to be bitten by one to become one.
Our heroes soon find out that the way to get rid of Zombies is to shoot or strike them in the head, and once they know that they will make it off the island alive, right?



What's good?:

Plenty of nasty gore scenes. Eyeball violence, Zombie eating shark as opposed to the other way around, loads of bloody gunshots to the head and body, tearing, carving, and eating intestines and flesh. Intriguing plot about how Zombies first came about possibly due to some kind of Voodoo curse. Good acting, and great direction. Excellent soundtrack by Fabio Frizzi. The rising of the zombies from their graves is one of the best and most classic scenes in Horror movie history.



What's Not?:

I have a hard time finding something that's not in this one. It's been criticized by some for it's slow pacing though.



The Verdict:

This film isn't really about Video violence gross out at all, but about the start of the Apocalypse as written in the book of revelations, "The dead shall walk the earth..", and so forth. A lot of people, including yours truly, got introduced to Lucio Fulci, and Italian Horror as a whole, through this movie, and it is arguably the best Zombie flick of all time. Fulci's style is full of beautifully grotesque images that shows no mercy but shows the viewer dead in the face all it's gruesome details no matter how intense. Compared to it's American counterparts this film is rather slow moving but that fits the plot perfectly, and makes the shocks way more intense when they do happen, as opposed to what a faster paced movie would. Frizzi's synthesized soundtrack is also perfect, and enhances the feeling of it being a story about the start of Armageddon, something which we know it is as we see the Zombies invade New York. Yes, I guess the Zombie on the boat didn't get shot through the head after all. It's good there never was a sequel because the ending is perfect and it leaves the viewer to think about what it would actually be like if this would happen for real. One of the best movies of the Video Nasties, and although it has quite a lot of violence and gore I think the censors totally overlooked the message behind the film, and the quality of it as a work of art. This is one of those rare films that gets better with every viewing, but the lack of budget, and a few shortcomings on the acting side of things, keeps it from being among the very best of the Horror genre. that said it is DAMN close, so..



Rating:
5 (out of 6)