Zombi 2 (25th Anniversary Special Edition 2-Disc Set)

Amazon.com

In Lucio Fulci's genre classic Zombi 2, the dead rise once again to terrorize and consume the flesh of the living, this time Caribbean style! Those new to Fulci should note Island of the Flesh-Eaters, Zombi 2, and the more commonly known Zombie all refer to the same film. Though there is no Zombi 1, Fulci's film was titled Zombi 2 to capitalize on the commercial success of Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Though marketed as a sequel in Italy, the only similarities to Romero's classic are the title and the fact that the dead rise to eat the flesh of the living. Instead of being a metaphor for consumerism, Zombi 2 is a straight-out adventure story that ends in a horrific, apocalyptic nightmare. The plot is fairly straightforward, and more or less exists simply as a structure to hang scenes of extreme gore and terror on. Dr. Bowles's boat floats into New York Harbor missing its crew and carrying an undead passenger. The doctor's daughter (Tisa Farrow), dead set on finding out what happened to her father, teams up with journalist Peter West (Ian McCulloch) and heads to the cursed island of Matool, where a zombie epidemic is growing and Dr. Bowles's friend, Dr. Menard (Richard Johnson), is desperately trying to find a cure. Will Anne find her father? Will Dr. Menard find a cure? Will our heroes escape? In all honesty, who really cares? Because those in the "know" already know you don't come to a Fulci film looking for Shakespeare. What Zombi 2 lacks in plot development and continuity, it more than makes up for in atmosphere, intensity, and of course the trademark Fulci gore. Some of the unique high points are the never-duplicated zombie-versus-shark vignette, the rising of the Spanish zombie conquistadores, and Fulci's trademark eye shot. Fans of Italian/apocalyptic/cannibal/zombie films should not miss Zombi 2. Along with The Beyond, it defines the genre. --Rob Bracco

Description

We Are Going To Eat You! The Fulci Classic Returns, And Once Again The Dead Are Among Us!

Customer Reviews:

ZZZZ.......2007-09-11

This movie DOES NOT keep my attention. I like MORE action, LESS talking. There's just too much conversation for a horror film. This movie takes way too long to get to the action and it's really not all that gory. I've seen better, a lot better!

ZOMBI.......2007-08-09

ANYTHING IS GOOD THAT HAS ZOMBIES.....i am actually waiting for the day where the dead will rise and plunge us into a 90's romero-esqe world. but my personal prayers aside, the movie was creepy and had some suprising effects. not to mention you get to see a zombi fight a shark.

Fulci and Romero playing tag using influence rather than there hands. However i believe another influence as well........2007-07-25

As Amazon points out and the spotlight review there is no Zombie part 1, that George A. Romero's Dawn of The Dead was released in Italy with the title Zombie and Fulci's film was titled Zombie 2 to cash in on Dawn of The Dead's Success. However according to the spotlight review Zombie 2 was written first. So I'm thinking George A. Romero's Night of The Living Dead (1968) influenced Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 and in turn Zombi 2 playing like a prequel to Dawn of The Dead (1978) influenced Romero's Dawn. One random thing I felt when Brian used his weapon to bash the enemies in the head after he exited the burning church reminiscent of Shaun of The Dead. Perhaps it's where director Edgar Wright got the idea for Shaun to use a Cricket bat as his main weapon, it does prove more efficient than guns, but thats just a guess. However I think there is another major influence here.
I believe that two films that i picked up on by great director Jacques Tourneur played major and minor influences. First the most obvious is the concept of voodoo as a speculated reason for the zombies is from I walked With a Zombie (1943) also the island location and instead of using shadows and subtly as Tourneur did Fulci uses great makeup f/x and gore to push the envelope and get his scares, both use good atmosphere.
The next film by Tourneur i would point out in a more subtle way is Night of The Demon. In Night of the Demon we have a skeptical Dr. played by Dana Andrews who intends to debunk a curse and expose a devil cult leader in Zombi 2 we have Dr. David Menard who resiliently searches for a scientific reason for the Zombies trying to prove the idea of voodoo false. These two characters are important in making viewers suspend there disbeliefs and make the idea of zombies more plausible as the two doctors look for educated and scientific reasons, we the viewers like the doctors begin to accept the idea as well.
What does Zombi 2 have that no other zombie film has to my knowledge, a zombie and shark fight for that reason alone I'd recommend this to horror fans. Another positive is alot of breasts, what it does lack besides some minor plot holes is bra's.
This is a fun horrific gore filled adventure 4.5 stars, this is my first Fulci film but will not be my last. To hardcore Fulci fans and i realize there are alot if I overlooked anything or if you have any Fulci recommendations, comments are appreciated.

** Zombi 2 is ranked 98th on Bravo's scariest movie moments list **

THE DVD - The transfer looked great, and the dolby digital 5.1 track adequate.
Special Features (from the back cover)
-Exclusive 98 minute featurette including blood drenched testimonials from SFX artist Gianetto De Rossi, Cinemaphotographer Sergio Salvati, screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti
- Cast & crew interviews, actor Ian McCullogh commentary, extensive photogallery and original assorted zombie trailers!
- Restored Remastered, anamorphic wide screen and fully uncut!

This is a classic zombie move ... 4.5 stars.......2007-07-16

I won't talk about the story line because everyone has already written about it. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this movie and would recommend it to any zombie-genre fan for the following reasons:

1. The remake looks great and sounds great.
2. Special effects are actually quite good. The zombies look terrific and the gore will not disappoint anyone expecting 1979 level special effects (not perfect, but very good for the time and budget of this movie).
3. Some creative interpretations of zombie'ism were brought forth (i.e. underwater zombie, and "full" zombie ... (meaning a zombie eating was happy and not in attack mode).
4. Change of location from NYC to the Caribbean ... almost like going on vacation with them.
5. No subtitles to read (unless you want to). Meaning, the dialogue is in English.
6. You've got the "someone I love is now a zombie .. oh no, what do I do ... how can I kill so-and-so" conflict
7. Enjoyed the concept of someone actually trying to figure out what is happening from a scientific perspective (i.e. Doctor is researching the zombies). Most movies skip into panic mode with everyone screaming and locking themselves indoors.
8. Great to have old zombies coming out of the ground ... some zombie movies forget about the dead and buried ... or forget the dead are buried 6 ft. deep under concrete blocks, etc. Not Fulci.
9. Good "sense" of reality (sometimes). For example, a zombie that is (apparently) hundreds of years old is slow and when shot doesn't bleed but instead you see a puff of dust.

Here's what's no so great:
1. Acting was overall somewhat weak (despite the efforts of the Italian director to "showcase" his female actresses).
2. Doesn't do justice to some themes ... for example: Voodoo is the apparent "cause" for the zombies, but no details are given beyond that.
3. These zombies are slow, relatively weak, and actually pretty easy to get away from. The main characters sometimes just hit the zombies and walked away, but other times they made a stand inside a locked building. Not a big problem to me, but basically someone walking through a crowd with a baseball bat would probably have been safe ... so overall the zombies (while looking great) were not terribly threatening.

Not deep, but fun zombie classic.......2007-06-12

This is one of my favorite zombie movies. It's just fun. Whereas Dawn of the Dead [which this is supposed to be the Italian sequel to] has real characters and motivations and you feel like you're watching something put together with a greater plan in mind, here you feel like you're watching something with just the efficient delivery of thrills in mind.

The movie opens with a scene that successfully creeped me out: an abandoned boat drifts into New York Harbor. There's a zombie aboard who bites of a police officer. The boat belonged to Tisa Farrow's [Mia's sister], father. So Tisa has to go down to the Carribean to look for him, and she brings along this reporter she's hooked up with, and they hire a boat from this bearded blond sensitive 70s hunk and his girlfriend.

There's lots of mumbo-jumbo about the island being cursed and a strange illness going around the island, but finally they get near [the movie DOES take its time getting going] the island and the showstopping set pieces start. The first is a battle between shark and zombie--less exciting in reality than it sounds, though still cool, and gaining redemptive points just for the IDEA.

I also got a creepy frisson out of the moment when the freaked-out snorkeler [Auetta Gay] comes up from the deep and says "There was a MAN down there!" The idea of underwater zombies is ripped off in the execrable House of the Dead.

There's another notorious scene a few minutes later, after they're reached the island, and the good doctor Menard asks them to go in and check on his wife. Unfortunately the wife is already zombie chow, but first they speared her eye on a wooden shard. Obviously this is gory, and has lots of fans, but it kind of bugs me... why would a zombie want to do that? It kind of took me out of the movie. But they make up for it a few minutes later when the body is found, and the zombies are just quietly feasting on her organs as though at a relaxing picnic [with attendant slurpy sounds].

This movie also features the famous convention of standing there utterly stupefied for five minutes while a zombie slowly, slowly, slowly shuffles over to you and takes a bite out of your neck.

It all builds to an exciting climax in a burning hospital, and featured some effectively creepy shots leading up to then. It ends on a note that has become somewhat of a cliché [and probably was one then], but you expect it by that time. All around, a great, gory, lighthearted and fun zombie movie.

Average customer rating:

ZZZZ
ZOMBI
Fulci and Romero playing tag using influence rather than there hands. However i believe another influence as well.
This is a classic zombie move ... 4.5 stars
Not deep, but fun zombie classic

Zombi 2
Starring: Ugo Bologna , Al Cliver , Stefania D'Amario , Dakkar , and Alberto Dell'Acqua
Manufacturer: Shriek Show
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Horror | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Mystery & Suspense | Genres | DVD | Video

( Z ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

ASIN: B00009WVNS
Release Date: 1969-12-31

Amazon.com

Description

We Are Going To Eat You! The Fulci Classic Returns, And Once Again The Dead Are Among Us!

Customer Reviews:

ZZZZ.......2007-09-11

ZOMBI.......2007-08-09

Fulci and Romero playing tag using influence rather than there hands. However i believe another influence as well........2007-07-25

This is a classic zombie move ... 4.5 stars.......2007-07-16

Not deep, but fun zombie classic.......2007-06-12

Zombi 4: A Virgin Among the Living [Region 2]

Average customer rating:

This release is an absolute DISGRACE. DONT buy it!!
One of the most disturbing gothic films ever made!
It's finally on DVD!
Haunting Euro Horror
One of Jess' Best

Zombi 4: A Virgin Among the Living [Region 2]

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Jazz | Styles | Music

General | Horror | Genres | DVD | Video

( Z ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

ASIN: B000068C3V

Customer Reviews:

This release is an absolute DISGRACE. DONT buy it!!.......2007-07-30

Allow me to explain... This movie is one of the greatest horror films ever made. It is Franco's best. Bizzare imagery, eerie atmosphere, its all here. But this release is PATHETIC! Image has cut the Rollin Scenes (which detracts a great deal from this films creepy value) and other scenes. We are left with an INCOMPLETE heavily cut movie. I strongly recommend that you buy the NTSC Region 2 Japanese DVD, which has english audio and optional Japanese subtitles. This is the complete version of the film, totally uncut with the garden scene (not shown in any other version ever released.) PLUS, it also includes as an extra, The original EDDE video release (a company which released this movie about 15 years ago on VHS.) So you have the movie UNCUT, and then you have an optional print from the early 1990s. This Japanese DVD is a true collectors item and is the only true release this movie ever got. It can easily be found online, at a dealer who specializes in import horror DVDs. Your wasting your money if you buy this Image release. Yeah, the Japanese DVD costs twice as much, but if you want to see this masterpiece the way it was meant to be seen and have it permanently in your collection, why haggle over a few bucks. I have the Japanese DVD and it is one of my most prized possessions.

One of the most disturbing gothic films ever made!.......2007-06-01

I have to admit something. I first rented this movie about a year ago, and didn't watch more than the first 15 minutes got bored and took it out. I finally rented it again just to give it a better look. I can admit when I was wrong. This is a truly surreal, disturbing , haunting work of horror and sensuality. It is erotic and yes even sinister at times. But it was really good. I'm surprised I had never given this film a chance before. The title always sounded stupid..but once I saw it I understood why. The point of this film is really....well....that there are places on the earth that are just damned without redemption. A great number of people would really hate this movie. I'm gonna stand up and say..if the point of celluloid is to educate, entertain, stimulate and emulate human nature as opposed to spiritual awareness...this movie did both in a dark way.
I must say I feel a bit shocked...but thrilled as well.

It's finally on DVD!.......2004-11-14

WARNING -- This is NOT, I repeat, NOT a Zombie movie. If anyone out there typed "Living Dead" into the Amazon search engine and come up with this little golden nugget Of Jess Franco weirdness, click the back button right now!

I know this movie has been re-titled "Zombie 4" and "Zombie 5" when intercut with footage from the 1980 film "Zombie Lake." But the "Living Dead" of the title refers to Vampires. The original title was "Cristina, Princess of Eroticism," but for some reason, they chose to mislead unsuspecting Zombie movie fans, as well as to reveal cause of the strange goings on we are meant to be wondering about.

I'm a great admirer of Jess Franco. I like to watch his movies, but unfortunately, it's impossible. Not only because he has made over 200 movies, and each one of them has about 5 different titles, but because the overwhelming majority of his films are crap. From what I read about Jess Franco, he would not argue with me on this particular point, because he allegedly believes ALL of his films are crap, whereas I actually like some of them.

The DVD has options to watch the film in its original language with English subtitles (which I didn't do, so I don't know what language that actually is, although I would assume it was French.) or dubbed in English. Most people probably think the preferred viewing option would be subtitles. As you can imagine, the dubbing is pretty atrocious, but there is a very specific reason why someone would want to watch the film this way. This film has been famous for several years (well, famous in a cult-like way) for being the source of many prominant and more lengthy samples on My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult's classic album, "Confessions of a Knife." Long time Thrill Kill Kult fans remember the eerie, "I hear her...she's calling me tonight.." and of course, "I'm blind, but I can see the color of souls, and yours is white," which is still used in their live show today. We've sought after it for years, and it's finally available on DVD! Although, sadly, my fellow TKK fans, the now legendary, "I'm gonna find her! And I'm gonna kill her!" sample is NOT in this film, but if you found that, don't you think you'd only end up disappointed?

Cristina is traveling to visit her extended family in a mansion, and everyone tells her not to go there, because no one lives there. Unless you blocked out the title of the movie, you can probably guess why they think this, even after Cristina arrives, and meets her family members. This movie doesn't have a lot of gore, but plenty of nudity, and general Jess Franco weirdness. The people who live in the house, and some who just hang around for no apparent reason, like to come into Cristina's room while she's sleeping. This never stops her from sleeping naked above her sheets, however, and if it did, it wouldn't be much of a Jess Franco movie.

One such person is Linda, a blind woman who says she wants to help Cristina, although it is never really explained how or why. One morning, Cristina wakes, naked of course, to find a big black dildo on her floor. When she flings it away, Linda says, "Oh, no, you've shattered the great ebony phallus! You are now doomed to eternal misery!" I haven't exactly figured out how Linda knew that Cristina shattered the great ebony phallus, since she is blind. But, since it is never mentioned again, I have to assume one of two things: 1) Linda knew Cristina was doomed to eternal misery anyway, in a mansion with the living dead, and shattering the phallus had nothing to do with it. She just put it there because she knows that a girl who sleeps naked when strangers keep coming into her room might find it useful or 2) Jess Franco wanted to shoot a scene with a naked girl sitting in front of a big black dildo, and wrote in Linda's line in a failed attempt to incorporate it into the plot.

Did I say, "plot"? I didn't mean to. Don't watch this expecting a story to unfold. Like most of his best films, it's a lot of weirdness and very little story. But if you're interested in Jess Franco enough to have looked this up, I would recommend it. It's also a must-see for Thrill Kill Kult fans.

Haunting Euro Horror.......2004-06-21

I was dying to see this film after reading about it in "Images in the Dark" ( a must have book on gay and lesbian films) The film is a lot better than I expected. Yes it does suffer from a low budget and atrocious English dubbing; but director Jesus Franco creates some haunting images that will stay with you after the final fade out.

One of Jess' Best.......2004-02-26

Franco's 150+ films can be divided into two types: crude, deritive films he quickly cranked out in order to maintain an income, and those into which he poured his heart and soul. The fact that most of his films fell into the former category, that he had low budgets and short filming periods, his films are often poorly translated, and ill-advised cuts were often created by his american distributors, has led to an underappreciation of Franco's skills. Although most of his films deserve all the criticism they receive, this disk should help lead to a reevaluation of Franco.

This film, despite the unfortunate title imposed upon it by the producers, is one of Franco's better films, although those looking for a horror film or one of Franco's more fun-filled movies, such as The Girl From Rio, will likely be disappointed.

After the death of his favourite star, Soledad Miranda, in a tragic accident, Franco spent about a year cranking out lousy films in order to quickly fulfill his contractual obligations with a German distributor. Afterwards, he created this film which is a very personal, poetic, surreal and melancholy rumination upon death, most likely inspired by Soledad's death. One of the themes touched upon is how death is especially tragic when it happens to someone who is young and innocent.

Attempting to describe the plot only does this film injustice. Without conveying the film's actual mood created through image, music, and acting, the story sounds absurd and simplistic. Fortunately, Image has for the first time released Franco's true vision of the film. As another reviewer notes, you should watch this in the original language. Previously the dozens of different cuts available in the american market were bastardized versions with inserts created by different directors. Some of these schlocky inserts are included on the disk as an extra, including some by Jean Rollin (from whom I would have expected much better).

Average customer rating:
Zombi-Dawn of the Dead [Region 2]
Starring: Zombi-Dawn of the Dead
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Horror | Genres | DVD | Video
( Z ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
ASIN: B000A2WDIK
Release Date: 2005-01-25

DVD:

DVD

DVD