"Zombi 2" is without a doubt one of the all time classics of the zombie sub genre, kick starting a cycle in director Lucio Fulci's career of no holds barred horror movies that combined in your face gruesome violence and tons of overwhelming doom and gloom atmosphere. It contains a few set pieces that are extremely iconic to horror fans; who can see the slow eyeball piercing, the underwater battle between a zombie and a shark, the sight of the zombies rising from the earth, and the fiery climax and forget them?
The movie begins with just such a set piece, a hint of things to come, when a seemingly deserted yacht sails into New York harbour, and the cops who board it are attacked by a corpulent zombie. Intrepid reporter Peter West (the engaging Ian McCulloch) teams with Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow), the daughter of the yacht's owner, and they travel to the obscure Caribbean island of Matul to track down the father, learning that he was only one of a number of victims of a zombie epidemic there.
Commendably, screenwriter Elisa Briganti (given uncredited assistance by her husband and fellow screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti, a very familiar name to fans of Italian horror) stresses a mystery element, never giving a conclusive answer to the strange happenings - is it some disease to blame or is it really the result of voodoo? Fulci (appearing on screen as a newspaper editor-in-chief) stages the assorted bits of gory mayhem with great flair, yet parcels them out carefully, keeping the pace steady but never really cutting loose until the final act, which is intense and exciting; West proves to be a pretty kick ass hero. And the music sets the mood extremely well with a hell of a memorable main theme. The movie co-stars the always excellent Richard Johnson ("The Haunting" '63, "Beyond the Door", etc.) as the weary Dr. Menard, stubbornly struggling to find the answers, Al Cliver and Auretta Gay as the helpful Brian and Susan, lovely Stefania D'Amario as the nurse, Dakar as Lucas, and stunning Olga Karlatos as Menard's wife Paola. Both Gay and Karlatos also show off a lot of skin as well.
A thoroughly enjoyable movie with an ultimately apocalyptic feel, "Zombi 2" features some of the most convincingly ugly zombies captured on film, with "worm eye" (played by stuntman Ottaviano Dell'Acqua) having become the movie's most enduring image. This is simply one of those "must see" movies that horror fans should see as part of their experience.
Eight out of 10.
