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Zombie
Reviewing some movies is a pointless endeavor. Certain films are made exclusively for their target audiences, with little regard for anyone outside of their circle. Thus, they might be poorly-made, not inclusive, and painful to watch for outsiders looking in, but neither the film’s makers nor the fans could care less. In fact, most of the time, the fans of such films enjoy reading the reviews of critics (the speakers for those outside of the loop), at whom they giggle and insist that we are missing the point (I would argue that the point of such movies is that there is no point, but I digress). Movies in these categories include cult films of varying quality, such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Evil Dead (which, just for the record, I kind of enjoyed), and also Z-grade schlock films, usually made by Italians, featuring bucket loads of cheap-looking gore, badly-dubbed actors, and bare, European breasts. Zombie, directed by Lucio Fulci, falls into the latter group. For that matter, any film directed by Lucio Fulci would probably be in this category. Like most of his other films, Zombie is loaded with gore, nudity, flesh-eating zombies with maggots crawling all over their rotting skin, and really dumb characters who stare blankly at the wall until it is time for them to mutter their utterly pointless dialogue. Believe it or not, there are die-hard fans of this genre, who I suspect have developed certain affection for cheap-looking gore and the use of stock footage...lots of stock footage. For them the quality of a film is all about how many nude women are shown and how many characters are torn to pieces, their severed body parts being reduced to ketchup-covered, rubber appendages; not to mention how often the character’s mouths move to words that they are not saying. Zombie delivers all of these attributes, and it just might have set the precedence for other Italian schlock-films that followed. Thus, any word from the critics about Zombie would only solicit laughter from the fans, and anyone who is not a fan would not be caught dead watching the movie to begin with. So there you have it; no film critic needed. Yet here I am, reviewing Zombie. Having established that it is critic-proof, I’m sure all readers are asking why I am wasting my time. I would be asking myself the same question, if not for the single fact that the purpose of this review is more for the sake of reviews that I soon intend to write, covering the work of the great genre-director George A. Romero. Romero is responsible for the gory, apocalyptic zombie films Night of the Living Dead (1968 and its 1990 remake), Dawn of the Dead (1979), and Day of the Dead (1985), all brilliant, four-star social commentaries in which Romero uses the metaphor of human-devouring zombies to reflect the social and moral issues within the respective decade that each film was made (racism, feminism, consumerism, cold war, etc.). In his films, zombies and gore reflect Romero’s concern that we are living in a society desensitized to violence and morality. That his films were followed by a long list of blood-soaked rip-offs that weren’t paying attention to his underlining theme only proves his point, tragically. Thus, this review of Zombie exists to show my readers the difference in Romero’s approach to the material and the approach of his copycats. That way, when you see my reviews praising Romero's films for all of their violence and gore, you will remember this article as a reference, and realize that there is a difference between violence used intelligently to make a statement about depravity and violence used to satisfy gore-hounds who love to watch undead creatures devour helpless, scantily-clothed women. Most of Lucio’s fans call him a master of creepy atmosphere, and most patrons of film dismiss him as a hack. I straddle the line. It would be wrong to call Fulci a hack—his films are certainly his own, with their own distinctive style. Against all odds, he does manage to create some genuinely creepy images in Zombie, such as the unmanned boat drifting silently into a New York harbor or a one-hundred-and-eighty degree shot around a rotting, bleeding zombie as it scuffles slowly but with determination through a deserted jungle village. That said, I believe that the late Fulci's gift was probably in photography and not in directing, because the effective shots are self-contained and surrounded by pointless images of gore, nudity, and thespians who act with their double-barrel shotguns and explosives. Other scenes are well-shot but so silly that we hardly notice their appeal, such as the infamous shark versus zombie scene, which has to be seen to be believed. Most of the movie has little sense of timing or rhythm, and the overbearing, techno soundtrack and cheaply-made sets don’t help much to convey mood. Along the same lines, when the walking, hungry dead make for better actors than the principle cast, we are really in deep trouble. Our heroes' faces remain blank and lifeless, no matter what terrible events are taking place around them, and the long pauses between each line of dialogue, even during arguments and action scenes, are quite laughable. But again, this film was not made by or for anyone who expects anything less, so what’s the point of going into plot or characters? Both simply exist to move us from one gory encounter with the undead to the next, and the movie delivers the… er… “goods.” On that note, let’s discuss the zombies. Most Fulci fans praise Zombie and dismiss Romero’s films on the basis that Fulci’s walking dead are far more realistic, with their skin literally hanging torn from their bodies and dirt, maggots, and blood dripping from them in generous portion. They are comparing Fulci's zombies to the creatures of Romero's Dawn of the Dead, whose dead make up is mainly limited to blue-painted faces. Such a dismissal of Romero's masterpiece is irrelevant, as A) Romero's zombies are supposed to be metaphors anyway, so realism is not important; B) Romero's zombies have far more personality because they aren't caked in gory makeup and are meant to reflect individual walks of life; C) All of Romero's other Dead films feature some pretty realistic zombie makeup, so restricting comparison to Dawn is being intentionally one-sided; and D) If you want realism, it is not found in Fulci's film either, which features corpses hundreds of years dead raising from their graves with rotting skin and organs still intact. For that matter, consider the scene in which the hungry dead slowly pull a helpless victim's head towards a large splinter in the wall, which is soon poking deeply into her eye. We are forced to ask, why would a group of mindless zombies who are hungry for flesh even waste their time torturing their victim when they could just take a nice, juicy bit out of them? Simple: Because it's gory, and gore is good! Right? Hey, I'll be honest: I like a good, scary horror film as much as anyone else. The Exorcist, Psycho, and Romero's Dead saga are some of the best films ever made, of any genre. But there is a difference between good, honest scares that provoke thought and stimulate the imagination and watching lame-brained characters freeze and wait for a zombie who creeps at a snail's pace to at last reach them and take a large bite out of their jugular. To quote my good friend Buzz Lightyear, "This isn't flying; this is falling, with style." Ah, but there I am, reviewing the film for its qualities again. There's no point, really. Fulci fans are aware of the film's lack of common sense, and they relish it as long as everything that happens on screen happens with plenty of blood and nudity displayed. For the rest of us, I watched this film so that you don't have to. Now, when you are at the movie rental store, you will know the difference between the work of George Romero and the work of Lucio Fulci. And after you watch Romero's films, you'll thank me for sitting through Zombie so that I could warn you. So will your brain, your love for cinema, and, I suspect, George Romero. AKA: Zombi 2, Zombie Flesh-Eaters, Island of the Living Dead, Island of the Flesh Eaters. Cast: A Variety Films production.
Directed by Lucio Fulci. Written (HA HA HA HA HA) by Elisa Briganti.
Not Rated, but loaded with graphic violence, nudity, and some
pretty gruesome shark-abuse. Running time: 91 minutes. Original
United States theatrical release: July 18, 1980. Update: Well. For all this hate, years after posting this review, I have since revisited Lucio Fulci and have changed my position on him. Who knew? I guess the moral is that no opinion is final for those of us who study and are shaped by the arts...or something. That's a nice way of saying I was wrong. Questions? Comments? E-mail me: danel_the_tinman@hotmail.com |
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