This pet project of mine has taken me all over the world. From the suburbs of the U.S., to the jungles of Indonesia, to the craziness of 1960’s Korea (see last issue: ed.). I’ve traveled far, and seen many strange things. Few were weirder than a disembodied zombie head flying out of a refrigerator to attack someone.
It’s fitting, then, that my 26-film trek through the wilds of b-moviedom comes to a close in the hallowed halls of Italian horror as we gather to pay our last respects to the belovedly maligned Bruno Mattei, who died of cancer this past Monday.
This is not a review for Zombi 3, nor is it a review for a Lucio Fulci movie, which you would think it was since the artwork on the DVD case sports the title Zombi 3 and a banner proclaiming it to be a part of the Lucio Fulci collection.
This is, in fact, Zombi 2. The movie commonly known as Zombi 2, the classic Fulci living dead flick, is actually Zombi 1. George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead was released in Italy as Zombi, and Fulci’s sequel-in-name-only gut muncher was thusly named to cash in on the success of Romero’s movie, even though Zombi 2 is a completely unrelated movie. Therefore, Zombi 3 is actually Zombi 2, and so on. Of course, you could argue that Zombi 3 and the two following pseudo-sequels could all just be called Zombi: Again, because none of them have anything to do with each other. Did you follow all that? Oh, and Fulci died shortly after filming began (Editor's Note: Fulci actually died in 1996. He became ill while making this movie and had to depart... from the filming of the movie, not life itself) and Bruno Mattei made most of the movie.
A new bioweapon called Death 1 is accidentally released during a terrorist attack on the research compound. The brief outbreak is contained, but the military foolishly dispose of the bodies by burning them, releasing a cloud of mutated Death 1 into the atmosphere (and yes, this movie was made after Return of the Living Dead, if you were wondering).
As the cloud of zombification gas floats toward populous areas, a group of soldiers on leave banter playfully with some girls in an RV. Their shenanigans are spoiled by an attack of divebombing zombie birds! They pull over to shelter and treat their wounded at an abandoned hotel…the very hotel that the initial outbreak took place at.
Meanwhile, another couple in a Corvette is attacked by the birds. The man is injured, and when his girlfriend goes off to find help, she is attacked by a machete-wielding zombie. Let’s take a moment here to examine the film’s zombies. This machete zombie shambles in the classic style, but when it attacks with the knife, it movies with the speed of a living human. This could be contributed to it being recently dead, but machete zombie is quite melty and gross, so he’s been croaked for a while. We’ll just chalk it up to plot convenience, or bad continuity.
The girl escapes when the zombie’s knife hacks into a gas line, soaking the thing in fuel before she hits it with a lighter and runs from the flaming mess. The zombie reacts in pain to its rotting face being sprayed with gasoline. This could mean that the zombies are relatively intelligent, having some higher brain functions left. This would really be the only explanation for their behavior later in the movie, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
Here the plot ends. There’s still a good 50 minutes left of the movie, but the plot got tired and had to sit it out on the bench. Poor, exhausted plot… Here, have some Gatorade. You deserve it, having to work with Italian filmmakers. It’s not easy being a plot in a 1980’s European horror movie.
Without its plot to guide it, the movie just turns into a series of increasingly silly set pieces. Remember what I said about rudimentary intelligence being the only explanation for the zombies’ behavior? They fucking hide in places to jump out and attack their victims. There are zombies hangin’ out in bushes, at the bottom of swimming pools (either that or it was a lost shark that chewed that girl’s legs off), even crouching on top of retaining walls, just hoping someone will walk by. The best one, and the one this movie is famous for, is when one of the guys from the RV bunch heads into the kitchen of the hotel looking for food. A disembodied zombie head flies out of the fridge and rips his throat out, while its body mutilates his girlfriend. See? The living dead do have a sense of humor. There’s also a fairly strange scene where Nancy finds a pregnant woman. A zombie grabs her from behind and rips the skin off her face while the zombie hand of a fully-grown adult reaches out of the pregnant girls’ belly to crush her head.
Oh, and there’s some stuff about the scientists who created Death 1 trying to find a cure while the military kills every moving thing in the quarantine zone. The scientists are pissed that they weren’t told about the dangers of Death 1 when they began work on it. Hello, McFly!? It’s fucking called DEATH 1! What did you think it was, a formula to make cuter, fluffier kittens?
Finally, we’re left with the only other three people whose names were said enough for me to remember them (I know you’re thinking, “What a sloppy reviewer, he should know characters’ names because they’re important”, and if you’re thinking that, you’ve never seen an Italian zombie movie).
Kenny blows up an outbuilding with the world’s most powerful hand grenade to clear a path for them to get to a helicopter on the other side of the yard. They almost all get away, but Roger is taken down by a pack of zombies hiding in a haystack (seriously, what the hell?) before the military arrives and gives him a lead enema.
Kenny and Patricia fly off in the chopper, listening to the now-undead radio announcer (who has been narrating the whole movie, alive until now) talk about Year Zero for the dead as he plays a song dedicated to his shuffling, moldy brethren.
When I caught Grindhouse during its unfortunately short theatrical run, I couldn’t help thinking through the entire first feature, Planet Terror, that it bore a strong resemblance to Zombi 3. Whether intentional or subconsciously (probably the former, considering the nature of the project), Robert Rodriguez was clearly heavily influenced by Mattei’s splatterfest. The plots are very similar, but it’s the atmosphere that really brings home the connection for me. Both movies are swathed in a heavy bank of fog for most of their runtime, and the colors (predominantly an eerie green light that seems to emanate from everywhere and nowhere) are faded and dingy, giving the film itself a sickly look.
And so, I bid you a fond farewell, Mr. Mattei. You will be missed. May your zombie head fly far and free.
Moral of the Story: Open your refrigerator very carefully, and maybe poke inside with a stick before reaching in for a beer.
H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. Rating: 
Sequel to: Zombi: Dawn of the Dead ;
Zombi 2
Sequels: Zombi 4: After Death ;
Zombi 5: the Killing Birds
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