ZOMBIE
My first Fulci experience. And it sucked.
Movies like this are hard to watch. I hate watching a movie that many die-hard fans of the genre consider a classic and nobody else in the world cares about, because I often end up in the larger category.
Of course, I've become more at ease with it in recent years.
I literally fell asleep sixteen minutes into this movie. Now, I'll be charitable because I've fallen asleep during movies unusually often in the past six months or so, even when I found them moderately interesting. But that's as charitable as I'm gonna get.
The only nice things I've got to say about this flick is that I liked the eyeball scene (who wouldn't?) and liked the denoument, although they undercut the power of it by actually showing the zombies in NYC as cars zip by. Driven, presumably, by non-zombies who can't tell the zombies from the squeegie kids.
Marketed as a sequel to Dawn Of The Dead when originally released in Italy, Zombie was directed by the (in)famous Lucio Fulci. Fulci's the one guy that seems to divide horror fans more than any others. Some people believe he was a genius whose films let you have a peek into worlds where reality is always on the crumble and terror is created by the extreme abandon of convention. Other people believe that he demonstrated all the cinematic literacy of a cinnamon ringtail, and better films could be expected of a three-legged Schnauzer puppy with a Handicam strapped to its back.
I seem to fall in the latter camp.
My first question...if shooting 'em in the head finishes them off (as is clearly shown), why was that first zombie still shuffling around on the boat, thus setting in motion the entire picture? We saw it get shot in the head. I guess shooting them in the head only works some of the time. You know, like when it's convenient for the movie. (basically, shooting zombies in the head works for this movie the way gravity works for Armageddon)
This movie is severely hampered by incredibly stupid characters (just stand there, that's the ticket) and been-there-done-that situations (if somebody's pounding on the door screaming "Let me in let me in!!!", not a lot of tension is produced when you pan the camera over to reveal that whatever is chasing them is too far away to be seen). The tape also causes cringing with some of the worst pan-n-scan I've ever seen (and no, I don't blame Fulci and company for that of course). (I've been told that I haven't seen the movie at all if I haven't seen it in widescreen. I don't think I'd care to see twice as much of this movie.)
It was long, and it was boring. A few reasonably good gore effects couldn't save it - I mean, one eyeball and a bunch of all-the-same jugular spurts just ain't enough. No tension, despite a few good select moments of some zombies popping up where you either don't expect them (out of the ground right next to ya) or where you haven't had time to expect them (a big hole in the wall you've seen for all of half a second).
And what's with this famous zombie-vs.-shark battle? What a joke! The zombie just hugged the shark, and the shark was so sedated that it just sat there like a dumb shit. That's not a battle, that's high-school slow-dancing.
Another reason why a movie like this is hard to watch - it's too much like hard work. I mean, I sat there the whole time telling myself "Brian, it's a classic...it's a classic...it's a classic, that's what they keep saying..." and doing my damnedest to look at it like it was something, well, good. When I first saw this, that bothered me.
It doesn't bother me anymore. Some movies just suck no matter who loves 'em.