Joseph Howell
“It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time” is a series that focuses on movies that either have a bad critical reputation, bombed in the box office or serve as guilty pleasures. It will largely focus on genre movies, though I will venture outside of that area.
Though it wasn’t his first horror film (he had previously done some pretty effective giallo films), “Zombi 2” was the one that made Lucio Fulci a name in horror. After years of toiling away with westerns, gangster films, musicals and comedies that few really paid attention to, a movie released as an unofficial sequel to George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” allowed him to make more, at times even gorier films that adhered even further to the logic of a nightmare.
Watching it, it’s easy to see why “Zombi 2” still has a following. It’s combination of stomach emptying gore, creeping atmosphere of pure death and decay and tendency to throw things like logic out of the window for pure exploitative delights was a concoction that really strikes a nerve. To this day, it’s been featured in a computer commercial, is often mentioned in conversations about great zombie movies (and sometimes even great horror movies in general) and had a cameo in the box office hit “Warm Bodies.” What was once a movie hated by critics and loved only by the hardest of gore hounds has become something of a pop culture institution.
Later in his career, Fulci’s films had seen better days. The man who once gave us classics like “Don’t Torture a Duckling” and “The Beyond” was now releasing dreck like “Manhattan Baby” (which sounds more like a Broadway musical than it does a horror film) and “Aenigma.” What Fulci needed was a hit to re-establish himself as a force to be reckoned with in the world of Italian horror. So in his mind, what better way to do that than a sequel to “Zombi 2.” What could possibly go wrong?
Well, several things. For example, Claudio Fragasso, who was not exactly a well-respected name within the genre, wrote the screenplay. For those who are wondering “whose that?”, then I’ll let you know a little something-he’s mostly known as the man responsible for “Troll 2”, as well as a frequent collaborator for Italian exploitation junk jack of all trades Bruno Mattei -the latter a man who may have made a few so-bad-it’s-good gems like “Hell of the Living Dead”, but couldn’t make a good movie to save his life.
Then there was Fulci’s health issues and general foul temper. At the time, it was becoming increasingly clear that the man wasn’t too long for this world, as he had a myriad of health problems that were worsened by the shooting conditions (much of the movie was shot in the Philippines) and the climate. Then there was his attitude. One thing many will tell you about Fulci is that he wasn’t exactly a fun man to work with, and tended to lash out the most at women around him. When illness and a poor attitude proved to be too much, Mattei replaced him at the last minute.
The result can kindly be referred to as “rather incoherent and incompetent.” The plot as it is, resembles a less (intentionally) comedic version of “Return of the Living Dead.” Essentially, a terrorist is infected by the bio-weapon he’s carrying, and the U.S. Military cremates his body. This of course, turns out to be what Gob from “Arrested Development” would call “a huge mistake.” That’s because this infects the populace, turning them (and the animals) into flesh hungry zombies. Now, the military has to clean up this mess, and a trio of soldiers and some tourists must fend for their lives.
As you can see, there isn’t much of an explanation as far as plot is concerned. That’s largely because the people behind it seem less interested in plot than they are randomly throwing together scenes that usually don’t make any sense whatsoever. For example: why is it that some of the zombies have the agility of a ninja, but others are of the more traditional slow moving variety? Why is it that a zombie’s head is in a refrigerator and can fly? What’s with the Jamaican Radio DJ who looks like he’s more fitting to be a Stevie Wonder impersonator? The whole thing is completely illogical, which says a lot when you consider the fact that Fulci’s movies rarely made much narrative sense. At the very least, the movie is rarely boring, and managed to make me laugh on more than one occasion. They didn’t mean for any of it to be funny, but I’ll sometimes take the little thing.
At the same time, it all feels a little depressing to watch. You can tell that Fulci and Fragasso want this to be the “Aliens” of the series-something that doesn’t lose it’s edge but embraces the action genre in the process. However, you can’t help but compare it to the prior, better movie. The zombie make up effects that practically looked like real rotting corpses? Replace by poorly done latex and corpse paint. The eerie electronic score by Fabio Frizzi has been replaced by something that sounds more suitable for a straight-to-video movie. The creepy atmosphere is nowhere to be found either, and even the gore effects lack any real conviction.
In a lot of ways, this movie is representative of what happened to the Italian horror industry in the late 80’s and early 90’s. At this point, only Dario Argento and up and comer named Michel Soavi (who started out as an actor in several Italian genre films-including Fulci’s own “City of the Living Dead”) were the only people anyone cared about in the country. All the others were either dead or regulated to making porn, TV movies and direct to video fare. The glory days were over, and “Zombi 3” is living proof of that. It’s a movie from a once promising director failing to capture that one final minute in the spotlight whilst working with people who weren’t all that good to begin with.
Either way, this hasn’t hurt his reputation after his death. Fulci still has massive cult following, and I’m sure that before he died, he considered this movie to be nothing but a minor footnote. Still, I can totally see why it didn’t get an official release in the U.S. until 2002.
Next Time-Jerry Springer enters the movie arena.
Photo Credit-Grimisiti
