Zombie

An abandoned boat drifts into New York harbour, prompting the coastguard to investigate. One of the two boarding officers is killed by a zombie. The other pumps six bullets into the creature, which plummets into the water.

Newspaper man Peter West (Ian McCulloch) is dispatched to investigate the story by his boss (Lucio Fulci) and soon joins up with Ann Bowles (Tisa Farrow), the daughter of the boat's owner, Dr Bowles, to travel to the island of Matoul.

In the Antilles Peter and Ann meet an American couple, Brian (Al Cliver AKA Pier Luigi Conti) and Susan (Auretta Gay), who are on a sailing holiday, and arrange transportation to Matoul.

Meanwhile, on Matoul, Bowles' colleague, Dr Menard (Richard Johnson), struggles to understand the zombie plague that has taken hold on the island and argues with his wife (Olga Karlatos), who is understandably desperate to leave. She goes back to their house, only to fall victim to a zombie who drives a wooden splinter into her eye…

Susan goes to take some photographs underwater and encounters a shark. Just when it seems the shark is about to attack her, a zombie appears and goes for the shark, giving Susan the chance to escape to the boat. The shark rams the boat, forcing the group to land… on Matoul.

Dr Menard explains the situation and the unfortunate fate of Ann's father – he became infected with the zombie disease and had to be shot in the head – and requests the new arrivals go to fetch his wife. They get there, to find a group of zombie's happily feasting on her entrails…

Though often dismissed as a quick cash-in on George A Romero's Dawn of the Dead, Zombie's relationship to its American counterpart is somewhat more complex. It's certainly true to say that, without Romero's film – and, perhaps, more specifically, Dario Argento's involvement in it as a co-producer/backer – Fabrizo De Angelis of Fulvia film would have found something else for director Lucio Fulci to imitate. But, gore aside, the models for Zombie predate Romero's Living Dead films. Not for nothing, for instance, does Fulci pay homage to John Gilling's The Plague of the Zombies as the rotting cadavers of the Spanish conquistadores (or conkwestadoreth as Al Cliver's dubbing voice lisps it) haul themselves out their graves.

Fulci's direction is fairly typical: a penchant for intense close-ups and rack focus shots along with a tendency to lavish attentions on the set pieces to the detriment of all else. (The last accusation could, of course, also be levelled at Argento; though I'll leave it for others to argue the relative merits of the two men.) Fortunately, these set pieces – the assorted rippings, gougings and maimings; the underwater fight; Mrs Menard's demise; the rise of the zombie conquistadores, and the final desperate battle between the humans and the zombies – are enough in themselves to make one almost forget the dull, plodding hurry-up-and-get-to-the-bloody-island-already first half.

The performances are variable. Richard Johnson and Olga Karlatos do well as the couple whose relationship is on the rocks, doing more than might be expected with the slight material on offer, though one can understand why Tia Farrow's and Auretta Gay's acting careers went nowhere. (Ms Farrow reportedly ended up driving a cab in New York, but does anyone know what happened to Ms Gay?)

Fabio Frizzi's main zombie theme is suitably apocalyptic, fully meriting its reprises in City of the Living Dead and The Beyond. Much of the remainder of his score – the cheesy reggae piece, the synth droning that accompanies the zombie's animation in the New York morgue etc – is, probably best forgotten. But before comes down too hard on the composer here, it's worth recalling that the more esteemed Goblin similarly resorted to unpleasant synth whines to accompany key shocks in Beyond the Darkness.

Elisa Livia Briganti's script is more linear than those her husband Dardano Sacchetti would supply for City of the Living Dead and The Beyond. Personally I find this works against the film, making some of the basic weaknesses in the writing – the amount of time it takes someone to become a zombie after they have been killed, for instance, appears dependent on what is dramatically appropriate, while the zombies basic behaviour is similarly inconsistent – that bit more apparent. But I know a lot of Zombie's fans prefer the film's simplicity in this regard. Perhaps it's just a matter of taste: Do you prefer a gory B-movie that's happy to exist within those limits or a gory B-movie that has somewhat loftier aspirations towards being an exercise in the Theatre of Cruelty?

The truth is surely, however, that no one really watches a film like Zombie for its narrative construction, dialogue, characterisation or any of that stuff. Rather, anything of this sort that one finds is more likely to be an excuse, a way of providing intellectual justification for watching gory zombie-fests. No, the splatter is all that really matters with a film like this and, as make-up and effects man Gianetto De Rossi astutely observes: "You simply can't convey messages while you'e ripping someone to shreds. Gore is a film genre, and either you like it or you don't.". And it's here that Zombie has an edge over the majority of its competitors. De Rossi's make up and effects look suitably realistic – there are no disasters like the novelty spiders of The Beyond on display – but are safely positioned with a clearly fantastical context unlike The New York Ripper. Without this balance, the celebrated eyeball piercing, for one, would either be laughable or unbearable.

All told, a bloody good show.