What is with all of the different names and what the proper name for this film you might be asking well a lot of it comes down to the fact that George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead was released in Italy with the title Zombi. Now the Italians always seemed to have this thing where if they thought they could sell people a film by giving it a name that would connect it to an already popular film even if there was no real relationship between the films then sod it that's exactly what they would do and thats what happened here. Zombi 2 had the working title of Gli Ultimi Zombi, but was renamed Zombi 2 in order to cash in on Romero's popular movie, by presenting this new film as some kind of sequel. Yes the plot bears practically zero relation to the events portrayed in the film Dawn of the Dead with the only common point basically being the inclusion of Zombies (even if they are portrayed in slightly different ways) but this kind of ''little'' detail is one that the Italian film industry has never really given much of a monkeys about. I think its important to mention that this was in fact done by the movie studio without Director Lucio Fulci's blessing or even his knowledge. This was not something he agreed with and he has reportedly always told fans that this is not a sequel that it is its own thing and that he was relieved when the film had the unconnected title of Zombie when released in America.
Lucio Fulci and his films are no stranger to controversy in fact Fulci had 3 films listed on the original UK list of 74 official video nasties, one being this film Zombie Flesh Eaters/Zombi 2 and the others being The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery. On top of this his film City of the Living Dead narrowly missed the list following its recall and his later film The New York Ripper was banned in the UK as well. Fulci was more than just a horror movie maker though he had also tackled thrillers, adventures, Spaghetti Westerns, political spoofs, and crime-drama. I guess what I am trying to say is that the guy wasnt a hack who thought he could work his way into money just by throwing gore at the screen, he was an acomplished film maker.
So what about the films story? Well the two main characters are a local reporter named Peter West and Anne Bowles the daughter of the missing Captain of a boat. Peter and Anne fly to the Dominican Republic and meet an American tourist couple who are about to embark on a sailing tour of the Caribbean. Peter and Anne ask them for help to go to the island of Matul, the last place Anne heard from her. Despite the couples claim about warnings from the superstitious locals about Matul, they agree to take them to the island. What they find on Matul is basically zombies and thats as much of the story as I want to give away as I feel this film is well worth watching. Lots of people know this film as the film with the large sharp piece of wood being driven into the womans eye, or as the film in which a shark fights a zombie. I think a lot of what you think about this film will come down to what you think about the last sentance I have written, if your thinking wow that sounds cool then this is the film for you. Personally I would give this film an 8 out of 10, I dont think that it is on par with the Evil Dead but I do think that it is a great film. Yes there are certain films on the DPP72 that are just gore for the sake of gore but this is not one of them, it just so happens to be a good film that has a lot of gore in it, I think the elimination of the gore would harm the final product but I still think it would be a good film which is not something I could say about a lot of the other films on the DPP72.
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