Zombi 2 (1980): A Poor Attempt to Cash-in on Dawn of the Dead's Success

Starring: Tisa Farrow, Ian McCulloch, Richard Johnson, Al Cliver, Auretta Gay, Stefania D'Amario, Olga Karlatos, Ugo Bologna, Dakar, Franco Fantasia, Leo Gavero, and Monica Zanchi.

Directed by: Lucio Fulci.

Zombi 2 (also known as Zombie in the U.S.) was one result of the zombie film craze of the late 1970s and early 1980s which all began with 1978's Dawn of the Dead. Zombi 2 classifies itself as an unofficial sequel to Dawn of the Dead (because it was released in Italy under the title Zombi) and you know what? It does a very poor job at that which I will get into in a bit. Directed by Italian horror director Lucio Fulci, this film made him a complete horror icon.

Zombi 2 builds nice tension with its opening and the first 30 minutes which involves an unmanned and seemingly deserted sail boat that drifts into New York City waters. Harbor police patrol inspect it and are attacked by a zombie on board. The infection spreads from the cop to the coroner and so forth. We're led on to believe we're going to see a full scale zombie invasion in New York City. But no, the action shifts to an island somewhere where there's lots of zombie experiments going on (see the zombie on the boat is the father of this woman in New York who knows about his work at this island).

What results is a second act filled with boring zombie stuff going on and lots of slasher horror film cliches. It does redeem itself a little bit with amazing special effects (i.e. a zombie pulling a female victim's eye directly into a splinter in a close up shot), a cool underwater battle between a zombie and a tiger shark, and a yummy strip down scene on a boat where one cute lady goes completely naked as she changes into her diving gear on a boat.

Other than that, there's a nice synthesized and creepy theme by Fabio Frizzi. On the other hand, unofficially or officially, there is no way possible to consider this as a sequel to the film Dawn of the Dead due to the number of inconsistencies that run rampant throughout, for instance - In Dawn of the Dead, the plague was happening all over the world (including New York, according to the radio reports) yet in the opening of Zombi 2, everything is just fine and dandy in Manhattan. What happened there? Did the plague somehow end between Dawn of the Dead and Zombi 2 without explanation?

I have also learned that Zombi 2 was actually written way before Dawn of the Dead was even released but attempted to cash in on the film's success by adding in the opening and closing scenes which take place within New York City. How lazy can they possibly be? It's as if they watched Dawn of the Dead and only paid attention to the zombies, the gore, and the action, completely ignoring the story and all else that was going on. There are only two things that Zombi 2 has in common with Dawn of the Dead: 1) They move slow; 2) Destroy the brain and you kill them. That's it. No mention of the plague in Dawn of the Dead, no mention of the Monroeville Mall incident, nothing.

Maybe this film would have worked if it labeled itself as a prequel to Dawn of the Dead (however, we all know Night of the Living Dead was the beginning anyway), I would have believed it right away, the closing shot with the army of zombies marching their way across the Brooklyn Bridge into New York has Dawn of the Dead prequel written all over it. Overall, this film was more so inspired by Dawn of the Dead, however, it is nowhere close to being a loose sequel.