Zombi 2 (initially released in the United States as Zombie) is a 1979 Italian zombie film directed by Lucio Fulci. It was adapted from an original screenplay by Dardano Sacchetti to serve as a sequel to George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978), which was released in Italy with the title Zombi. It stars Tisa Farrow, Ian McCulloch, and Richard Johnson, and features a score by frequent Fulci collaborator Fabio Frizzi. Frizzi's score has been released independently of the film, and he has performed it live on tour.
The film tells the story of a Caribbean island cursed by voodoo whose dead residents rise as zombies to attack the living. A scientist's daughter journeys to the island after her father's boat turns up abandoned in New York City. Intended by its writer as a return to "classic zombie tales", Zombi 2 was filmed in Italy, with further location shooting in New York and Santo Domingo.
Produced on a small budget of 410 million Italian lira, the film earned several times its production costs back in international gross. It attracted controversy upon its release in the United Kingdom, where it screened as Zombie Flesh Eaters, where it became listed as a "video nasty". However, in the subsequent years the film received a greater appreciation from critics, and has gained a cult following.
Plot[]
An abandoned boat drifts into New York Harbor, and is boarded by two harbor patrolmen. A hidden zombie kills one of the patrolmen, but is shot by the patrolman’s partner and falls overboard; the dead patrolman's body is taken to the morgue. Anne Bowles is questioned by police, as the boat belonged to her father. She claims he is conducting research on Matul, a Caribbean island. British journalist Peter West (Ian McCulloch), is investigating the story; he and Bowles learn that Bowles' father is suffering from a strange illness on the island. They hire a boat and two guides—Brian Hull and his girlfriend Susan Barrett—to reach Matul.
Meanwhile, on Matul, British doctor David Menard and his wife Paola have been researching the phenomenon of zombie reanimation. Paola wishes to flee the island, but Menard insists on staying. That night, Paola is alone in the house when a zombie tries to enter; she pushes the door shut but it breaks through with one arm. Paola is dragged through the hole and killed, with her eye being gouged out by splintered wood.
Approaching Matul, Barrett dives in the ocean around the boat. She encounters a shark, and flees behind a reef only to be accosted by a submerged zombie. Surfacing, she reaches the boat while the shark and zombie attack each other. Eventually, the boat docks at Matul.
Menard is alarmed to find that one of his colleagues, Fritz, has died of the zombie infection. He tells his remaining staff to shoot all the dead bodies in their heads. While digging a grave for a body, he hears a signal flare and follows it to discover the boat group. Menard sends them back to his mansion in order to fetch his wife, where they discover Paola's corpse being eaten by zombies. The group fends off an attack against them and escapes in a jeep, with West suffering an ankle injury when the vehicle veers off-road after slamming into a zombie. Resting in a jungle clearing, the group realize they have encountered a Conquistador-era graveyard; Barrett is killed when one of the corpses rises from the earth and bites out her throat.
As more corpses reanimate, the group flees to the local hospital, where Menard explains that the dead are rising as a result of a voodoo curse which he has been trying to stop. The hospital is besieged by zombies, and Menard is killed by a reanimated Fritz. As the zombies attempt to enter, those being treated for infection inside the hospital also reanimate, killing several hospital staff who have stayed behind. As the dead outside breach the door, Bowles, West and Hull sets the building on fire and starts to shoot the zombies; the undead Barrett bites Hull in the arm but is shot in the head by West. Bowles, West and Hull escape to the boat and leave the island. At the sea, Hull dies of his infection, and his body is locked in a cabin to be used as evidence of what has happened. However, as the boat approaches New York again, a radio broadcast reports that the city is under attack from zombies—the result of the initial attack in the harbor.