Lucio Fulci
Zombi 3

THE REVIEW

Sometimes I wonder how certain nonsense can go unnoticed before being released to the market. The now experienced Lucio Fulci, without any shame, in 1988 feeds the splatter enthusiasts with this "Zombie 3" (any reference to the renowned Romero saga is purely intentional). And it is the delirium of trash, the apocalypse of buffoonery.

Zombies sometimes (rightfully) slow, other times hopping like grasshoppers; The same undead who set ambushes perched on columns several meters high or hidden under heaps of hay. A script that calling it ridiculous doesn't do it justice, more like the barrel of creativity being scraped, or rather, completely smashed. The entire film is a series of thefts from the far too patient George A. Romero, even in the characters of the obtuse soldiers in white suits (see "The Crazies"). The plot, in very few but undeserved words: a virus is released into the atmosphere, people start turning into walking corpses, the military have orders to shoot on sight, both the living and the undead. Of course, there's the usual mismatched group, with two handsome soldiers, scared female students, and the typical infected wounded who inevitably dies and comes back to life.

Brilliant scenes? The DJ turning while praising the new zombie era, the flying head inside the refrigerator, the pregnant woman giving birth to a killer hand (I'm not joking), the assault of the dead on the hotel after building a barricade with nails and plywood. And yet zombies falling from the roof, zombies swimming, zombies delivering rhetorical lines ("We can be together forever, Patricia!" said the undead to his still-alive ex). Even the English pronunciation is wrong: the virus is called "Death One", pronounced literally "Dit Uan" throughout the film. The colossal is shot in the Philippines, and not for artistic choice: the producers themselves admit they chose the location because they were already filming TV movies there and didn't want to invest a few more million to move sets and equipment.

But what distinguishes this "Zombie 3" from the rest of the semi-amateur rabble? Simply the fact that they evidently tried to make a serious film, with an open ending, palpable tension, explosions, and an almost acceptable deployment of resources; failing completely, and we laugh heartily.

I don't think there's a need to add anything else, solid 5.