Zombi 3 Review


Movie: Zombi 3
By: ChevChellios
Date: February 23, 2012

To be or not to be Cult

This is the film you know, you want too know or you just never heard of. In my case, I came across this little gem a few years ago when I was still a young boy, wandering around in what we used to call the video store. My eye caught the cover of Zombie 3 in the corner of the horror section, put away by somebody, who I think, didn’t want me to find it. And yes the name Lucio Fulci made my curiosity bigger then it was in the beginning. Well I stepped into the film not knowing about the directorial problems, bad acting, the screenplay that was written by a nine year old and all the other things that weren’t correct. I always talk about great, good, bad and terrible movies, but the strange thing is, I cant place it in those criteria. This movie did something, it accomplished something only a few movies can, it stood out on its own, it was special. It created the rare chemistry, between the viewer and the movie, that I can only describe with the word Cult.

The Beginning:

Well lets start talking about the production, it says that it was a joint venture between Lucio Fulci who we know by classics as The Beyond, Zombi 2 and House by the Cemetery and Bruno Mattei (Hell of the living Dead and rats). This is not entirely true, there are rumours that Lucio Fulci wasn’t happy, during production, of the results and asked for a bigger budget, other rumours are that the production company wasn’t happy with the results. Fact is that Lucio Fulci had to leave production because of a stroke, in which the production company asked Bruno Mattei to take over the production his role was in the first case, second unit director. During the first production Lucio Fulci almost finished the movie, he shot roughly 70 minutes of the film, but then Bruno Mattei cut it back to 50 minutes and added 40 minutes of his own footage. After the completion of the movie, Lucio Fulci wasn’t happy with the results because he wanted to create a sequel to his classic horror movie “Zombie 2”, in which the zombies are more slowly walking and the movie focuses more on the mood and eerie atmosphere, while Bruno Mattei created the more fast running zombies and focuses more on the action and sci-fi elements. While Bruno Mattei always says that he thinks this is more a Lucio Fulci movie, Lucio Fulci always says the opposite. In the end the production was literally a disaster. But maybe this was necessary to achieve this result, and to create something unintentionally great.

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The story:

I don’t know where to start so I will try to tell the story chronological, I watched the uncut version so for some this will sound strange, because this version starts off with a scene where some guy who looks like Jet Li, is resurrected from the dead and attacks the doctors, end scene. From there on we follow some shady professor with a briefcase which has to be transported by a helicopter but all of a sudden they are ambushed by a few good men with guns, I still don’t know how they entered the maximum security facility but the scene made me smile. They get hold of the briefcase but only one man made it out alive and runs into the jungle (the shot the film in the Philippines), while fleeing the scene he is being chased by a helicopter. A guy on the helicopter starts firing at the running man, and he in his confusion drops the briefcase and breaks the contents, there is green light and some smoke and the guy tries to take the case again but cuts himself. After this we see the guy in a hotel room behaving strangely, and all of a sudden he is cutting his zombie hand off, in the bathroom, how freaking weird was that.

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After this we see our three American heroes, driving around in a old looking jeep that could easily have been taken from the A team set, it made me smile again. One of the actors is Deran Sarafian, he would later become a director in Hollywood, directing Gunmen, Death warrant and Terminal Velocity, I thought he did a good job as an actor, the rest was mediocre. They meet up with some girls en from there on the shit hits the fan, after being attacked by zombie birds, they end up in an abandoned hotel and the entire hotel is surrounded by zombies, and I don’t mean the Romero type zombies, these zombies can run, swim, fly and even levitate my jaw dropped wide open, and yes it made me smile again.

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I don’t want to ruin what greatness has to come, so I will tell you one more scene in particular, one scene which Lucio Fulci loved the most, the scene that wasn’t even in the script. It’s a scene where one of the few survivors wants to check the kitchen for some food and drinks. Eventually he finds a closed fridge and opens it, then a flying Zombie head gets hold of his neck and bites, the guy is dead, the rest is history. The scene is classic, and luckily there are a few more of these classic scenes. The good thing about this movie is that the eerie atmosphere that Lucio Fulci intended stayed intact, and with the addition of the fast paced zombies by Bruno Mattei I say it’s an excellent blend of zombie horror.

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What I want to point out, and these will be the last words, is that Zombie 3 does not have a great story, great actors, great special effects nor great action scenes, its one hell of a movie. It’s funny at times as it is cool, it has some outstanding moments like the zombie head scene, and there is also a zombie baby scene, what more do I need to say. I found it a great experience time after time, and I am still waiting for the blu ray release, I think that says it all


3/5




Movie

Zombi 3

Title

Zombi 3

Director

Lucio Fulci , Claudio Fragasso (uncredited), Bruno Mattei(uncredited)

Country

Italy

Year

1988

Cast

Deran Sarafian, Beatrice Ring and Ottaviano Dell'Acqua