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Director: Lucio Fulci (with Bruno
Mattei and Claudio Fragasso)
Screenplay: Claudio Fragasso
Cast: Deran Sarafian (as Kenny); Beatrice
Ring (as Patricia); Ottaviano Dell'Acqua (as Roger); Massimo Vanni (as Bo); Ulli
Reinthaler (as Nancy)
A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) # 25
Synopsis: A military project to resurrect the dead, a chemical
contagion called Death One, breaks out into the public and even when the
military themselves deal with it, their method of disposing of one of the
bodies both makes the contagion stronger and spreads it over a wider area
through the smoke created. In the midst of the resulting chaos and attempt to
clamp down on the new epidemic, a group of soldiers, friends caught by the
contagion infecting the wildlife, and a woman called Patricia (Ring) with her infected boyfriend find
themselves having to survive the rampaging zombie hordes and the military
trying to cover it up violently.
Zombi 3 is as much effected by your attitude to its production
history as much as the content itself. At this point the Italian genre industry
was in severe decline in the late eighties, though considering my opinion on
this film, it wasn't that bad if you could still appreciate the cheese factor,
the likelihood that whilst the industry could still churn out films it couldn't
survive by the nineties, killing it off (sadly) to this day baring an occasional
film getting into international festivals.
Zombi 3's history is interesting in itself, and that's not even including
the (unofficial) sequels to this afterwards that weren't necessarily even
zombie films. For those that don't know, George
A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) was
co-produced by Italy in the midst of their genre renaissance, recut for Italy and dubbed Zombi, doing extremely well and leading
to an unofficial sequel called Zombi 2
(1979), known famously as Zombie
Flesh Eaters in the UK. Made by Lucio
Fulci it did extremely well around the world and lead to a boom of Italian
zombie films into the eighties. By the later eighties there's not even that many
zombie films in existence, barring one or two, from even the US and Fulci's career was slowing down as his
health was declining. Fulci gets to
make a sequel to his film, only for his health to be at its worse during the
production shot in the Philippines, and the result Zombi 3 having to be drastically fixed to be releasable.
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It varies how much Fulci actually shot for final work, but
at least fifty minutes or so of what is seen is his work, the other thirty
minutes having to be made in collaboration with screenwriter Claudio Fragasso
and his longstanding colleague Bruno
Mattei, having worked together many times before in the early eighties. It's
confusing how to judge what was Fulci's
work or not, as a Frankenstein creation of three different voices, because Fulci before Mattei even got hold of the footage decided to make an action
horror film. The result feels like an odd sequel to one of Mattei's Strike Commando films
with Reb Brown fighting zombies, a
more manic tone as you have characters having to actually run away from an occasional
undead who can run, alongside Return of
the Living Dead (1985) enough evidence that the argument about whether
zombies should run or not is pretty pointless even in terms of the historical canon
of these films.
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Some of the old Fulci magic is still here, his obsession
with fog machines and bold colour lighting reminiscent of his best horror films
with their ominous moods; particularly with this film transitioning from a
grimy Vipco release version I first
saw to Blu-Ray quality, it's amazing how good the film looks despite the late
eighties being when the money was bleeding out of the Italian film industry. What's
a flaw is that it's not remotely scary or eerie, not even haunting or visceral
like other Fulci films, instead the
entertainment to be found in its various bursts of energy that defy the fact Fulci was violently ill during the
entire production. Famously Zombi 3
is known for the zombie head in the refrigerator scene - utterly silly but
succeeding by not caring about logic whatsoever - but there's plenty of manic
moments throughout the film to like. Such as a zombie failing a machete about with
surprising intensity or a gruesome, nicely set up shock with a pool of water
behind a motel. Then there's the truly bizarre sequence, never evoked again in
the narrative, of birds dying and coming back from the dead as zombified
contagion carriers, clearly part of Fragasso's obsession with ecological issues
throughout the film but a truly strange moment from Italian genre film history
that, in hindsight, is one of the few cases of a zombie film showing non-human
entities being infected.
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The film does have a rollercoaster
structure in terms of when its well paced and when it suddenly staggers along
like a drunken men, its history visible in how messy the pace is, but when its paced
well its amazingly swift in how the scenes play out. The other thirty or so
minutes of Zombi 3 had to be built
on by Claudio Fragasso and Bruno Mattei which is a lot of this reason.
I once made a very cruel opinion of them, worse having barely seen the films of
theirs, that they were amongst those responsible for killing the Italian genre industry.
A lot of that was from suffering through the latter's Cruel Jaws (1995). Nowadays its clear they were working filmmakers
who find themselves in the position of not being amongst the best (Dario Argento, Fulci, Mario Bava, even
someone underrated like Enzo G.
Castellari or Sergio Martino) but
gaining a personality and reputation from their more infamous work, people who
made films but were between them more drastically effected by their budgets
then most and with Mattei notorious
for using other people's material. Fragasso here at least comes off as an
entertaining screenwriter who never feels boring, from the zombified birds to
something he openly admits to taking from the carsploitation film Vanishing Point (1971), a blind African
American radio DJ who is also the narrator in Zombi 3 as a strange stylistic quirk. He is, alongside Mattei, responsible for a lot of the
moments, while fun, that, ironically their work to salvage the production
leading to the tonal problems with additional footage of the military and
frustrated scientists discussing the outbreak of Death One. The resulting
footage is surprisingly naive in tone, such as the naming of the contagion
written into these scene "Death One", a charm of a fifties b-movie in
them which redeems them even those such scenes cause the film to loss its swift
pace immediately. The other moments - action scenes and helicopter shots
without the main cast - come off a lot better.
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Technical Details:
Not a great deal to go through as
I've covered a lot of the production history already, but it's worth repeating
how a Blu-Ray transfer really redeems a film many would call trash. It's not up
to the aesthetic style of Zombi 2
but it's still distinct, its Philippine locations and tropical look giving it
some distinction alongside the late eighties aesthetic.
The music as well is worthy of
mention. Yes, the main glam metal song is utter gorgonzola, memorable if just
for its mid-song voice echo, but Stefano
Mainetti's score aside from this is a nice dread inducing synthesiser work
that makes up for the lack of scares. I'll likely uncover some of the worst
Italian genre films from this period and nineties, but generally there were
always bad films from the country even in the golden period, usually ones never
talked about or unlikely to get Blu-Ray treatment like Zombi 3 has. Particularly against some of the terrible horror films
from this era not from Italy, than
this is still a bar higher in quality than I first viewed it as. Its definitely
better than some of the worst of zombie cinema within the last decade if
anything.
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Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
Abstract Spectrum: Grotesque
In terms of their collected
filmographies, this is far from the weirdest film in either Fulci's or Mattei's careers. (I haven't seen enough of Fragasso's yet to make
comment). The only true disappointment returning to this, and why I hated it
originally, is that it has none of the strangeness of Fulci's best films even when it came to some of his none horror films.
He had a knack for the irrational in his work that was compelling and
incredibly well made, of decay and the illogical, that is almost non-existent
here baring the briefest of moments.
Abstract Tropes: Body Parts Used in Inappropriate Ways; Decay; Fog;
Rich Coloured Lighting
Personal Opinion:
Considering my original low
opinion of Zombi 3, if you accept
its flaws it's still an entertaining Italian genre film. I don't find it a
disappointment like before, the fact that the genre industry of the country was
declining no longer an issue now especially as, when these films are getting releases
you couldn't fathom just a decade ago, I release that even on their declining
period films like this one are still so much more entertaining and better made
than more modern horror films in the same template.
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