Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Hate the Maggot
There’s a certain sect of horror fans—usually guys who wear faded Cannibal Holocaust shirts and talk too much about vinegar syndrome—who will tell you that Lucio Fulci’s Zombie is one of the greatest undead films ever made. A sweaty, squirming, maggot-filled masterpiece. They’ll say it changed their life. Deepened their soul. Made them feel alive.
They are wrong.
Zombie (aka Zombi 2 in its original Italian release) is the cinematic equivalent of getting hit in the face with a wet fish. Repeatedly. Slowly. In extreme close-up. Yes, it has that infamous eyeball scene. Yes, it has a zombie fighting a shark. But stringing together two bizarre set pieces does not a movie make. That’s not horror—it’s a gore-soaked TikTok compilation dragged out to 90 minutes.
Let’s Talk About That Shark Fight
This is what the defenders always bring up. “But bro—the zombie fights a shark!” Yes, he does. Underwater. For like two minutes. It’s surreal, stupid, and admittedly kind of mesmerizing—like watching a drunken SeaWorld audition gone wrong. But let’s not pretend it carries the movie. It’s a novelty. Like seeing a dog wear sunglasses. Cute for five seconds. Exhausting by minute two.
The zombie doesn’t even win. It’s a draw at best. That’s how we’re starting this showdown: your apex monster is evenly matched with a fish that doesn’t have a brain large enough to comprehend TikTok.
Plot? Somewhere in That Pile of Gore
Four Americans go looking for a missing father on some cursed Caribbean island and discover it’s crawling with the dead. That’s the pitch. The rest of the film is padding: slow pans, blank stares, and dialogue that sounds like it was written by a Ouija board and dubbed by three guys in a janitor’s closet.
The pacing is glacial. No, scratch that—glaciers are offended by that comparison. Scenes go nowhere. Characters wander like they’re looking for the craft services table. You could take a nap during the first 45 minutes and still wake up in time for the good stuff. Maybe even refreshed enough to walk out.
The Eyeball Scene — Or: Fulci’s PhD in Slow Suffering
This is the scene that gets people frothing. A woman gets dragged headfirst into a splintered wooden spike. Very slowly. The camera lingers, unblinking, as the eyeball meets wood like it’s a date with destiny. And sure, it’s gross. Viscerally effective.
But it’s also a perfect microcosm of the movie’s problem: everything is too damn slow. Suspense is great. Agonizing buildup with zero payoff? That’s just sadism without style.
The Zombies Themselves
Credit where it’s due: Fulci’s undead look good. These aren’t your tidy Romero corpses. They’re crusty. Moldy. Caked in dirt and insects. They look like they crawled out of a compost heap after six months of monsoon season. Every time one shuffles on screen, you can practically smell the mildew.
But once again, the movie fails to do anything with them. They lurch. They moan. They feast. It’s all textbook. You’ve seen it before, and you’ve seen it with characters you might actually care about. Here, it’s just warm bodies waiting to be chewed into colder bodies.
Acting? Let’s Be Generous and Call It “Functional”
The cast is a mix of confused Americans and bored Italians, dubbed over like someone playing a prank. Tisa Farrow looks perpetually lost, like she wandered onto the wrong set and decided to stay because the catering was decent. Ian McCulloch does his best to smolder but ends up somewhere between “soap opera dad” and “guy who just lost his parking validation.”
No chemistry. No charisma. Just blank stares and clumsy line readings delivered like ransom notes.
Fulci Fans Will Hate This Review (And That’s Okay)
Fulci is a sacred cow in horror circles. People love him. They’ll defend his work like it’s gospel, even when it’s just 90 minutes of slow motion pus. They say it’s dreamlike. Atmospheric. Poetic.
Let’s call it what it is: indulgent. Overhyped. A movie made by a guy who got his kicks dragging eyeballs across nails and stuffing worms into prosthetics.
Sure, it’s memorable. But so is food poisoning. That doesn’t mean you want it twice.
Final Thoughts
Zombie is a cult classic, and like many cult classics, it survives more on reputation than merit. It has its moments, yes. But between the molasses pacing, wooden performances, and Fulci’s obsession with ocular trauma, it’s a rough watch.
It’s the kind of movie you say you love so people at horror conventions will nod approvingly.
Me? I’ll take my zombies with a little more urgency and a lot less arthouse infection.
Rating: 2 infected eyeballs out of 5.
One for the shark. One for the eyeball. Everything else can stay buried.
