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SUMMARY

A terrorist has been infected by an illegal biological agent called Death 1.  When the Army burns his body, his ashes are spread across the country side, infecting the birds that eat the ash.  They turn attack all living creatures, infecting them with the same virus.  Now, the entire country is being over run by homicidal Zombi's.

Kenny and his army buddies encounter a group of vacationers just as a flock of birds attack.  Seeking refuge at a hotel, they find themselves surrounded by a band of homicidal Zombi's. One by one the survivors die as they become infected or eaten.  At the same time, the Army is killing everyone they can find, to stop the spread of infection.

It is up to Kenny to help his friends escape both the zombi's and the army before they are all wiped out.

DVD VISION TEST

VIDEO: As far as the quality of the disc goes, the DVD is  well done.  There are no pixels or color bleeds, and no wrinkling.

AUDIO: There is only the English 2.0.  The audio is pretty loud, but there is not a lot of surround sound.  For you purists, this is the original English dub.

EDITS: Not as single frame was edited, and a scene that was eliminated from the US theatrical release has been restored.

EXTRAS: Some Liner Notes about the transfer, interviews with the writer, secondary director, and some of the actors make up most of the extras.  There is a picture gallery presented as a slide show as well.

WIDESCREEN REVIEW

STORY: A pretty typical 80's zombie movie.  Written by Claudio Fragasso, we have pretty much the same setup as George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead".  We have our heroes who are whittled away one by one, while holed up in a "safe" place.  

Scary thing is, this sort of thing could happen.  No, not the zombie issue, but that one infected person can wipe out an entire population in just a couple of days.

ACTING: It's always hard to judge the acting in a dubbed live action film.  Since the voice and the inflection of the original voice actor is done by the dub voice actor, you don't really get a sense of the performance.  This is especially true when most of the cast spoke Italian and the dub is in English.

As far as the dub goes, it is pretty typical for 80's B-movie acting.  Lots of over the top, silly performances.

FAN SERVICE: No nudity in this one. Just lots and lots of Zombi's.

CONCLUSION

I love zombie movies.

Like many, my first was "Night of the Living Dead", and from then on I was hooked.  It doesn't matter if it is a masterpiece like "Night" or an above average B-movie like "Resident Evil", when people are eating each other, I'm there.

Thanks to Media Blasters and their Shriek Show line, I have another zombie movie to add to my collection.  Zombi 3 is a perfectly schlocky zombie movie, designed to entertain, gross out, and keep us on the edge of our seats.  It's creepy atmosphere, plentiful gore, and non stop action will keep even the most jaded zombie fan happy.

This is my first Lucio Fulci film, sort of.  While Fulci did film 45 minutes of this move, Bruno Mattei filmed the remaining 50 minutes.  Not having another Fulci film to compare it to, I really can't say "ahh this is Fulci" and "Oh, that's Mattei".  Apparently, Fulci was suffering from one of those social diseases, and coupled with his notorious temper, refused to "pad" the movie an extra 50 minutes.  Bruno Mattei came in and filmed what many Fulci aficionados consider an inferior product.

I really didn't notice much of a difference in the directorial styles.  The zombies are sort of a cross between traditional ones and the "Resident Evil" ass kicking ones.  The main characters are typical types (strong and stupid, brainy and weak, screaming and terrified women).  The direction was pretty relentless, with every other scene full of rampaging zombies.  Neither Fulci or Mattei let up on the action.

You gore hounds will also be very happy. From rotting flesh to zombie babies ripping out of their mothers womb to rip the face off of a unsuspecting woman, you will have enough icky stuff to either entertain you, or repulse you.

Zombi 3 is not a perfect movie.  While suspension of disbelief is essential, the flying head in the fridge was a little hard to fathom.  There were times I got confused on what female character got zombified and which ones got eaten.  It's amazing that there are cashes of machine guns laying around the Philippine Island.  Also, if Death 1 is so dangerous, how come the doctor and his assistant didn't get infected when the first patient ripped open it's protective covering.  Last but not least, what is up with Blue Heart?  Is he blind or just too cool to take his sun glasses off in the office?

The interviews were interesting, and for the die-hard Fulci fan, you will learn quite a bit about the behind the scenes stuff.  That is not to say that you will learn all.  Everyone was very diplomatic in saying "Oh Fulci was a wonderful director." No one wanted to say "He was a son of a bitch!".  I guess since the man is dead, they are inclined to cut him some slack.  One thing that bothered me was the interviewer.  True, I don't speak Italian, but compared to the interview subjects, the interviewer seemed like he only spoke High School Italian.  His questions were halting, slow, and a little confusing.

Zombi 3 is truly a movie for the horror film man (or woman).  With it's frenetic pacing, plentiful gore, and over the top violence, you may find yourself infected with the zombie bug yourself.  Go pick up a copy,  just don't let the kids watch it.

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