We Are Going to Treat You: The Euro-American Monopoly on Zombies

Few icons of horror history can claim to hold such sway over mainstream pop culture than the humble zombie. From its significantly different origins in the 30’s all the way to the modern gut-munching iteration being born in the late ‘60s, the zombie has managed to elicit a great deal of public attention that persists to this day. Contrary to the dour and unnerving first depiction of these creatures in George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, a less harrowing image of these undead husks can now be found in countless alternative forms of media. From bubble gum adverts, children’s toys, award-winning TV shows like The Walking Dead and even modes in first-person shooter video games like the Call of Duty franchise, zombies have become a permanent, treasured fixture in both niche and mainstream culture. With such an enormous amount of appeal to the consumer and with the prospect of such a lucrative reaction from zombie-related projects, it’s not hard to imagine today’s marketplace as a melting pot of fierce competition. Even during the months of a worldwide pandemic, zombie films and video games have remained ever-popular, with examples like Peninsula, #Alive, and Army of the Dead in the film avenue, whilst Dying Light 2, Resident Evil Village, and a re-release of Zombies Ate My Neighbours entertain folks on the video game front (with the long-delayed Dead Island 2 still in development). This boom of zombie interest was first experienced however at the apex of the late 1970s, notably after the release of George Romero’s sequel to his first zombie film, the infamous Dawn of the Dead in 1978. 

The continuation from Night was considerably more accomplished in both its social commentary, deep characterization and instances of gory mutilations, rendering it almost mandatory viewing for veterans of horror cinema or flesh-eating aficionados. Following the events of the first film, a new set of protagonists including two reporters and a pair of hired mercenaries are still reeling from the initial epidemic and continuing press coverage of reanimated dead swarming the United States, leading them to seek out shelter away from the bustling cities. Finding a near-abandoned shopping mall, the foursome barricade themselves inside and enjoy a relatively comfortable existence until the arrival of a biker gang threatens to encroach upon their self-made way of life. While the bikers are repelled by a surge of undead zombies, the group’s choice to get involved in the clash has devastatingly fatal consequences for both their new home and the survivors’ lives as well. Boasting a sense of comic-book hyperviolence with effects from Tom Savini, a sensitive and poignant story with likable characters and the most influential usage of a shopping mall in horror history (still utilized in undead fiction to this day), Dawn really set the world alight with furious zombie mania, unleashing a tempestuous surge of love for this soon-to-be paragon of pop culture.

Before this however, zombie fiction was a relatively unassuming subgenre in horror cinema, a far cry from the powerhouse that the genre would later mature into. 1932’s White Zombie from director Victor Halperin is often cited as one of the earliest instances of the zombie, whilst other early examples include Halperin’s follow-up in’36 Revolt of the Zombies as well as Jacques Tourner’s I Walked with a Zombie and Steve Sekely’s Revenge of the Zombies, both n 1943. What’s evident however is the zombie’s origins were not those of the flesh-eating ghouls established by Romero’s continuity. Instead, the zombie was depicted as a much more traditional movie monster, that of a corpse brought back to life via supernatural means, but most frequently arcane spells or voodoo curses. This is much more in line with the original descriptions of the creature within Haitian folklore, that of dead people who are reanimated by the spell of a ‘bokor’, a necromancer who would enslave the zombie under their own control. Other elements, such as the deity Baron Samedi and the usage of salt to release zombies from their master’s spell were not as consistently used in movies of that period. Science fiction themes began to first emerge in the ‘50s in examples like 1955’s Creature with the Atom Brain and 1959’s Invisible Invaders, both from director Edward L. Cahn, integrating radiation or extraterrestrials into the mix. Even Ed Wood’s polarising Plan 9 From Outer Space features this contemporaneous melding of science fiction ideas with the undead. Admittedly, the genre began to lose steam as it reached the ‘60s, with two experimental ‘musical horrors’ being released in 1964 (The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies and The Horror of Party Beach, from Ray Dennis Steckler and Del Tenney respectively). These bizarre creations combined zombies with the then-popular ‘beach party’ genre, with limited success. 1966 however saw the release of Hammer’s Plague of the Zombies from director John Gilling which, despite using the same tropes of black magic and Haitian mysticism, was much more influential on the zombie genre by contemporary standards.

When Night of the Living Dead was released in 1968, all elements of the supernatural Haitian themes and occult zombification that were used thus far were almost entirely discarded. Romero’s bleak and harrowing picture was originally written as a significantly less serious story regarding aliens who unearthed human corpses for food, but this was then later fused with the concept of the post-apocalyptic vampires from Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, spawning the modern zombie archetype (despite Romero’s script exclusively referring to them as ‘ghouls’). Instead of being a corpse under someone’s magical beck and call, zombies were now reanimated human beings whose brains have been reactivated through unspecified means. With most of their living memories and self-awareness stripped from them, zombies are driven by an overwhelming instinct to seek out nearby food in the form of living human beings and almost all of their actions are geared towards this objective. Since they are already dead, zombies can be seen in various states of decomposition, but almost all instances are those of recently deceased people since long-buried individuals have such advanced deterioration that brain activity is unable to be re-triggered. Zombies may also emit primitive utterances such as groans or shrieks, attempt to devour other living creatures like animals and insects, or even instigate tactics to gain entry to blocked-off areas (such as smashing through barricades with blunt objects). Portrayals can vary from film to film, but generally speaking, zombies are resistant to conventional weaponry due to their undead status. Usually, the only effective methods of dispatch are damage to the brain (like a bullet, decapitation, or blunt force trauma) or immolating in fire, which the zombies retain a vestigial fear of. With a few exceptions, almost all injuries inflicted by zombies result in the zombification of their victim, with various explanations depending on the nature of the zombie outbreak (whether viral, supernatural, or scientific). 

As a testament to how powerful Night was received by horror audiences, almost every piece of zombie fiction afterward followed the same ruleset established by Romero’s classic; zombies would always remain as shambling, rotting corpses who feast on human flesh due to a reactivated brain, only reinforced by the success of Dawn of the Dead. The settings and specifics could always differ but the zombie itself would remain virtually unaltered. The bizarre causes of the zombie menace include things like voodoo spells (Zombie Flesh Eaters, Zombie Flesh Eaters 3), agricultural machines (Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue), pesticides (Grapes of Death), formaldehyde (Garden of the Dead), herbicides (Toxic Zombies), viral contamination (Zombie Creeping Flesh, Zombie Flesh Eaters 2), scientific experiments (The House by the Cemetery, Re-Animator), ancient curses (Burial Ground, Flesh Eater), toxic gases (The Children, Return of the Living Dead), portals to Hell (City of the Living Dead, The Beyond) or in one notable case, the malevolent will of a disturbed young girl (The Child). Some cinematic zombies have integrated supernatural features (City of the Living Dead, Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue), improved mobility and speed (Nightmare City, Zombie Flesh Eaters 3) whilst others are not technically dead but function similarly to shambling zombies (Toxic Zombies, Nightmare City, The Children, I Drink Your Blood). This unique catalog of interpretations and depictions of the iconic flesh-eater is an indicator of just how prolific this period was in horror cinema, similar to the Golden Age of slasher pictures that would erupt in the early 1980s.

Upon its indelible release in the late 70s, Dawn of the Dead was exported from the US to many worldwide regions in various formats. It was released in the UK as the clumsily retitled Zombies: Dawn of the Dead, whilst it ran as Zombies in the Philippines and Germany. Due to the film being co-produced by Dario and Claudio Argento, Italy got their own special cut of the film which de-emphasized some of the dialogue scenes and featured more of the dynamic action sequences, all with a new soundtrack provided by Goblin (of Suspiria fame). This version was released as Zombi, which unbeknownst to most people, would trigger such a fruitful aftermath of ‘sequels’ and unofficial remarketing that it has led to probably one of the largest unofficial franchises within the horror market. 

With Zombi absolutely killing at the Italian box office, enterprising Italians decided to get exploitatively creative and immediately began devising their own sequel to the film. Due to infamously lax copyright laws, Italian filmmakers often took artistic license with successful film examples in order to cash in on the power of the original film’s title or premise. Zombi originally had director Enzo Castellari (Bronx Warriors, The Inglorious Bastards) attached to the project, although director Lucio Fulci eventually took over, due to his demonstrable skill on The Psychic and Don’t Torture a Duckling. Ironically, the screenplay for the film was adapted from an old script by Dardano Sacchetti entitled Nightmare Island, which was conceived as a return to older zombie tropes on a Caribbean island. With the producers hoping to mimic the reaction to Romero’s film, the script was altered to include the requisite flesh-eating zombies and gory violence, whilst still retaining the voodoo themes. The result was Zombi 2, in which an unmanned ship drifts aimlessly into the New York Harbor, causing a huge disturbance when two coast guards are attacked by a decomposing large man who fatally bites one of them. Anne Bowles, the daughter of the boat’s owner, teams up with reporter Peter West to travel to the Caribbean island of Matul, where her father was last contacted. When they finally arrive on the island along with tourists Susan and Brian, they discover that a mysterious illness has plagued the locals, purportedly caused by a voodoo spell. With the diseased natives and long-buried Conquistador soldiers rising from pockets of putrid earth to attack the group, the survivors band together to escape the zombie hordes and return to the safety of the mainland.

Fulci’s gorefest eschews the deeper subtext of Romero’s film and instead weaves together a spellbinding array of tropical locations, high-octane set pieces, and an overwhelming heatwave of decay. Gone are the cold aisles of the shopping mall and the grey-skinned ghouls; what we have here instead is a truly uncomfortable sweltering island clime, replete with sweat-drenched faces, patients writhing helplessly in their own perspiration, and a hot stench of death as worm-ridden revenants rise from the warm clay of the ground. Compared to Romero’s comic-book-inspired antagonists, who bear a colorful mixture of mutilation and superficial injuries, Fulci’s zombies are encrusted with earthen rot, decomposed almost to the bone, with their putrefied innards now nothing more than a viscous paste. There’s a visceral revulsion to these creatures, no more apparent by the film’s characters who have to be in close proximity to the fiends. Cursed to arise from their resting places with an obscure voodoo ritual, the zombies in this film treat the viewer to all manner of gratuitously glorious assaults, such as bloodily ripping out throats, gouging out intestines, gnashing lumps from arms, and in one spectacularly agonizing sequence, pulling a woman’s head towards a shard of broken wood, slowly and nastily gouging her eye out, something that would become a bit of a trademark for the Godfather of Gore. One of the most memorable scenes has to be that of the off-kilter moment where Susan is accosted underwater by a zombie as she seeks to escape a shark in the vicinity. After fighting it off with a piece of coral, the zombie instead goes after the shark, wrestling with it before taking a chunk out of the animal’s neck. For such an ambitious scene, it still remains admirable how well it holds up despite the relative silliness, mainly because they are clearly using a real actor and a real shark. While Dawn would linger on the characters’ personal backgrounds and interactions with each other, Zombi 2 simply utilizes them as fun fodder for our undead armies, though the intensity of some of the deaths doesn’t stop us from wincing at their awful demise. The film also plods along in a surprisingly breezy fashion, leading up to an exciting standoff where the survivors utilize handmade Molotov cocktails to entrench themselves defensively in a local church. After barely escaping the nightmarish isle with their lives, the last remaining tourists discover to their horror that the city of New York has also been overrun, as a horde shuffles patiently across the Brooklyn Bridge as cars speed through below them. Released in Italy to wild popularity, the film earned more than seven times its original budget and was released in various other regions. In the UK, it was known as Zombie Flesh Eaters, immediately garnering controversy with the authorities and earning it a prime place on the infamous ‘video nasty’ lists during a media-led panic. In Germany, it was retitled to simply Woodoo, whilst some territories retained the original screenplay’s name of Nightmare Island. In America however, it would be retitled as Zombie, with a simplistic yet effective tagline of “We are going to eat you!”, starting what would become the first instalment in a very special phenomenon in US cult horror history. 

As the whole world went into zombie mania, countless other imitative films were released within the zombie subgenre to varying degrees of success. Despite the lucrative success and audience favor of Fulci’s Zombi 2, a legitimate sequel never saw the light of day until 1988, when Fulci took on a screenplay written by husband and wife team Rosella Drudi and Claudio Fragasso, which dispensed with voodoo magic and instead focused on a viral outbreak. Zombi 3 was shot in the Philippines in extremely challenging conditions, ones that would actually aggravate Fulci’s own health problems. Due to a combination of this and disagreements with producers, Fulci would leave the production with a 70-minute final version of the film which the producers were unsatisfied with. Bringing in Fragasso and fellow filmmaker Bruno Mattei, the pair resolved to rescue the film by filming additional scenes to bookmark Fulci’s footage. The result was certainly surprising, with a mish-mash of silliness, graphic bloodletting, and pseudo-supernatural contaminated undead creatures. A group of scientists are creating a viral agent (the sinister Death One) for use in warfare, but the group leaders are uncomfortable with the substance’s effect on the dead. A group of eco-terrorists seize the Death One samples during a break-in and manage to flee to the nearest hotel, where the damaged vials begin to leak noxious gases, exploding the hotel’s guests and staff to the dangerous concoction. Though the military takes control of the situation and wipes out all life in the area, their disposal of the bodies releases the deadly virus into the air where it infects the local bird populace, starting the infection anew when a group of tourists and soldiers on vacation arrive at the resort. The survivors try in vain to outlast the zombie onslaught, but it all gets complicated when the military decides to eradicate the entire island, forcing them to try and escape to safety.

Compared to Zombi and Zombi 2, the third instalment in the Italian series is a noticeably different kettle of fish, infinitely reliant on the sheer absurdity and weirdness of the film’s events to garner interest. With a definitive cause for the zombie outbreak being rooted in biological warfare, the film builds on this science fiction theme that is absent from the other films. As a result, the zombies in this film act wildly different from the undead of the previous films; no longer exclusively slow and shambling, these zombies can be quick on their feet, using improvised weaponry to take down their prey, swimming, running, climbing and even retaining the ability to talk in some scenarios. The zombie virus also infects birds, leading to some avian attacks in the film’s opening scenarios, while an incredulous yet shockingly impressive set piece involves a zombified severed head being discovered in a refrigerator, flying out preposterously to gnaw a victim’s neck open. Another gruesomely fun scene has a victim helping a woman give birth amidst the zombie carnage going on, only for the unborn child to burst a hand out of its mother and maim the victim’s face with aplomb. The lack of consistency between the zombies and the often brainless actions undertaken by the characters mean that Zombi 3 tends to be less favored by zombie fans, but it nevertheless manages to be a fun ride that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Unfortunately, the film did not garner the same success that Zombi 2 did, remaining a fairly middling presence at both the box office and audience appreciation. It was released as Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 in the UK, and the US got it rather strangely as Zombie 3, but by now, the machine that had activated upon the release of Zombie was in full swing.

On a sublime level of poetic justice, the American-borne franchise that started with Dawn of the Dead was ready to come home from Italy, ready for a new round of exploitation. T-Z Video, acquired by larger conglomerate Edde Entertainment, had decided that both the Italian-produced Zombie and Zombie 3 were now the progenitors of a major campaign to unleash as many Zombie entries on gluttonous American audiences as humanly possible. In a move that would make the Italians seethe with envy, various motion pictures, most of which were imported from European territories like Italy, Spain, and France, were acquired fairly easily by the American distributor for their relative obscurity and unassuming titles. In fairly capable hands, however, these movies became tools to attract a ravenous consumer base intent on watching anything and everything related to zombies. With such a big hit as the original Zombie, it wasn’t hard to find other similar (and in some cases, tenuously related) experiences that could be sold upon the franchise name alone. And so, it began; Zombie had major home video re-releases in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s from companies like Wizard Video and Magnum Entertainment, with one of them even retconning the title to Zombie 2 to seem more in line with the Italian series and to fill in the gap they had mistakenly created with Zombie 3’s release. The stage was ripe for a new line-up.

First from T-Z’s continuation was Zombie 3: Return of the Zombies, a retitle of a Spanish 1973 production by José Luis Merino originally called Orgy of the Dead but saw US theatrical exhibition as The Hanging Woman. Certainly of its time, the film is distinctly Hammer Horror-esque in its execution, with a huge devotion to atmospheric, Gothic backdrops, unsettling macabre ideas and some genuinely demented performances, not the least of which comes from star Paul Naschy. In a mysterious village in the Balkans, a man called Serge arrives to inherit the estate of his deceased uncle, only to uncover a sinister plot by the mad scientist Professor Droila to reanimate the dead. Since it predates the huge boom in the zombie subgenre, the film is mostly devoted to older tropes involving the undead, but some generous doses of both gore and sleaze help to sweeten the deal to interested horror consumers. Continuing with the Euro theme, Zombie 4 was released next, a remarketing of Jesús Franco’s 1973 erotically charged horror film, A Virgin Among the Living Dead. Hardly a zombie feature at all, this moody tale chronicles a young woman Christina who returns to her childhood castle to read her recently deceased father’s will, only to discover that her family is in fact dead as well, unable to bear the thought of the young heiress driving them away. She soon becomes entranced by a strange woman, known as the Queen of the Night, and becomes perilously close to passing over to the other side herself. It’s actually not too surprising that this film was exploited to make money, considering Franco’s original version entitled Night of the Shooting Stars was already butchered by the French distributors, who unceremoniously inserted hardcore pornography into certain sections and retitled it with the Virgin moniker. It was then further sullied by the distributor Eurociné who spliced in footage from their other pictures Zombie Lake and Oasis of the Zombies, in order to cash in on the rapidly growing interest in zombie horror films. It almost seems fate that it ended up as an unofficial Zombie sequel, though as mentioned before, the undead are present almost symbolically rather than as vehicles for graphic mutilation and flesh-eating. Clearly drunk on Franco frenzy, T-Z’s selection for Zombie 5 would be none other than his ill-fated 1983 effort, Revenge in the House of Usher. Based upon Edgar Allan Poe’s classic Gothic tale, Franco’s iteration would deviate significantly from the source material, following a man called Harker who visits an old mentor called Professor Usher at his lonely mansion. After the death of his daughter Melissa, Usher believes he can revive her using the blood of prostitutes, which he has been crazily harvesting in his demented quest. Similar to Virgin Among the Living Dead, House of Usher had a very troubled production due to various versions being demanded at different times. Franco’s original version, Fall of the House of Usher, was reportedly unable to gain a release due to an extremely poor critical and audience reaction. By the next year, Franco filmed additional murder sequences to bolster the film’s plot, radically altering the film into The Crimes of Usher. Apart from a brief theatrical run however, these two versions are now considered lost forever, with the only surviving version being another Eurociné edit, the current Revenge in the House of Usher print, which eliminates most of the newly shot Franco scenes and inserts ‘flashback’ footage of 1962’s The Awful Dr. Orlof. The end result is somewhat confusing and only mildly delivers on some of the promise of its Zombie retitle.

Deciding to move away from Spain and France for the last two entries, T-Z decided to go back to Italy in their perusal for new titles. They eventually settled on two Joe D’Amato flicks to carry on the franchise, releasing Zombie 6: Monster Hunter next. A retitle of D’Amato’s 1981 slasher picture Absurd, the film follows a brutish man who is able to regenerate any damage to his body due to a scientific experiment gone wrong. As a priest struggles to stop him, the man runs rampage through a small American town, killing everyone he encounters brutally. While his biological condition can rather loosely constitute the inclusion of Zombie in the title, the film is actually much more in line with what viewers would expect from a traditional gut-muncher. The film is in fact a re-treading of Halloween and Halloween II together, punctuated by some immensely extreme moments of violence and carnage, including intestinal evisceration via fence trellis, a drill through the neck, a pickaxe to the face and in a particularly excruciating sequence, a woman having her face slowly singed off in a conventional gaslit oven. In a very similar tone, Zombie 7: Grim Reaper was a repackaged Anthropophagous from 1980, following a group of tourists as they travel to a Greek island, only to discover the inhabitant have all been devoured by a savage madman who was marooned there after barely surviving a ship sinking. Though the antagonist in the film is not undead per se, he’s certainly cannibalistic as we are treated to some of the more arguably more extreme moments in Italian splatter cinema. Though the film is ponderous in many ways until the final twenty minutes, viewers nonetheless can look forward to throats being bitten out, heads being dragged through the roof and in one of the more infamous cinematic demises, a pregnant woman is strangled before having her unborn fetus ripped out and consumed. Even the film’s ending continues to push buttons, as the titular ‘zombie’ is finally defeated, only to start hungrily eating his own disemboweled innards as he succumbs to death.

Though carried out in true Italian spirit, American copyright laws were not so forgiving in the US. While their unofficial take on the Zombie series wasn’t an infraction legally, Edde Entertainment was eventually undone by their en-masse bootleg operation of pornographic films, sneakily selected based on whether they believed the origins copyright holders would have the money to sue them. Though their penalty was not particularly severe, the ending of their practices led to the company dissolving by the end of the 90s. After the somewhat arbitrary selection of sequels by Edde Entertainment, distribution company Shriek Show decided to continue the franchise in their own way by starting afresh from Zombie 3. As such, two unrelated Italian horrors became the de-facto ‘official’ sequels in America, the first of which was After Death, released as Zombie 4. Released in 1989 from Claudio Fragasso, After Death seems to integrate themes from both Zombi 2 and Zombi 3, being set on a tropical island cursed by black magic, but with scientists thrown into the mix. On a remote island, scientific researchers who are formulating disease cures fall afoul of the native priest when they are unable to save his daughter from death. He curses the entire island, causing the dead to revive as spiteful demonic zombies who slaughter the scientists in droves. Young Jenny is able to escape and many years later, returns to the island with some friends and a band of mercenaries, to discover her lost memories. Unfortunately, the dead are still walking around and assail the group, forcing the last number of survivors to endure their attacks until Jenny can figure out how to close the hellish portal that allows the dead to rise in the first place… 

Somehow even more silly and incomprehensible than Zombi 3, Fragasso’s fast-paced zombie tale seems to throw absolutely everything into the crucible; traditional voodoo curses, gates to hell, a Book of the Dead, black magic spells, etc. All of this makes the exact origin of the zombies unclear and their depiction is similarly muddled; the first one we see looks ripped straight from Lamberto Bava’s Demons, with lengthy fangs and claws as well as putrid spittle drooling down their mouths. Some of the zombies however are shambling and wear shrouds, whereas some of them seem to be wearing ninja-yoroi and literally run and jump after the protagonists. The zombies also seem to routinely decide to talk when they feel like it, and in the same vein as Eurociné’s Zombie Lake, they seem content with a minor nibble of flesh from an arm before giving up on their prey. Moreover, the zombies are perfectly capable of handling firearms too, making their persistent taunting and harassment of the living survivors all the more humorous. While it’s not technically nor narratively proficient in what it sets out to do, the film nevertheless is an enjoyable ride into sheer outrageousness and gutsy Italian splatter. The film’s opening ten minutes are a joy to behold as a single crazed female zombie wreaks a brutal dismembering vengeance upon the foolish scientists, while later amusing set pieces include a guy chasing a zombie for no reason and deciding to give it a right hook, the main character Jenny running off an explanation for every single thing the group encounters (even if it flies in the face of her previous advice) and even gay porn star Jeff Stryker gets fisted… through the chest by a zombie, obviously. Some of its technical shortcomings, like an obvious cave set with gel spotlights or an arcane evil tome literally being a notebook with ‘Book of the Dead’ inked on it in Sharpie pen, aren’t really enough to bring down the overall enjoyment of this crazy entry. Even the film’s finale doesn’t disappoint, with Jenny’s final attempt to end the curse giving the bathroom sequence from Poltergeist a run for its money with a graphic face flaying.

Shriek Show’s second chosen sequel was that of 1988’s Killing Birds, rechristened as Zombie 5 despite the previous film (After Death) being released afterward chronologically. No longer contained to mere zombies, Joe D’Amato and Claudio Lattanzi’s oddball chiller integrates avian harbingers into its screenplay with an enigmatic story about the dead returning to life to perpetrate revenge against their murderer. Reminiscent of the opening of Joseph Zito’s The Prowler, a war veteran returns home to find his wife doing the nasty with another man. Unable to control his emotions, the soldier proceeds to slit the throat of his own parents, his wife and her lover. As he then turns his attention to his child, the couple’s collection of birds retaliate and peck out the would-be assassin’s eyes. Flash forward to many years later and a group of ornithology students venture out into the country to locate an imminently endangered bird species, getting directions from the blinded veteran who is now old and infirm. At the veteran’s old house, the group decides to get some rest, only to encounter supernatural happenings, arcane visions, and ancient cobwebbed zombies who proceed to rip them to shreds… until the veteran decides to finally return home.

Killing Birds is quite a difficult film to describe, mainly because its plot is so evasively unclear and its scenes often make little sense. What we have here in basic terms is a story about revenge, where the blind veteran’s victims return from death to render fatal retribution for their demise. Since their murderer is nowhere to be found, the supernatural forces evident around the cabin focus on the gang of teens in their midst. The titular birds factor very little in the main proceedings, other than the opening scene and a MacGuffin so that the protagonists have a reason to get to the cabin. As these sorts of plots go, it’s particularly threadbare here, since everything is so vaguely explained and tangentially linked. When taken as a simple “kids encounter paranormal zombies at a cabin” experience, the viewer can at least take some joy from the film’s array of visually interesting flourishes. There’s clear inspiration from Fulci on display, in such scenes as the opening ocular attack via birds, visions of people crucified to the wall and an overall sense of dread around an old house. The zombies themselves are also pretty interesting, seeming to take a leaf from Andrea Bianchi’s Burial Ground in their cobwebbed, dusty appearance. Their screentime is sadly a bit more limited compared to the previous entries in the ‘series’, but we do get to see some idiotic teenagers get their heads bashed against walls or have their throats ripped open in cars. As a bonus, some of the characters’ decisions are so ludicrous that a lot of the film tends to be unintentionally humorous, such as the discovery of a dead body which is brushed off so nonchalantly (by a police officer I might add) that it seems no more important than seeing a mildly inconvenient traffic jam. One of the biggest however comes in the form of the teens’ escape, on which one of them has to kickstart the generator in the cabin’s basement. In a Final Destination-esque sequence of events, a character’s locket gets entangled into the machine’s gears, dragging him closer and closer to an inevitable death as the necklace cuts into his neck. His companion however, does absolutely nothing, and bewilderingly watches in real-time as his friend slowly dies a painful end. What makes this scene even more hilarious is that the same craven fool who did nothing then informs the others, insinuating that it was the zombies that ‘got him’.

With two circulations of the Zombie series available in the US, the craze for this bric-a-brac collection of undead films would inevitably infect other territories like a zombie plague itself. As mentioned previously, both Zombi 2 and Zombi 3 were released in the UK as Zombie Flesh Eaters and Zombie Flesh Eaters 2, while After Death would later join the grouping as Zombie Flesh Eaters 3. This version of the series was copied almost wholesale by Thai markets, though they took inspiration from the newer US iteration by marketing Killing Birds as Zombie Flesh Eaters 4. In Germany, it was in fact Romero’s Dawn of the Dead which was retitled as Zombie; Fulci’s unofficial sequel was instead released as the standalone title Woodoo. Romero’s sequel to Dawn, 1985’s Day of the Dead, became the official sequel in Germany, retitled Zombie 2 whilst somewhat confusingly, the Italian Zombi 3 followed on the series in the form of Zombie III. 

Worthy of note from the other instances is the Australian franchise, which uniquely follows the original Italian spelling and order of Zombi, Zombi II and Zombi III. In the same vein as T-Z Video though, they chose their own numbered sequels by retitling other similar movies. First up is Zombi 4: Bakterion, actually a 1982 Italian monster movie more commonly known as Panic. Interestingly, the film also saw a release as Zombie 4 in Greek territories. After an accident in a British laboratory, lead researcher Adams goes missing, prompting an agent called Kirk to look for him. After a spate of graphic bloodletting occurs in the streets, it seems that Adams has succumbed to the contagion unleashed in the lab, becoming an unstoppable mutant monster intent on murderous madness wherever he goes. Though the ingredients are there, the film is unfortunately a little too plodding and uneventful to be massively popular with fans of Italian horror, especially as the film lacks a real punch of violent set pieces and has an egregiously generic narrative and characters. Some of the film’s monster make-up is not too bad however, and having the film set on the streets of the UK is a marked difference to the usual Italian studio locations. Following on from this, Zombi V: Vengeance was released next, a retitle of León Klimovsky’s 1973 Spanish chiller, Vengeance of the Zombies. Indian mystic Krisna lives an idyllic lifestyle, helping others achieve inner peace, as well as seducing lots of women. With the actions of a serial killer on the streets however, Krisna’s peace is shattered when it seems his brother Kantaka is reviving the victims of the killer using voodoo magic, assembling a personal slave army to punish those who have wronged him. Similar in style to the aforementioned The Hanging Woman, the film bears some hallmarks of undead classics but infuses the project with a colorful dash of other European influences such as black-gloved killers, Eastern mysticism, hilariously inappropriate lounge music, frequent nudity and more Paul Naschy dottiness in no less than three roles. While there isn’t as much offal-munching as zombie enthusiasts might desire, the barmy and hysterical nature of the film’s plot would more than make up for any shortcomings in this way. Next up is Zombie VI: The Mirage, an ingenious re-release of Frank Agrama’s Egypt-based Dawn of the Mummy from 1981. In spite of the film’s original title, this is a legitimate zombie movie through and through, but notably one with an Egyptian mummy theme. After the savage Pharoah Sefiriman is laid to rest in the Great Pyramids, a curse is entombed with him. In the modern era, a photographer and his group of models encounter a trio of treasure hunters, before heading into Sefiriman’s chamber where they awaken the creature with their spotlights, unleashing the undead Pharoah and his mummified slaves upon the dunes to consume the flesh of the local populace. While it starts off fairly slowly, the film’s final act more than makes up for the quieter opening sections, as the undead mummies burst their way into Cairo, causing untold destruction as they lay siege to the humans. Victims are dragged into the sands, meat cleavers are embedded in heads and in one unforgettable sequence, the bride and her viscera are hungrily chewed up on the buffet table at her own wedding. The fact that the production is shot on location in Egypt itself only adds to the wonderful effect the film has. As zombie films go, this one is well worth seeking out! The last entry in the Australian canon is Zombie VII: Last Rites, a rebranding of Amando De Ossorio’s 1975 film, Night of the Seagulls, which itself is the fourth and final entry in De Ossorio’s infamous Blind Dead series. Distinct from other zombie fiction, the so-called ‘Blind Dead’ were first established in the director’s 1972 classic, Tombs of the Blind Dead, with other sequels following in subsequent years, Return of the Blind Dead in ‘73 and The Ghost Galleon in ‘74. Though their origins differ somewhat between the four films, the ‘Blind Dead’ are long-dead Knights Templar who have been kept in an undead state due to arcane magics undertaken while they were alive. After their charges of heresy and widespread execution across Europe, they have been left blind by bird predation of their eyes while hanging in the gallows. As such, unlike traditional zombies, they cannot see their victims and instead hunt by sound which leads to some rather tense moments of suspense. Since their sworn fealty to their demonic worshippings has also not faltered, they retain some vestigial amounts of clothing such as capes or pauldrons and in some cases, still ride their undead skeletal steeds across the landscape, allowing for some truly memorable sequences. Zombie VII is set in an extremely remote beachside village, where a doctor and his wife move to, only to encounter rather waspish residents and a whisper of superstition about the place. It’s only when the village is suddenly attacked by undead Templars on horseback that the couple learn the horrifying truth of the village; that the rotting revenants are appeased by the villagers who sacrifice a girl to them every seven years. Compared to the trend-setting first entry, the fourth instalment by De Ossorio is a much more somnolent affair, with less of the grandiose set-pieces and nerve-shredding moments of tension. That’s not to say that the film is bad however; indeed, the film is suffused with a dreary sense of doom and despair, helped by the stormy and brooding remote village setting that feels immediately isolated from the rest of the world. It also playfully includes some fairy-tale aspects to the narrative, such as a beautiful plot point that all of the sacrificed women returned as seagulls, who cry in despair when it is time for the Templars to return. It even takes some inspiration from Lovecraft, seemingly partially based on his 1931 novella The Shadow over Innsmouth. And while it’s not quite a bloodbath, scenes of a graphic heart removal and an Evil Dead-style deterioration of the Templars at the film’s finale will definitely keep gore fans happy. This Australian series is also fairly unique in that it has led to its own produced sequel, in the form of 2021’s Zombi VIII: Urban Decay. 

Even more surprisingly, some zombie-related films would see remarketing as Zombie sequels at random, whether the country in question had an established Zombie canon or not. One of these was Jorge Grau’s 1974 zombie splatter film Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, which was released in both Italy and Brazil as Zombi 3. Notably released pre-Dawn of the Dead, Grau’s tale follows George and Edna, two tourists who visit the Lake District in the UK, only to discover a strange new agricultural tool used to kill pests is causing the nearby dead to rise up and consume the flesh of the living. Wonderfully unique for integrating both supernatural elements and setting the action within the United Kingdom, the film’s gloomy dreariness and atmospheric bleakness is often punctuated by some fairly graphic violence, including crude disembowelments with bare hands and breasts being torn off. Another oddity is Burial Ground, an Italian curio from Andrea Bianchi, released as Zombie 3 in Germany. An ancient Etruscan curse is unleashed accidentally by an archaeological professor, causing a swell of crusty ancient skeletal zombies to encroach upon a group of dim-witted socialites who sequester themselves in an opulent mansion. With an incessant synthesized soundtrack and an overwhelming sense of silliness, Bianchi’s film features almost every irresistible instance of Italian excess. The zombies are replete with rotting skulls, stained sack-cowls and more intelligence than the human beings in their midst, able to use battering rams, utilize throwing knives and garden implements with considerable murderous skill. Victims have their necks ripped out, glass shards embedded in their face, arms torn off, heads cut off and in one shockingly sleazy moment, a mother has her nipple bitten off by her own son. Another version of Zombie 3 in the USA came in the form of Marino Girolami’s Zombie Holocaust, sometimes better known as Doctor Butcher MD. After a spate of post-mortem cannibalism incidents at a New York hospital, doctor Lori and anthropologist Peter head to locate the tribe of the native man responsible for the mutilations, only to encounter a cannibal tribe who are at war with a mad doctor, who is creating zombies with unethical human experiments. Much more of a cannibal film in spirit and narrative structure, the film was actually a cash-in, designed to take advantage of both cannibal and zombie films which were extremely popular in Italy in 1980. The film was seemingly directly inspired by the success of Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2, mainly for the recurring cast members, similar plotline and usage of the same sets and stock footage from Fulci’s film. While it can seem ‘cobbled together’, the film’s gruesome special effects are sure to please, with eyeballs being gouged out, a graphic scalping and severing of vocal cords and a zombie getting it seriously in the head with a boat motor. Following on from this, the US also received an alternative Zombi 4 in the form of Bruno Mattei’s Hell of the Living Dead. If Girolami’s Zombie Holocaust felt exploitative, Mattei’s interpretation would seem oftentimes criminally so. An accident at a chemical research plant in Papua New Guinea leaves its victims zombified, driven to feast on the living in a ceaseless frenzy. A band of mercenaries join up with reporters Lia and Max to solve the mystery of the contagion, battling zombies as they try to reach the abandoned plant, the mysterious Hope Center. Even at a furtive glace, Mattei’s screenplay is a variation of Dawn of the Dead to a tee, with the same characters and archetypes, but the final film itself also makes liberal use of Goblin’s soundtrack from Romero’s film. In typical Mattei style, the film has a consistent science-fiction edge to it, with the virus eventually revealed to be a gaseous sustenance gone wrong, intended to stop hunger in undeveloped countries. The film also makes heavy use of stock footage, likening the experience to that of a mondo documentary at times. Still, the film is quite dynamically paced because of its crude and frenetic editing, and there’s no shortage of graphic violence either as a man’s heart is cannibalized by his own son, a shoulder is chewed off and a zombie shoves a fist into a woman’s mouth and writhes around her skull, popping her eyeballs from their sockets. It also has some fairly oddball set-pieces in the same vein as the original Zombi 3, such as a zombie chowing down on maggots or a kitten bursting out of her zombified owner’s corpse. There’s also Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City, which had a small release in Greece as Zombi 3. Released in 1980, Lenzi’s tale follows miserable reporter Dean as he travels to the airport to investigate reports of an airplane acting strangely in the sky. The plane eventually lands and immediately, the inhabitants leap out and enact a systematic slaughter of everyone nearby, running rampage over the entire city. Dean fights against the hordes to reach his wife Anna across the city, but as the pair try to flee to the nearby amusement park, they discover that the nightmare isn’t truly over. Or.. is it? Lacking the enthusiastic story that Lenzi can so often pen well, Nightmare City is instead a high-octane string of never-ending attacks by the zombie creatures upon living victims. The zombies this time as termed as ‘infected’, corrupted seemingly by intense amounts of radiation which have rendered them hyperviolent and craving fresh blood to replenish their tainted plasma. Unlike the traditional shamblers that we are used to, the creatures in this film can run, use guns and improvised weapons and also act and sound like normal human beings if they wish. There’s a lack of consistency among the zombies that would otherwise be problematic in a more narratively-driven exercise, but this does allow for a truly large-scale city assault to be realized on-screen. The film does an amazing job at making it seem like a large geographical area is over-run, interspersed with the expected graphic bloodlettings like eye-gouging, impromptu mastectomies, a huge variety of stabbings, juvenile disrobings and even some exploding televisions for good measure. The ending however is a step too far for some, but it’s certainly worth a watch in any case. Finally (and probably the most mind-boggling entry), there’s the 1985 North Korean film Pulgasari, which was retitled as Zombi 34 in Pakistan of all places. Directed by Shin Sang-ok, assisted by Chong Gon Jo, Pulgasari is actually a retelling of Godzilla, though set in feudal-era Korea and based upon a legend of the eponymous creature. Under the oppression of a brutal king, a peasant blacksmith creates a small fetish made of rice, which comes to life when it comes into contact with blood. Expanding into a giant monster that devours metallic objects, the blacksmith’s daughter leads the creature and an army of peasants into rebellion against the king. They are successful, but Pulgasari’s hunger isn’t swayed by their victory. While it’s extremely tangential to label the film’s monster as a zombie of any kind, the film is nevertheless an interesting footnote in North Korean history as the South Korean director, Shin, was actually kidnapped in the late ‘70s by the North Korean government in a bid to force him to make movies to popularise North Korean cinema worldwide and to sustain propaganda. Pulgasari was Shin’s final film before he and his ex-wife Choi Eun-hee were able to escape to the US embassy whilst on a trip to Vienna, finding sanctuary in the United States until their eventual return to their home of South Korea. As can be expected, the film’s special effects and scripting are rather poor, even with Shin’s directorial skills, because of the resources allocated to the film. Still, it’s a noteworthy watch, if anything for the nigh-unbelievable background context that the film was forged in.

From America to Italy, back to America again and now all around the world, the Zombie collection is something that ordinarily shouldn’t have existed. With various copyright laws in place, it’s a bizarre occurrence to have so much creative exploitation of a single title. The unofficial franchise at least proves that given the resources, the creative spark, the know-how, the sheer gutsiness, and the capitalist desire to make tons of cash, almost anything is possible. With zombie mania still alive and kicking as of 2021, we can all ponder about whether we’ll have a complete Zombie Collection Blu-Ray boxset in the not-too-distant future...