The Joy of Nihilism

Zombi 2 (1979)
A.K.A. Zombie, Zombie 2: the Dead are among Us, Zombie Flesh Eaters, Island of the Living Dead, Island of the Flesh Eaters, Gli Ultimi Zombi, Sanguelia

When George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead was released in Italy, it was re-christened Zombi and re-edited under the direction of giallo director Dario Argento. (Typical of the differences between Italian and American approaches to horror, Argento’s cut removes several minutes’ worth of humor from the film.) Zombi proved to be a hit, and talk in Rome turned to a sequel. Not a job for Romero himself, but an entry into the canon of figlia, series of shamelessly unauthorized sequels of any film that made decent Italian box office. An already completed screenplay set on a Caribbean voodoo island was book ended with scenes set in New York City, and director Lucio Fulci was recruited to direct. Fulci had made powerful enemies in Italy with his virulently anti-Catholic 1972 feature Don’t Torture a Duckling and had difficulty finding work thereafter. However, this new project, Zombi 2, would propel him into international renown and provide the impetus for his later horror work.

Zombi 2 is a classic exploitation film in many areas, the most unfortunate of which is its artless screenplay and flat acting. The actors in this film are a mixture of American and Italian talent, so whether one watches the film in the Italian or English, it is half dubbed. This effect, as in Sergio Leone films, makes the whole film feel surreal by default; but unlike the excellent dubbing on Region 1 Leone DVDs, the dialogue dub here is bad enough to be irritating. Zombi 2 was released long before Shaun of the Dead, Troma Films, and other zombie-irony outings; good thing, because it contains just about every clichéd living dead scenario that has been invented before or since. It’s got such sex=death classics as the protagonists sharing an intimate moment in the cemetery just as its inhabitants come back to life, a character breaking down at the sight of his zombified former girlfriend, and the wholly unrealistic (it’s fight or flight, people) scenario of a woman frozen in terror, trembling as she contemplates the doom that is veeery slooowly coming for her. Towards the beginning, there is one scene that recommends the film for the po-mo ironic viewer all by itself: an underwater zombie-shark battle. Yes indeed, a zombie confronts a shark, presumably for the privilege of eating the topless scuba diver who (what else) is frozen in terror nearby. Fulci cuts between the zombie, the shark, and the scuba diver’s bikini bottoms, until the zombie grabs the foam puppet shark and they slowly grapple in a fluid, dreamlike ballet of absurdity. Hilarious!

But, as was first proven by Bruce Connor with his experimental short A Movie, in certain kinds of films dialogue and story are mere toothpicks holding together a tasty sandwich of thrills. The best part about the plot is the way it spirals from straightforward mystery into corporeal hell and Fulci’s grasp on the pacing, tone, and suspense of the film is masterful. Zombi 2’s zombies are of the old-fashioned, slow kind and only complete control of these elements could make them creepy- and they are. Fulci evokes the kind of caveman fear that hits everyone in the very base of their brains. Nihilism dominates this no-win situation, epitomized in the many scenes where characters have to re-kill their friends. They can either shoot a loved one in the head or be eaten alive by them, nothing else. Fulci shows the human body as a disgusting thing, a bag of meat and guts that lives only to eat and dies for no reason at all. Victims are splayed open so far they the viewer barely recognizes them as human. Watching Zombi 2 with this idea in mind, it is easy to make the connection with Fulci’s hatred of the Catholic Church, which teaches us that, while we may be meat, we have a pure element, a soul which lives beyond our bodies. Zombi 2 simultaneously confirms the existence of the supernatural (voodoo makes these zombies) and denies it of any meaning. As Jamie Russell writes in his zombie movie history Book of the Dead:

“Opening up the body for the camera, these Italian splatter movies try to show us what lies beneath the skin and significantly, they discover nothing but a bloody mess of tubes and piping in which there is no indication of the divine. As a result, gore becomes a poor substitute for God.”

It is notable that the makeup and special effects in Zombi 2, for all their celebrated gross-out power, are not terribly realistic. Again, it is the downbeat nihilism of Fulci’s direction that transforms low budget effects into nauseating gore. Makeup artist Gianetto De Rossi, constrained by budget, resorted to caking clay and corn syrup blood onto anyone who wandered onto the set, local winos included. (As a result, Fulci is rumored to have called extras “walking flower pots.”) The black and grey clay, the orange-red blood, and the pink meat benefit greatly in visceral value from the oversaturated 1970s film stock glow beloved of exploitation nerds; in this light, the gore really glistens. De Rossi and Fulci use makeup in imaginative, disgusting ways: zombie skin falls off in clumps into victims’ hands; eyeballs are popped and stuffed with worms. By the end of the film everyone is soaked with sticky blood, which pours out of zombies and humans alike in astonishing quantities. Zombi 2’s soundtrack is used toward similar ends; a zombie nose-deep in a victim’s leg makes sickening slurping sounds, and the rhythmic chanting of voodoo rites mixes with the constant wailing of the zombies to create unbearable anxiety in the viewer.

So why should anyone sit through ninety-one minutes of relentlessly pessimistic gore? Aficionados would say that if you do not intuitively understand, then no one can ever explain it to you, but that’s not really the issue here. Perhaps a better question would be: could a film intended as a sequel to Dawn of the Dead be without any social or political message? Well, it is not self-consciously political like Romero’s movie, but Zombi 2 presents a variation on the theme of zombies as the proletariat monster. In this case, it reflects anxieties about a colonial uprising (Ha. Get it? Uprising?) instead of a working class one. The treatment of voodoo in the film is very paternalistic and colonial; the doctor who is attempting to solve the plague dismisses it as a “native superstition,” right up until he is eaten alive by such “nonsense.” He is looking for a medical explanation for the zombie crisis, to confirm the supremacy of science over voodoo, and therefore confirm the supremacy of his system of beliefs and justify his presence on the island. The conflict between the doctor and the assistant who warns him, “when the earth spits out the dead, they will come back to suck the blood of the living,” contains strong elements of the conflict between faith (or the “native”) and reason (or the colonial). Putting the viewer in the place of the colonial doctor, it asks questions like: What if there are limits to what science can know, and therefore control? What if the “natives” know something we don’t, and use it to destroy us? As personified in the army of zombie plague victims, Zombi 2 evokes the fears of the slave owners who forbade meetings of any sort, lest they be used to plan a revolution.

The last two scenes of Zombi 2 are really what tie it thematically to Dawn of the Dead, however. Our heroes (some of them, anyway) have escaped from the cursed island of Matul onto the clear turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea, sailing towards sunshine and hope. One of their friends is quickly transforming from the effects of a zombie attack, but they still think that if they can get him to New York City, to science and civilization, he can be cured. Then they turn on the radio and… Let’s just say it’s a nihilistic coup consistent with the Romero zombie trilogy. In its depiction of a fleshy hell without escape that still, despite itself, provides a couple giggles, Zombi 2 is without equal.