Monday, January 8, 2018

CosmicSparky's Top 100 Horror Flicks: Zombi 2


As a kid I never really considered myself as a horror fan. Sure I loved stuff like the Alien movies and X-Files, not to mention a fair share of monstrous toys. Maybe I just figured it was pretty universal to have an interest in weird creatures and spooky stories. Even into the mid 90's when I would camp out in the living room to watch Joe Bob Briggs host the hell out of Monstervision, I still didn't identify as a horror fan. Moving into my late teens and the glory days of the DVD market, something happened and horror became a much larger part of my life. I can never pinpoint the exact moment when it happened but somewhere along the line I found myself collecting horror movies at a steady pace.
In the spring of 2008 that collection had grown enough that I decided it was time to restore the glory of those old Monstervision nights. I declared that every Saturday would be horror movie night. After the first shaky couple of months it became this became a constant within our house. Scary flicks have are that little something to punctuate every week whether it be to celebrate a good time or to make up for a lousy one.
With this year marking the tenth anniversary of this Saturday night tradition I thought it might be a fun addition to the site to share with you all my 100 favorite horror flicks. Now I want to make that very clear, these are what I enjoy the most. I can't declare them to be the absolute best flicks out there as that would require me to have seen every single scary movie ever made in the history of the world. Nor will I adhere to historical relevance, so no matter how much Scream may matter historically, it's not popping up in my countdown.
There will be some familiar titles no doubt, like The Fly, but you'll also see some bizarre picks like Full Circle or Pin: A Plastic Nightmare. Also these are not appearing in any sort of quality ranking. I'll simply write about which one I feel like discussing at the time. Just understand that if it's part of this series, whether it be something deep and well-made or something so bad it's hilarious, I'm including these flicks because I think they're an outstanding part of any horror collection.

Given the current frightful weather across the states, I think we deserve a nice tropical vacation, so let's go with a movie that doesn't meet most of the usual standards of quality but sure is a lot of warm weather fun.

Zombi 2 was one of the earlier Italian horror flicks to enter my collection, and while it eventually wormed its way into my hear it also served as something of a lesson in film buff bullshitting. For the life of me I can not count the number of times I have read film nerds wax poetically about the deeper meanings and quality of Italian horror, and while I have a love for some of these films there are incredibly few I would tout as having any real narrative meat. By and large you watch Italian flicks because you want some pure unfettered excess. That's where I grew to love this flick. Think of it this way. Some days you need a nice healthy meal. Maybe a salad, some whole grain toast, you get the picture. Then there's those days where the only thing that can lift you spirit is Taco Bell. Zombi 2 Is pure Taco Bell.

The story is crazy simple. A boat carrying some dead bodies, and one not so dead one, arrive in New York City. A reporter meats up with the daughter of the boats owner and soon the two set off to the Caribbean in search of answers. Along the way they hitch a boat ride with a married couple and arrive at an island occupied by a shifty doctor, his spiteful wife, and craploads of zombies. There's honestly not much more than that. There's no deep character study or revelations about human nature. It's all a sun drenched excuse to get people topless and bloody. And on that front tit totally delivers.

Everything you could ask for from a sleazy zombie picture is on display. Cranial explosion, burning corpses, eye trauma, topless diving, and even a fight between a zombie and a shark! It's like the sketchbook of a nasty little boy brought to the screen with just enough overwrought and poorly dubbed dialogue keeping things from getting too serious.

I just remembered you may be wondering about the first Zombi, well there isn't one, not really anyway. You see Zombi was an international title for Dawn of the Dead, this is simply an unofficial sequel. It's a fairly common practice in Italy. Even the Evil Dead films have some completely unrelated sequels in name only. The Zombi franchise itself doesn't dodge this practice either as later entries like Killing Birds are simply dragged in to benefit from brand recognition.

While I fully endorse this movie as a bit of trashy fun, it's definitely not something for new horror fans to dive right into. If you're just developing an interest in the genre and hoping to catch up on some old goodies, you'd be much better served with something like The Fog. Zombi 2 is something you can sit on for a long time, until just the right time when life has left you exhausted and sort of brainless. Then it's time to gather some like minded individuals, some tasty hooch, and just enjoy the show.


That's all for tonight, folks. I hope you will all enjoy this new feature, though I can't say for certain how frequently it will appear. Haven't even decided on all the titles that will be featured, so there will be surprises for all of us.

No comments:

Post a Comment