Woodoo - The Zombies' Dread Island

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Movie
German title Woodoo - The Zombies' Dread Island
Original title Zombie 2
Country of production Italy
original language Italian
Publishing year 1979
length 88 minutes
Age rating FSK unchecked, indexed and confiscated nationwide
Rod
Director Lucio Fulci
script Elisa Briganti
Dardano Sacchetti
production Fabrizio De Angelis
Ugo Tucci
Gianfranco Couyoumdjian
music Giorgio Cascio
Fabio Frizzi
camera Sergio Salvati
cut Vincenzo Tomassi
occupation

Woodoo - The Zombies' Dread Island (original title: Zombi 2 , also known as Zombie Flesh Eaters ) is an Italian horror film by Lucio Fulci from 1979. The film locations were New York , Santo Domingo and Rome .

action

A driverless sailboat is stopped by Coast Guard officers outside New York Harbor. At first they assume an abandoned boat, but after a short time one of the officers is attacked by a disfigured creature and killed. The second policeman manages to shoot the creature with difficulty. The killed officer comes to a clinic for an autopsy.

Shortly after the incident, the boat owner's daughter, Anne, is contacted. However, she cannot help the police, except for the information that her father is on a tropical island. At the same time, the newspaper journalist Peter West is assigned to the mysterious murder case. Anne and Peter decide to look for Anne's father together on a Caribbean island called Matool . To get to the island, Anne and Peter travel with the boat owners Brian and Susan. You will initially have problems finding Matool as the island is not shown on any map. During a dive in a coral reef, Susan encounters a tiger shark from which she is hiding. In her hiding place on the ocean floor, however, she is attacked by a "living corpse", from which she is able to escape. The shark and the zombie then fight each other and injure each other.

When we arrived at Matool , the boat had an engine failure, so that all four had to disembark . The protagonists are quickly confronted with an inexplicable epidemic that brings the dead to life as zombies . Anne learns that her father also fell victim to the plague and that the crew of his boat left the island without him. The doctor Dr. David Manard has set up a hospital with a research laboratory in an old church and tries in vain to fight the disease. More and more undead appear and go on the hunt.

In the end, only Anne, Peter and the fatally injured Brian can leave the island alive, with Brian and Susan's makeshift boat. They are on their way home, but at sea they learn from a radio broadcast that they receive by chance that the zombie plague is also affecting New York. In the last scene you can see masses of zombies crossing the Brooklyn Bridge .

criticism

The lexicon of international films judged the film to be a "blood thirst, disgust and sex-mixing horror spectacle of cheap Italian production, which advocates the radical annihilation of" the unworthy of life and the abnormal ". “ Most of the contemporary German critics rated Zombi 2 poorly. In specialist magazines for fantastic films such as Cinefantastique and Fangoria, he scored more positively. The Monthly Film Bulletin praises the mask work that was later awarded. The film critic Christian Keßler praised the film for its ingenuity and the harmonious selection of music.

background

The shooting of Zombi 2 resulted from the surprising success of George A. Romero's film Zombie - Dawn of the Dead , the alleged prehistory of which the film was marketed. Most of the script is said to have been written earlier.

The success of Zombi 2 sparked a wave of Italian zombie films of a similar style. Fulci's film has a stylistic function here (in contrast to the mortuary of the living dead, which was made a few years earlier ). It is also considered one of the best Italian zombie films. The director was encouraged by the success to make more films with a similar theme:

Publications in Germany

The film was shown in German cinemas from November 30, 1979. The FSK only released it with extensive editing requirements. Nevertheless, it was also a commercial success in Germany and reached 1,650,000 viewers.

In addition to several video versions from the 1980s , three different versions of the film were released by Marketing Video in Germany. Two externally indistinguishable videos were brought onto the market in abbreviated form. The versions differed significantly from each other. While one version only showed a plot cut, the other version was cut by more than five minutes of depictions of violence . It was therefore much more censored than the already heavily cut German theatrical version, which never appeared on video. In addition, a third edition was published, which was completely unabridged and also contained the missing plot scene. However, the scene in question had no sound. In addition to the official releases, bootleg videos of Zombi 2 also appeared . However, they had the same plot cut as the marketing version. The later published FSK-16 version of the film has been shortened by over seven minutes.

On March 28, 1996, the Tiergarten district court confiscated the Japanese laser disc publication nationwide . However, the uncut DVD from Dragon received an SPIO / JK report , which certifies that it is not harmful to criminal law. In the past, JK-approved films were nevertheless confiscated. However, the BPjM put the strip on list A in June 2007, which is a risk to young people, but has no criminal relevance. The decision of the Tiergarten District Court is now statute-barred, but the Fulda District Court confiscated the film again in July 2013.

Publications abroad

Zombi 2 was also censored abroad . Most American releases were unabridged, only the Anchor Bay label cut the film by a few scenes. In addition, the film was distributed in the UK in cut-only versions for a long time. Only recently the British BBFC waived the later cuts with a duration of around 23 seconds. In addition, Zombi 2 has been censored in Australia and Sweden .

Awards

  • The film was nominated for the Saturn Award in the category Best Make-Up in 1981.

DVD releases in Germany

  • Label: Dragon Film Entertainment, 2001
  • Label: Laser Paradise (Lucio Fulci Collection), 2002
  • Label: Laser Paradise (Today, it's Halloween), 2004
  • Label: Laser Paradise, December 4th, 2006
  • Label: CMV, July 15, 2007
  • Label: CMV (Retro Edition), 2007, Limited to 399 pieces
  • Label: ´84 Entertainment (Limited Uncut Edition), June 2nd, 2008
  • Label: CMV (mini book box), April 29, 2010
  • Label: CMV (VHS Glasbox Marketing-Design), April 29, 2010
  • Label: CMV (VHS Glasbox Movie-Design), April 29, 2010
  • Label: CMV (VHS cardboard folding box), April 29, 2010
  • Label: ´84 Entertainment, May 7th 2010
  • Label: ´84 Entertainment (Monsterbox), 2010, limited to 84 pieces
  • Label: Laser Paradise (Red Edition Reloaded No. 35), 2012
  • Label: XT, April 29, 2013, Limited Uncut Edition (Metalpack) Blu-ray

References

  1. ↑ Woodoo - The island of horrors of the zombies. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ↑ in: Monthly Film Bulletin, 47: 552/563 (1980, p. 55)
  3. ↑ Christian Keßler "THE SON OF RETURN OF BLOODY NOODLES" in the magazine Splatting Image No. 23 (September 1995)
  4. ↑ http://www.insidekino.com/Djahr/D1979.htm

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