Zombi 2 (1979)

Episode 21, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd:  Welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: I’m Craig.

Todd: Couple weeks ago, we saw an Italian horror film by Dario Argento called Deep Red. And so after our really heavy movie that we had last week 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  We thought we’d take a break and go for a little more popcorn this time going with another notorious Italian film, zombie 2, or at least that’s what it’s called in Italian. This one not by Argento, but by one of his peers, Lucio Fulci. Fulci, really, before he did this film, he did a lot of comedy, actually. He did probably 10, 12 or so comedy films, really didn’t get anywhere with them, did a couple, giallo type pictures, and then ended up with this film in his lap. This film was intended as a sort of sequel of sorts cashing in on the dawn of the dead. Right. Dawn of the dead came out. This is a 1979 movie.   I believe dawn of the dead was what? 78, 77. I don’t remember. And dawn of the dead was released in Italy under the title zombie. And it was actually interesting because it was recut for the Italian market by Dario Argento. Interesting. Yeah. And he even rescored it using goblin. You know what? That is a movie I would actually like to see.   Like, the, yeah, the Italian version of, of dawn of the dead. Yeah. And, so this movie had actually already been written, but they dropped this in Fulci’s lab, and it became a very 

Craig:  big hit. And it 

Todd:  dropped this in Fochi’s lap, and it became a very big hit. And it pretty much cemented the rest of Fochi’s career as a straight out horror director. So he got very well known more for horror than giallo or any of his other pictures, and his take on it was to go really gross. He was very into the blood, the gore, really zooming in on it even more than we saw, like, Argento, yeah, I know the other day. So this, I I like this film a lot, but it’s not a perfect film. No. No. By any means, I mean but there are just elements about it I like.   Yeah. You’d never seen this before. Right, Craig? 

Craig:  No. I kinda heard of it. You know, it’s it’s one of those kind of obscure titles that I’ve seen on lots of lists and things, but, no, I I had never seen anything. It’s funny. You had told me maybe not to read too much about it because there were some some surprising scenes. And I I you know, watching the movie, I knew what scene you were talking about, and we’ll we’ll get there. It’s it’s really what makes this movie kinda stand out from your typical fare, but, yeah, it’s it’s just kind of an old school zombie film. It’s funny that it’s not a direct sequel to dawn of the dead because it really easily could be.   I mean, it it’s close enough. It’s very much in keeping with, like, night of the living dead. I mean, it’s it’s those same kind of slow walking zombies, pretty traditional in look, although I really liked the look of the zombies in this movie. They, looked really decayed. Anymore with the modern zombie movies, they’re always all wet and, like, you know, like, bleeding and pussy. And these zombies, although it says at one point that they’re, like, 400 years old, they look pretty good for being underground for 400 years, but, they look like they’ve been underground. It’s not all that oozy. I mean, you’ve got some blood and stuff, but for the most part, it’s a lot of, like, caked dirt and and caked blood and stuff.   And 

Todd:  They’re, like, dry and crusty. 

Craig:  Yeah. Right? Yeah. And it looks good. And then, of course, you know, this is the late seventies, so it’s all practical effects. It’s all makeup and costume, and it it looks really good. 

Todd:  I think the makeup is is part of what I love so much about this movie. Exactly what you just said. The zombies look like they’ve been underground for a while. Right. And it’s almost surprising actually in a couple of the scenes when they do get shot or their heads get cut off or something and all this red blood oozes out, it really betrays their exterior appearance in a way, doesn’t it? 

Craig:  Yeah. It does. I mean, I guess, you know, what do we know about the anatomy of zombies? Probably not a whole lot. 

Todd:  That’s true. Well, maybe after they eat your blood, they they gets the blood circulating a little more inside. 

Craig:  Why not? Yeah. And another thing that I really liked about the look of them was they did a lot, And, you know, these must have been, brave actors or, I guess, maybe brave is not the right word. Maybe they just had strong stomachs. But they did a lot with, worms and maggots and stuff and, you know, worms coming out of mouths and out of eyeballs, and it’s obviously real. I mean, it’s obviously practical effects. I don’t know how much they were working with the actual 

Todd:  so. It’s pretty awesome. I like that about this movie. You know what else I like about this movie is it’s kind of a return to the original zombie lore. Instead of being radiation or some weird medical thing, it’s voodoo. Yeah. You know? It’s Well, that’s 

Craig:  the only explanation provided. I mean, it’s it’s most of it the the movie opens with a scene that appears to be in some kind of tropical locale, and it’s like kind of a makeshift hospital or something. And you see a corpse, you know, all, tied up in a sheet, and it it starts to sit up. Somebody who we don’t know yet shoots it and says, okay. The boat can return now. And, then it cuts to New York. And we’re in New York for just a little while, and there’s this sailboat, you know, right off of Manhattan, which was also just kind of a weird flashback to see Manhattan in those days. It’s still a little bit eerie to see the Twin Towers Yeah.   There. But it this apparently abandoned boat, and they call you know, the the coast guard goes in looking for it. And the boat appears to be abandoned until the cops are looking around. And a zombie pops out and and kills 1 of the cops, and that’s what kinda sets it into motion. They’re investigating this boat, and it turns out this boat belonged to some guy, and his daughter Anne hasn’t heard from him in a long time. She’d he she knew he was gonna be, traveling, but she hadn’t heard from him in a long time. 

Todd:  Good thing she happened to live in New York. 

Craig:  Right. Exactly. And I I don’t know how the boat ended up there. Really, it it kinda I don’t 

Todd:  Well, we’re talking aren’t we talking down in the Caribbean? What was is about where it came 

Craig:  Well, see, I I never really could tell. 

Todd:  It there was something San Miguel was something that they had said, and then there was, later on, we we came across the cemetery of some conquistadores. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  It was maybe to be the gulf there, which which is one of the places where this where the film one of the many places where the film kinda falls apart in that how would this sailboat sailed itself out of the gulf and drifted all the way up to New York. Right. You’d expect it to hit Florida or Georgia or some other place. Yeah. 

Craig:  I mean, I I guess just the crew or whatever was slowly zombified. Like, maybe they only became zombies when they got close to the Arctic. 

Todd:  They were sailing around and, 

Craig:  Right. And and what what I was trying I’m I’m trying to get through the 1st part quickly because it it’s it really just introduces the characters in New York. You’ve got the daughter, Susan, and then you’ve got a reporter, Peter, who’s assigned to this story. And they do some investigating around, and they find this letter that the the guy who owned the boat had written to his daughter, Anne. 

Clip:  To my daughter, Anne, in case anything should happen to me. Due to my morbid curiosity, I have managed to contract a strange disease. They’re taking care of me as if I were some sort of guinea pig, but I know I’ll never leave this island again, at least not alive. I haven’t been a good father, but I have always loved you. One last kiss from dad, Matule, and it’s dated 15th September. 

Craig:  From that, they know where he had been. Yeah. This this island wherever it is called Mathul. 

Todd:  Yeah. One one thing we would never forget. 

Craig:  We’d never forget because they keep saying it over and over again, and it’s it’s just funny to he’s like, how many times? Because he said, welcome to Matule. How do you go back Todd Matule? 

Todd:  I came to this island from Matule many years ago. 

Craig:  So so Peter and Susan find out where it is, and then so they go there. And that’s where we spend pretty much the rest of the movie. It’s this tropical locale. They’re looking for this tropical island, and that’s you know, the bulk of the film takes place where on Mathul. The the mystical island of Mathul. Okay. 

Todd:  But don’t forget the the scene when because this is important later, when they do pull in the cop who was killed as a zombie, there is a scene of them doing an autopsy on it, which is rather humorous. 

Craig:  It’s a really funny scene. 

Todd:  Because, I guess, they had not mortician. What do you call them? 

Craig:  The autopsy guy? I don’t know. 

Todd:  Autopsy guy. The head autopsy guy and his, like, assistant, I guess, who’s maybe still training 

Craig:  Or something. 

Todd:  Keeps putting him down. 

Craig:  Well, it it is it’s   it’s pretty hilarious because it’s kind of this nerdy, snooty white guy, and he’s just the the other guy is black, and he’s just totally demeaning to him throughout. 

Todd:  Opinion of what happened? Oh, can’t you see there are bite marks here? Idiot. Hadn’t be a scalpel. Right. 

Craig:  And, yeah, that’s that’s the cop that got attacked and killed. But we also see at the end of that autopsy scene that underneath the sheet, he starts to move, and that that is important for the end of the film. 

Todd:  It is. It’s an interesting addition. My understanding is that the New York scenes were added to the script after the success of dawn of the dead. 

Craig:  Yeah. I read that too. And it makes sense because it really does kind of tie the movie to dawn of the dead. I mean, they it they could be arguably happening concurrently. What what what goes on on the island with our main characters, we don’t find this out until the end of the movie, but at when they finally, a couple of them, when the the remaining survivors escape the island, they listen to a radio broadcast, and the radio broadcast is talking about the infestation of zombies in New York. And the last scene cuts to zombies walking across the Brooklyn Bridge in a scene that’s very reminiscent of, dawn of the dead or any of the other   Yeah.   Films from that series. So, I mean, it may have been a cheap cash grab to to try to kinda pawn this off as a sequel, but they did a good job of it. Yeah. I mean, they certainly did a better job of it than, the Italian filmmakers behind Troll two. I mean, there is no connection between the those 2 movies. At least, there is some effort here to tie them together. 

Todd:  That’s right. There’s a little more artistry in this film. 

Craig:  Bit. 

Todd:  And and I did think there was quite a bit of artistry in this film. You know? Fulci did a really good job of finding really interesting camera angles, I thought, and moving the camera around quite a bit. He liked to do that trick where you’re looking in a mirror, but you don’t realize you’re looking in a mirror and then it pans out into the real, which is a little disorienting. And I don’t know. I felt like we were looking through the eyes of a pretty accomplished filmmaker who is taking some care with what’s otherwise pretty exploitive, you know, low budget fare. 

Craig:  Right. Yeah. I mean, I thought that the cinematography looked good too. And at one point while we were watching it, I asked you if this was like a restored version or something because it’s the the the version that we’re watching is really clean. I mean, the the video is really clean. When they’re out on the ocean, you get some kind of broad shots, and, you know, when they’re in the tropical locale. He paints good pictures. You like you said, atypical of low budget 

Todd:  type stuff. Yeah. So, Anne and Peter decide to commandeer boat to take them down, to this island of Mathul, and they run across, 2 folks, Susan and Brian, I believe. And this was I guess they flew out. They must have flown out to the gulf somewhere, to some other island, some well known I think it was San Miguel. I I I saw it on a sign or something or maybe 

Craig:  it was just Spanish speaking island. 

Todd:  Yeah. And this guy says, oh, go down here. I know there’s a couple who have a boat, and they’re gonna they’re gonna head out. And they meet these 2, Susan and Brian, and, they’re on vacation. They’re planning to go to another island, and they reluctantly decide to take them aboard. 

Clip:  It’s not a cool place to head. Natives claim it’s cursed. They avoid it like the plague.   We have to go there all the same.   And you want a ride from us?   If that’s possible.   And experience with boats?   Uh-huh. And   the lady?   I was born on a boat.   Okay, Peter. We’ll have to load more supplies. You pay your share. Deal?   A deal.   Step on board here. Look, I’ll warn you right now. Don’t expect us to come sightseeing once we get there. I’ve found it. It never pays to ignore native superstitions. 

Craig:  He maybe should have followed that instinct. 

Todd:  That’s sort of a general horror movie rule. You should just any superstition of the natives Yeah. Don’t reflect 

Craig:  that. Yeah. 

Todd:  Yeah. So they go out, and, of course, they’re driving they’re driving. Yeah. Right. They’re floating around looking for Mathul, and they mentioned that, well, it’s not really on any maps. A lot of these islands aren’t really on the map. 

Craig:  Uncharted. 

Todd:  Right? Kind of supposedly knows where it is, but they’re not for for sure. And while they’re out looking, Susan says, hey. Let’s let’s stop here. I wanna go down and get some pictures. She’s an underwater photographer or something. And so she strips down to no wet suit or anything. 

Craig:  You get a nice long scene, Susan taking her clothes off 

Todd:  She does. 

Craig:  And putting her scuba thing on over her naked body. I mean, she’s wearing this tiny little bathing suit thong on them, and that’s it. And there’s, like, even a a a a pretty long shot of her, like, strapping up under her private area. I mean, it’s it’s it’s clearly exploited, but that was really typical of seventies horror. Yeah. You you you had to have some boobies, in seventies horror. 

Todd:  It’s kinda nice to see something different from a shower scene. You know? True. You you’re going for the scuba diving scene. 

Craig:  We got a shower scene too. We did. Don’t worry. 

Todd:  That’s in 

Craig:  here as well. 

Todd:  She goes diving, and and, again, the the cinematography is really quite nice. 

Craig:  I was impressed. I was impressed as soon as she fell over and the shot it changed from perspective from above to below, water. I thought, wow. You know, they were they were kinda going for it here. 

Todd:  And it’s just beautiful under there with all of the fish and the coral, and she’s swimming and she’s taking pictures, and then there’s a shark that’s comes by, pretty decent sized shark 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  That appears to be threatening her or at least she’s ducking away from it. And as she ducks into sort of a nook in the coral, a hand comes out, and we get the underwater zombie. 

Craig:  The underwater zombie, which I have never seen before or since, I don’t think. 

Todd:  Oh, man. It’s so awesome. 

Craig:  Yeah. It is awesome. And this is the scene that, that you were I think that you were it it is. Right?   It is. 

Todd:  It’s one of them. Yeah. Yep. 

Craig:  Yep. So, she she she came up to the surface and and for help, and then the shark was coming towards her. She goes back down. And like you said, from around this piece of coal or whatever the this is this zombie, grabs her, and they struggle for a while. And she eventually is able to break free and and swims back to the surface. And then you have the awesome zombie shark battle. Yes. 

Todd:  Zombie shark fight. 

Craig:  It’s awesome. And, like, this is a real shark. 

Todd:  It’s clearly a real shark. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s obviously a real shark. And I I read that, initially, they had cast and hired an actor to play this role, but for some reason, hell, he got sick. 

Todd:  Yeah. I think it was. Yeah. 

Craig:  He got sick and he was unable to do it, and so they replaced him with the shark trainer. First of all, I didn’t know there was such a thing as shark trainers. Yeah. I didn’t know you could trade sharks. Secondly, why wouldn’t you have the shark trainer do it from 

Todd:  the beginning? Right. 

Craig:  How about 

Todd:  the world? 

Craig:  You know, maybe the scene would have played out differently if the actor had done it. I mean, this scene is really cool because the the the guy, the shark trainer zombie, and the shark are really they’re interacting physically. 

Todd:  I mean, he’s onto him and he’s kinda grabbing him, and he’s trying to bite at his skin. Mhmm. He does. He gets a bite off of the shark at one point, and then the shark comes around and, like, gets a bite of his arm Right. And tears his arm off. Yeah. It’s interesting because well, the guy’s name, I looked it up, is Ramon Bravo. Now if you’re gonna be a shark 

Craig:  Yeah. Absolutely. 

Todd:  Ramon Bravo is the name to have. And, apparently, he does he’s done I mean, he’s kind of a shark guy. Like, the other movies he’s been in were documentaries about sharks or other movies that featured killer sharks or something. So I guess he knows what he’s doing. He clearly knew what he’s doing. 

Craig:  I mean, he   had Todd. I mean, that that had to be high risk. He had to, you know, had pretty extensive experience with sharks to be able to do that. Now to be fair, you know, we’ve seen video of real shark attacks, and they’re pretty frenzied. I mean, this was you know, he was obviously taking care and and not trying to hurt this animal. And Yeah. But it was well choreographed and just so different. I I’ve never seen I’ve never seen that kind of interaction with the shark in   a fictional movie. You know, like,   documentaries are one thing, but from an actor’s fi. Freaking cool. Zombies versus sharks. I mean, I’m surprised sci fi hasn’t rolled out a whole movie series of those yet. 

Todd:  I know. I’d like to know what the conversation was like when they’re reading the script and going, I see you wrote in a zombie shark battle. And, alright. Cool. We’ll do that. 

Craig:  We’ll give it a go. 

Todd:  It was it was good. It was good. And and, I mean, an underwater zombie, the whole thing is just fantastic, and can almost turn the movie off right there and just be totally satisfied with it. Yeah. Because if Fulci does does anything right, it’s he delivers where it counts. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.   And, I mean, it’s it’s worth seeing the movie just for that. Now like I said, really, overall, it’s fairly typical fair Yeah. For zombie films. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy it. I mean, if you’re a fan of zombie films, this is old school. And if you like that old school stuff, watch this. I mean, it’s it’s it’s Todd. I I wasn’t expecting very much. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  You know, zombie films in in general tend to follow the same kind of tropes, and it’s kind of you seen 1, you’ve seen them all. Mhmm. That’s not to say I don’t still watch them, but You 

Todd:  have to you have to really go out there to find 1 with an interesting enough twist that that makes it stand out and be unique. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and the shark scene is that for this. I mean, that’s that’s that’s about it as far as unique stuff goes, but as an old school zombie movie, it’s a good one. 

Todd:  Yeah. And and and then from this point on, it does get a little boring, I think. It doesn’t move very fast. Right? 

Craig:  It’s got kind of a slow build throughout. I was noticing that. I mean, you’ve got that initial, zombie attack in New York, and then you see the zombie kinda start to come alive. But then it’s kinda it’s really half an hour. Mhmm. In an hour and a half film, it’s a half an hour before they get to the island. And then even when they get to the island, it starts off pretty slow. I mean, you get some zombie shots, but it’s individual zombies.   They you know, people are scared of them, but it doesn’t seem to really be all that much of a threat yet. Yeah. And and it’s not really until the final act that things really pick up. 

Todd:  Pick up. Exactly. Yeah. It’s not an action packed thing. No. In many ways, it is kinda like the giallo pic we watched the other day where it’s a lot of, like, walking around, investigating, talking, and things, and then something sudden happens. And when it does, it’s pretty intense and brutal. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Their boat, I guess, the shark hits their boat and damages it, so they’re forced to land in the island. And thankfully, there is an island right there, and it happens to be Mehul. Right? Mehul. Yes. I forgot it already. It happens to be Mehul, and, we’re introduced to doctor David Maynard. And, a woman, I guess, is his wife. We don’t really know I don’t think we ever got her name. 

Craig:  No. We don’t. But he does say my wife, so it wasn’t wife. Mhmm. 

Todd:  And she’s pretty freaked out, and we don’t really know exactly why. But she’s 

Craig:  Freaked out and pissed off. Yeah.   I’ll be at the hospital. 

Clip:  Hospital. You still see yourself as the scientist you once were, don’t you? Well, you’re you’re not. You’re no better than one of their witch doctors. 

Craig:  Please, just stop it. My research is 

Clip:  Research? You call fooling around with superstitions and voodoo rights research. 

Craig:  You know perfectly well that the 

Clip:  work I’m doing is very important, 

Craig:  And I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t 

Clip:  I don’t give a damn. I don’t wanna stay on this island 1 more hour. You won’t be happy until I meet 1 of your zombies. 

Craig:  And then he leaves and, leaves her home alone. They’ve got this really nice pad on the on the island. He leaves her there, and he tells the groundskeeper, keep an eye out. Don’t let anybody onto the property or whatever.   And then 

Todd:  he leaves worthless groundskeeper ever. 

Craig:  Right. The the groundskeeper’s like, oh,   si, senor. No one will come here. And then and then a little bit more happens, but then when we come back to, the house, the groundskeeper’s, like, sitting on the porch and he hears a noise, and he’s up and out of there.   I’m like, oh, never mind. See you later. 

Todd:  Sure is. And that’s when we get the shower scene. 

Craig:  The shower scene. 

Todd:  And, of course, long lingering shower scene and, a hand ominously. Again, a really nice moment, I thought, where the hand ominously comes up into frame on the window. 

Craig:  It was kinda genuinely spooky. You knew it was coming because you, every once in a while it’s not often, but every once in a while, they’ll do POV shots from the point of view of the zombies, And this was one of them. So you kinda see you know, it’s kinda like a peeping Todd perspective. You see you’re you’re watching her shower from outside this window, and then very slowly from the bottom of the frame comes this zombie hand, and it’s it’s it’s spooky. 

Todd:  It is. I like that moment. And and then we get to the scene that I the other scene that I thought is pretty notorious from this film, and that is when the zombie comes in towards her, she ends up holding herself into a closet essentially or some other room. And it’s one of those doors that has wooden slats across it. So she, is trying to push something up against the door. In the meanwhile, on the other side, the zombie is breaking through the slats, and they’re poking out sharply at her. And one of them grabs her hair and slowly pulls it towards her. She’s sort of helpless against it and slowly pulls her eye onto a nice sharp splinter of wood jutting out, and it’s it’s pretty gruesome 

Craig:  It is gross. 

Todd:  And intense. And like we were saying the other the other week, I think it was even last week, dealing with the eyes 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  And the mouth and stuff, it’s kinda gross. Yeah. Soft in her head. 

Craig:  Yeah. I I liked that shot too, but this would be one of my criticisms of the movie. Now it’s a it’s a zombie movie, so you learn to just let things go. But there was so much irrational behavior from the characters, and there always is in horror. But, you know, times when the zombies are approaching and, again, these are slow walking zombies, and the living characters will just stand there frozen in horror just waiting for these super slow zombies to approach and and and and get them, which they usually do. And this scene, it was a great visual. I know exactly why they did it. You know, they wanted this effect, but it didn’t make any sense.   No. It actually didn’t. She’s she’s trying to keep this zombie out. You know, first, she’s kind of leaning against the door. She she the zombie has his fingers in the door, and she finally gets it shut, and the   the fingers fall off.   And then, like you said, it starts coming through the slats. And so what she does is she goes to this dresser, which is below waist level, and she starts pushing it up against the door. Mhmm. Now he the zombie’s obviously coming through the top part 

Todd:  of the door. She’s not gonna help her. 

Craig:  No. I don’t know what she thinks is gonna help. And then when the zombie and then she gets it up against there, and then she just stands there right against the door where the zombie’s on the other side. So when it busts through, it’s able to grab her hair, and it slowly, slowly, slowly pulls her eyeball onto this broken stick. Never once does she attempt to do anything with her hands. 

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. She’s not knack knocking his arm away. No. 

Craig:  Not knocking the spike thing away. Mhmm. And, you know, I get it. They wanted the effect. It was a good effect. It was a good zombie kill, so we you let it go. But several times throughout, that was the case. You know, people would meet their demise because they would just stand there, not defending themselves in any way. 

Todd:  And I think a lot of that has to do with, I I think Fulci is way more interested in the slow gross out. Yeah. You know? He could have yanked her her eye right onto that. It would have been pretty intense and whatnot, but he wanted us to see that. And there’s even a POV shot as though that the spike is coming towards us. Yeah. And, you’re right. It’s super artificial.   It makes for great visuals, but it it doesn’t make a 

Craig:  lot of sense. And it it is super gross. You know? The the splinter, like, punctures her eye and it pops and, like, all this Liquids oozing out. Comes out. It’s a good effect. It’s a good effect. Meanwhile, 

Todd:  the rest of the crew is, out, talking to doctor David Maynard, and they’re learning about what’s happening. And essentially, I guess people are coming down with some mysterious illness on the island, but then after they die, shortly thereafter they wake up as zombies. And so he has been systematically shooting people in the head after they die, and they have a mass grave that they’ve been burying outside, which is kind of a shocking scene too. Mhmm. 

Craig:  Yeah. He’s got this set up, in an old church that’s serving as a makeshift hospital. He’s trying to treat these people with transfusions. They don’t go much into what he’s trying to do. No. There’s one scene where he draws his own blood and puts it on a microscope and looks at it, but we don’t know what he’s looking at or for. He’s trying to give transfusions to the people who are infected, but we just know that. You know? We don’t know what the purpose is or what the intended result is, but he’s failing.   I mean, nothing’s working. And not only is it people getting sick and and reanimated, but also then when zombies kill somebody, then they’re immediately infected and immediately come back too. And and the natives, well, this was kinda confusing 

Todd:  to me. 

Craig:  Like, the natives thought that it was the result of voodoo that was causing this, but then they were also trying to perform voodoo to make it stop? 

Todd:  It was an odd thing, and it’s never explained in the film. He is continually asking I think his name is Lucas. He’s, sort of his native assistant. 

Craig:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  And it seems like there’s a village on the other side of the island as well, because they talk about that village being kind of overrun, and then when it turns out a zombie is spotted in their village, he starts to freak out and wants them to check on his wife and stuff. But it seems, and this is just my idea, would be that if people are dying, they’re performing these voodoo rights to prevent the illness or to to make them well, but those rights are having the unintended or somewhat side effect of bringing them back to life. That was my only guess. And the only thing that would have made this movie a little bit better in my eyes is if that were a lot clearer, and if we even saw some scenes of voodoo rights or we had some idea of the purpose behind it. But as it is, all we hear are drums. 

Craig:  Right. We never even really see the natives except for the couple of native characters, and there’s only a couple. I mean, most I don’t know where they filmed this, but it seemed it seemed pretty deserted. It seemed like they kind of had a little dessert, and it could’ve, you know, it could’ve been staged. I don’t know. But this little, deserted village, and and they keep talking about the natives, and the natives are are converging in the center of the island to do these rituals, but we never see them, and we never see that. We, you know, we hear drum beats. We hear, like, tribal wailing and and stuff like that, but we never see it.   I think if they remade this movie, they would probably play that up a lot more. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And it would be interesting if they did because doesn’t the whole lore of zombies it comes from voodoo tradition. Right? 

Todd:  It does. Yep. 

Craig:  There, I mean, there are still practicing there are people who still practice voodoo today. Oh, yeah. And, you know, I’ve read stories. I can’t account for the, you know, the truthfulness of them, but, you know, their culture believes in in zombies and and reanimation. If I remember what I’ve read correctly, the zombies in the voodoo tradition are not actually dead. They’re just, taken over by Correct. Somebody else. 

Todd:  It’s kind of a mixture of drugs and belief, and and it’s a truth. I mean, did you ever see the serpent in the rainbow? I did. Mhmm. So, yeah, that that tells a pretty good story, another Wes Craven film of generally what what it happens, and that is that there is a kind of drug, through this ritual, that people are given, and it’s a psychotropic type drug, but that commingles with the actual person’s belief in the effect of the voodoo turning them Todd a zombie. And what ends up happening is these people will go into sort of a suspended animation, you know, kind of, the drug will induce a state where their heartbeat gets so slow that it’s and low that it’s undetectable, and so they’ll get buried. And then the person who did that to them will then, you know, that night go back, take them out, and then that person becomes sort of their slave essentially. Yeah. It’s weird to think that it actually happens, but apparently, it’s because of that person.   It’s just a psychological thing. They They believe they’re a zombie now because they believe in the magic. They’ve been pulled out of the ground, and they’re with this guy, so that’s how they act. That’s wild. It’s crazy ridiculous. Now this movie’s nothing like it, 

Craig:  of course.   But at least it kinda, you know, it kinda tries to connect to the lore, I guess, a little bit. It doesn’t explore it very much. But and that’s you know, when I read about this, it was always just intended you know, I think that some of the titles that were thrown around were like island of the zombies or or something like that. I mean, it was just intended to be zombies on an island movie, and and that’s what it is. 

Todd:  And I think island the island of doctor Moreau, that story was a inspiration for the screenwriter, screenwriter of this actually. Yeah. 

Craig:  It’s funny because I was I was kinda thinking that it would it it felt like minus all the weird animal stuff. But, because of the tropical location and scientists, like, experimenting with life and death and those types of things, as we were watching it, I I was thinking in my head, it feels like a cross between night of the living dead and the island of doctor Narrow. 

Todd:  Like, so we never get to see the evil doctor really. You know? 

Craig:  Well, you’re right. Yeah. I mean, they talk about this witch doc the doctor I was talking about is our Oh, yeah. Our main guy. They they do talk about how there’s, like, this witch doctor, but we never, I mean, he’s just casually mentioned. 

Todd:  Yeah. We never see him at all much like the other natives. At the behest of the doctor Maynard, the rest of them drive down the way to check on his wife. 

Craig:  Peter and Susan and Brian. 

Todd:  That’s right. That’s right. And they find her in a pretty actually, that’s a pretty gross, cool scene as well where her half of her body is gone, but she’s still laying there, and there are 4 or 5 zombies munching on her. 

Craig:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  It actually made me think of, I don’t know if you’ve ever played Resident Evil No. The game. When I was in college, we used to play, Resident Evil, and this was the kind of scene that you would see in Resident Evil where you would turn the corner and suddenly in front of you is a half eaten corpse and 4 or 5 zombies just slowly munching on her, kind of really into eating. Let’s put it. No. They don’t really notice you until you get up close to them. 

Craig:  And they get that’s another one of those moments where they the all 4 of them come around the corner and see this happening, you know, 4 or 5 undead zombies eating the gruesome remains of this corpse, and they just stand there and watch for   a little while. That’s right. 

Todd:  And they back out, and there are 2 more zombies in the hallway, and they sort of slowly are linked stumbling towards them. So slowly, in fact, that they could have easily just knocked them out of the way and and just go by. Yeah. You’re right. But, they pull some stuff off the wall and hit them and run off. And, of course, they’re driving their car down the road to try to get away and back to the doctor in the hospital, and they hit a zombie in the middle of the road. It goes off the Todd, and now their car is broken down. 

Craig:  Right. It’s a funny scene because this zombie walks out in front of the the Jeep. Brian is driving, and he hits the zombie, and it flies off to the other side of the road. And it makes no sense why they crashed. Like, they hit the zombie. The zombie flies off. It seems like everything’s fine,   and then And they just to the left.   He veers to the left, and they go off. And it’s the slowest crash scene ever. Like, they’re just kind of slowly tooling through this forest until finally they kind of bump. Bump. Yeah. Bump the bumper into a tree and, Peter in the backyard light backyard back seat kinda like flails like, ah. And, apparently, his his ankle gets injured. I don’t know how that could have possibly happened. 

Todd:  Have you got caught under the seat or something? I guess. They weren’t wearing seat belts. That was the problem. 

Craig:  That’s the problem. Well so then they have to walk. 

Todd:  And that gives them a good excuse to walk a little slowly. Right. Maybe a little too slowly at times. 

Craig:  Which makes sense because if they could run, they could get   out of there just super easy. 

Todd:  No problem. No problem. So they’re going along, and they, Peter asked to stop for a moment because his his, ankle is sore. And so they sit down. Susan and Brian said, well, we’re gonna go on a little up ahead and check things out. And like you mentioned, they go about 6 feet. Yeah. Like, around the corner.   Not even. 

Craig:  I mean, they walk I mean, they’ve gotta still be within sight line. I mean, it’s it’s 

Todd:  They totally are. You could see through a tree, and there’s the other couple, but they then they Todd there, and he kicks something on the ground and picks it up, and it turns out to be a conquistador helmet. And they look around, and there are some graves conveniently. They’re right there, and he surmises, well, we must be on an old graveyard of the Conquistadors. And, meanwhile, 6 feet in the other direction, And this was a hilarious scene, I thought, Peter and Anne, which, again, maybe looked a lot better on paper than it played out in real life. 

Clip:  I’m sorry I dragged you into all this.   It’s my father we came looking for, ain’t it?   You know, when we get back to New York   You don’t have to say anything now. It’s just I’m so scared we’re not gonna make it off this island. 

Todd:  He just turns over on top of her and they start making out 

Craig:  in the most awkward kiss ever.   Did you see that?   It’s like it’s one of those things where somebody who’s never like, a 13 year old boy who’s never kissed a girl before. Like, he opens his mouth wide like he’s gonna try to eat her face and just, like, glance it over the top of her mouth. It was hilarious. Not sexy at all. No. 

Todd:  And it really came out of nowhere. I don’t think you ever really got the sense that the 2 of them were romantically interested. There just was no time really with the 2 of them. There’s too much going on and too much that they’re doing. 

Craig:  Right. They they meet early on in the movie, and then they’re instantly, like, a couple. Yeah. There’s there’s no development there at all. 

Todd:  But, it’s a cool moment though, I still think. Yeah. And the and this is again another thing you don’t see in enough modern zombie movies is the zombies actually coming out of the grave. Right. Right? And so there’s all this crusty awesomeness of these hands that look really made up that are coming out of the dirt, and they grab her hair and another hand comes up and grabs his ankle, and then we cut away from them to the other 2. Again, 6 feet away. Mhmm. And what oh, there’s kind of a scream, and so so Brian jumps up and walks over, and the girl, Susan, just sits there suddenly terrified because she hears things happening around her, doesn’t make any motion to move, doesn’t follow him, which didn’t make a lot of sense to 

Craig:  me. No. 

Todd:  Slowly watches this zombie rise. It must take a full 2 minutes for 

Craig:  the Todd. Yeah. 

Todd:  And it’s an awesome scene. It’s Yeah. If you see the jacket cover of the this is an you know, when I was a kid, this is a movie I always wanted to see and I never and I never rented. You know? Was that crusty zombie with the worms coming out of his eyes And mouth. And snaggly teeth, and he’s 

Craig:  slowly coming up out of the ground, 

Todd:  and then he slowly stands, and she’s just standing there staring at it. 

Craig:  Yeah. And 

Todd:  then he just plops forward onto her and, Bites a big chunk of her neck 

Craig:  neck out. 

Todd:  Yeah. There goes the jugular. 

Craig:  Right. Which we get several of those shots and, you know, that that bright red blood that was so popular at the time. And there were some instances in this movie where I actually thought the blood looked real, but this was not one of them. It’s like red paint. Yeah. But, I mean, it’s very bright and colorful and, 

Todd:  It’s really gushing out of there 

Craig:  too.   Yeah. Yeah. Again, like you said, I mean, she just sits there. She doesn’t scream. She doesn’t I I guess what we’re supposed to believe is that she’s so terrified that she’s just completely frozen. But, again, I mean, like you said, it takes a good minute and a half for this zombie to I mean, it starts with his hand coming out, and then slowly, slowly comes all the way out and stands up, and meanwhile, she’s there the whole time. 

Todd:  Yeah. Fulci is definitely way more interested in the visuals that he is, invoking Realism. Rather than any sense of realism whatsoever. And, the other 3 pop back over and see this. We really don’t see how they got out of their scrape. No. We don’t hear gunshot or anything like that, but they’re almost like nothing happened. They come back over and discover her.   Of course, Brian is beside himself. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  But they all say, hey. We need to keep moving. We there’s nothing you can do for her. So they continue on, and they eventually make it back to the hospital. 

Craig:  They walk out of Craig, and you see as soon as they walk out of frame, you see the other zombies in the cemetery starting to rise. 

Todd:  Oh, that’s 

Craig:  right. It’s really slow, but it’s cool. I mean, it’s That’s 

Todd:  a big moment. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s right. And this is really when the last act kicks in and the action kind of picks up. And it was very reminiscent, to me. The style is very different, but very reminiscent of thriller. Yes. 

Todd:  Exactly. When I was 

Craig:  gonna say   when the you know, everybody’s rising out of their graves. Again, you have to totally suspend your disbelief because these people were buried under a centimeter of dirt. Like like, they literally just kind of do a sit up, and they’re out of their grave. But it is a cool scene. I mean, you see there’s kind of in in the center of the Craig, there’s 1 coming out. And then from from further back in the frame, you see 1 coming out of the forest, and then another one pops up in front of the frame. It’s really neat layering, and you get to see, you know, that now there’s gonna be a multitude. There’s gonna be a zombie horde, and there is from that point on.   They keep, they’re they’re trying to get back to the hospital on foot, and they keep their you know, obviously, they’re going slow. Again, at one point, he the the guy with the broken ankle says, I I have to stop. And so they stop, and you see the zombies kind of coming out of the trees behind them but super slowly. And they’re like, well, no. We we have to go. We have to go. But it’s so easy to outrun them. I mean, these are these it’s it’s so reminiscent of night of the living dead. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  You know, these slow, slow walking zombies. 

Todd:  The walking dead zombies go much, much faster 

Craig:  school, slow walking zombie. So they do get back to the hospital. 

Todd:  And the doctor’s there. He’s, just, covered the eyes of another victim, basically, and they’re they bang on the door to let them in, and they get in. And and so they barricade the door, and they’re inside deciding how they’re gonna defend themselves. 1 guy, is running around. It’s it’s Brian. He’s running around closing all the windows. Mhmm. Zombies are starting to come in the windows, but he’s hitting them with stuff and knocking them in.   They go in the back and start to fill up Molotov cocktails with kerosene. It’s interesting because I don’t know if they were planning on burning the barn down around them or if they were thinking they were gonna chuck them outside, but the zombies got to him first. 

Craig:  It was 

Todd:  an odd choice of weapon when you’re stuck inside a wooden building. 

Craig:  I was thinking that too. I was like, man, I hope there’s a back door because the the zombies you know? And and somehow a few individual zombies have gotten in and they 

Todd:  Well, I think it’s the the dead corpses inside there had come to life, which yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. This bothered me though because every time that we’ve seen the corpses in there up to this point, they’ve all been shot in the head. I mean, he’s been shooting all these corpses in the head. He knows they’re gonna come back to life, but then all of a sudden, it’s like, oh, maybe he didn’t shoot a few of them in the head because they start waking up. 

Todd:  Like, right now, when he’s when he really needs to be doing his due diligence, suddenly, he’s forgotten. 

Craig:  Right. Yeah. And so they so there’s a few of them inside, and there’s, you know, a few little individual battles. And the doctor gets attacked and killed, his native assistant 

Todd:  Lucas gets killed. 

Craig:  Gets killed. 

Todd:  The, the 1 girl, Susan gets killed. No. Well, there’s another un unbelievable scene where Susan just stands there frozen. I’m sorry. Not 

Craig:  Susan. Susan. Right. Anne. Anne. Susan’s already dead. She died back in the forest. We’re right.   Anne is confronted by a zombie, and she just stands there, like, waiting for somebody to help her, which somebody does. 1 of the guys shoots the zombie. 

Todd:  The doctor is a female assistant we didn’t even bring up, and 

Craig:  she’s hardly even worth mentioning. It’s so funny because she reminded me, like, of an extra in a soap opera or a porno. Like, she’s just there to, like, hand people things that thank you, doctor. 

Todd:  She reminded me of Mary of Mary Anne in Gilligan’s Island. Yeah. She had that same look, but nobody’s really that interested in her. 

Craig:  No. She’s totally insignificant, really. Does she get she gets killed, doesn’t she? 

Todd:  She does get killed at some point. I’m trying to remember how or what or when. I don’t remember. 

Craig:  But, yeah, he gets there. 

Todd:  Oh, yes. Oh, it’s it’s Lucas, I think. The dead Lucas who comes over and and kills her. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  There’s some great effects in there, though. I mean, when Lucas gets his arm bitten out, there is just a nice chunk taken out of his arm, and it is disgusting. Yeah. They’re bashing the zombies over the head as they’re coming in. I mean, this is what I mean when I say Fulte does not delivers. He delivers where it counts, and that is if you came here wanting to see a bunch of blood and gore and zombies getting beat up and cool looking zombies getting beat up, you’ve come to the right place. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  Absolutely. But, yeah, this is the point at which, it all comes to a head. All this stuff happens. They end up and more walking zombies on fire. 

Craig:  Yeah. Once the other day 

Todd:  they’re throwing off. 

Craig:  Yeah. They’re throwing these, you know, homemade, kerosene bombs, and it’s it’s not really slowing the zombies down, but, the building kinda starts to come down on top of the zombies. And, gosh, I don’t even remember. They get out somehow. 

Todd:  It’s like you said. They slip out the back door. 

Craig:  Yeah. Slip out the back door. Let’s get to the boat. 

Todd:  And then Brian comes across Susan, undad. Reunited. And another one of those ridiculous moments where he just stands there and stares at her. 

Craig:  Uh-huh. 

Todd:  And they’re all like, shooter. Shooter. Shooter. And she just walks right up and takes a chunk out of his arm. Mhmm. Then suddenly, he’s up against the the tree going, alright. Shooter. Shooter. 

Craig:  And they do. 

Todd:  But it’s a way to get it down to basically 3 people Right. With we know Brian is mortally wounded. Of course. So they make it to the boat. And, again, I thought the boat was Sinking? Yeah. The whole reason they’re on the island 

Craig:  is because they needed to repair the boat because the shark cracked it, but I guess it’s alright. 

Todd:  I don’t know. Maybe some of the natives went and helped repair it, but it’s only been maybe listen. This is day 2, right, of the whole ordeal? Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  I think. Mhmm. Not even 24 hours 

Craig:  have 

Todd:  passed, really. 

Craig:  Yeah. They’ve been there 1 night. 

Todd:  Yeah. So, anyway, their boat, I guess, is working again, and so they sail off, but David says, don’t let anything you know, don’t let me become one of them. Yeah. Get me home. Save me. So instead of when he starts to pass out and he’s obviously dead, instead of shooting him in the head Or 

Craig:  throwing him overboard. 

Todd:  Yeah. They just something. Lock him downstairs and 

Clip:  What do we do now? Lock him in the bilge. Take him back with us to the States. Someone there might be able to do something.   But we can’t risk it. You know what he might turn into.   I’ll make sure that he’s safe. We’ve gotta take him back with us. He’s the only proof we’ve got that this all happened. And we will need proof, unfortunately. Otherwise, they’ll just think that we’re crazy.   I don’t care. I feel dead myself. 

Craig:  But then that’s immediately when they say, let’s try to find something cheery on the radio. That’s right. And they, they turn on so Peter takes him down and locks him in the hold or something, and, they come up and they’re listening to the radio. And that’s where they get the report from New York that New York has been, or is being taken over by zombies. And they just kind of look at each other like, oh, no. And then from downstairs in the boat, we hear Brian, who is now a zombie kinda banging on the door. And then it cuts to New York City, the Brooklyn Bridge, and we just see tons and tons of zombies walking, along the walkways of the Brooklyn Bridge. Meanwhile, traffic is flowing as as normal, which   I thought was kind of   funny, but I I I looked it up, and it said it was just budgetary. You know, they couldn’t afford to shut down the bridge. So, and that’s that’s that’s it. Right? Yeah. I mean, it 

Todd:  That’s the end. It’s a bleak ending, which is very in keeping within all the Night of the Living Dead movie. Oh, yeah. So that was good. 

Craig:  Right. And like I said, I really felt like it really kind of tied it to that series. It felt like maybe it felt more like a cousin than a brother or sister. Yeah. But if you wanted to try to put it into a continuum, you could imagine that what was happening with them on the island was happening concurrently with an outbreak in the states too. So I thought I thought the connection was fine. 

Todd:  Yeah. I felt like this movie, if it had been an hour long instead of an hour and a half, if you would cut out a lot of the plotting along, a lot of the explanation that was unsatisfying anyway Uh-huh. Because you never really got a total explanation. And it’s not like you have to have an explanation, but when the whole movie seems to be about figuring it out Right. And they talk about it so much, and the doctor’s investigating, and they’re talking about the voodoo, you expect a little bit of resolution, you know, in that regard or at least some better hints than we ended up getting. Yeah. I mean, the Night of the Living Dead movies make a real big point of not really giving you an explanation. There’s, like, radiation or something, and that’s about it. 

Craig:  Well, in the first one, there’s really no explanation for it. Like, the original, the original George Romero. There’s there’s really no explanation. 

Todd:  I guess you’re right. The radiation’s just a theory, isn’t it? I guess. 

Craig:  You   It’s been so long. I mean, I’ve seen that one several times. I’ve seen the remake with Tony Todd, and I’ve seen a lot of the sequels, but I don’t Mhmm. I I don’t remember that well. 

Todd:  Yeah. You’re right. I think it was a theory. At some point, it seems like, Romero’s making some illusions or or trying to say something about, you know, the atomic age or the atomic weapons. But, yeah, there’s never a really solid explanation, and the movie’s not concerned with giving you that. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  This movie, unfortunately, seems to be somewhat concerned with giving you that, but it doesn’t. Right. 

Craig:  You know? 

Todd:  So yeah. Just take that stuff out and give us more shark versus zombie battles. You know? 

Craig:  Maybe give us give us the the voodoo priest. Mhmm. That that that’s something I would have liked to have seen. But, you know, generally speaking, I liked it, and frankly, I didn’t expect to. Really? Yeah. I didn’t. Really? You know, the the Why not? I don’t know. Well, first of all, the like, I the zombie niche of the of the genre is is really not my favorite.   Mhmm. I’ll watch them, but especially with I’m not a Walking Dead fan. You know? I hear that’s great. I hear the quality’s great. The storytelling’s great, but it just seems like the more contemporary ones that I’ve seen, it’s just, you know, get tons of zombies and gross out. You know? It’s it’s not there’s not much more to it than that. It’s not to say I won’t watch them. It’s not to say that I don’t appreciate it, but, I actually liked this movie more than I have liked some of the more modern versions because I feel like I I don’t know if it was paying homage to George Romero, but it felt very much a part of that universe, and I prefer those older ones Mhmm.   To the newer ones. And so I liked I liked this. 

Todd:  Well, it’s more atmospheric. And, again, I think having it on a tropical island, it’s a little exotic. The zombies themselves are crusty and old. They actually feel like they’ve come out of the ground. And, they’re the slow and plodding zombies that you’d imagine, you know, dead people being. It all works in that world, like you mentioned, is an appealing one to be in, maybe more so than the 28 days later running Yeah. Freaking freaking out zombie. 

Craig:  Well, see, I I maybe maybe you’ve seen it. I don’t know. It was one of the Romero sequels, I think. But I think it was city of the dead maybe and it had 

Todd:  Land of the dead maybe? 

Craig:  Maybe Land of the Dead where it was like Dennis Hopper. 

Todd:  Yes. Yeah. Land of the Dead. 

Craig:  And that one, you know, I only saw it once, and I just didn’t like it. It just I don’t know. It just seemed like all they were concerned about was the violence, the gore, and the effects, and everything else was secondary. And it just didn’t real I I didn’t really care for it. This even though there are certainly plot holes, there’s not a lot of character development. There’s not a lot of exposition. I don’t know. I I I I guess it’s just preference.   That’s all it is. I just like this style better. 

Todd:  Well, Romero always seems to be making some kind of social statement with every movie that he does. Sometimes it’s successful. Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it beats you over the head a little bit, especially later on. This movie makes no social statement. 

Craig:  No. 

Todd:  It’s just pure popcorn, and that is fun. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it feels like a drive in movie. Mhmm. You, texted me with this, suggestion, and I was glad because last week when we watched Excision, I’m not saying it’s some kind of, like, intellectual masterpiece or anything, but it it kinda stuck with me and was bothering me for a while. And I wanted something light, something that wasn’t gonna keep me up thinking about issues and, you know, psych you know, psychological trauma. And and I’m glad. I’m I’m really glad that you picked this one because it was fun.   It’s just a fun movie. 

Todd:  I’m glad this delivered for you. 

Craig:  Me too. 

Todd:  Thank you again for listening to another episode of 2 guys in a chainsaw. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. Like our page on Facebook. Share that as well. Leave us a comment on our website. We’re we’re on iTunes. We’re on Stitcher. We’ll be back next week with another episode.   Until then, I’m Todd and I’m Craig with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.