movie review: Zombi 2

My friend who had first proposed the idea of a weekly movie night hosted yesterday. She hadn't been all summer because her apartment was too hot, but now that Autumn is here, we crammed in front of her television for another Tuesday night of snacks and laughter. I was glad I opted to bring a bottle of wine as opposed to my mom's homemade Chex mix, because we were practically overwhelmed with food. She had made chocolate chip pumpkin cupcakes which were an amazingly delicious, if unexpected, combination. One of her friends made guacamole, and other people brought chips, candied nuts, kettle corn, regular popcorn, doughnut holes and apple cider. Every now and then I suppose it's important to throw healthy eating habits out the window and splurge.

The evening was certainly an exercise in indulgence. We started with this jaw-dropping piece of eighties made-for-television movie wonder:



According to my friend, Halloween season doesn't start until you've watched this.

Next we stuck in a Simpson's Treehouse of Horror episode. Memories came rushing back to me of watching these over and over when I was younger. We waited a little while for late-comers and decided on a full-length movie to watch. Once we had all settled in, we started our main feature for the night: Lucio Fulci's "Zombie" (or Zombi 2, as I found out it was officially titled.) I had gone through a phase of watching Dario Argento films last year and my friend lauded this movie as being very much an "Italian horror film." While not as atmospheric and music-heavy as Argento's, there were many elements that were unmistakably Italian. I took a lot of enjoyment in the artistic camera moves and elaborately framed shots. There was a cheesy dramatic edge to every jerky zoom and abrupt cut. This wasn't exactly a B-movie, but despite it's fantastic makeup effects, we laughed our way through most of the film. Also in the vein of Italian horror were some graphic gore scenes that, for being done before 1980, were as realistic as stuff done nowadays - more believable, even, than computer generated violence. Oh yeah, and there's a scene where a zombie attacks a shark.

When the movie was wrapped up and as our crowd started to dissipate, I suggested another Treehouse of Horror episode. We unanimously decided on the one from season six, which my roommate and I had watched countless times before and had to keep from reciting the whole way through. Even though my house was only half a mile away, the night air was too cold for a comfortable walk home at the end of the night, but I did anyway.