10 Killer Horror Films Now Streaming On Shudder

Marketed in Italy as a sequel to Dawn Of The Dead, Zombie Flesh Eaters owes less to George Romero than the B pictures of the 1940s with voodoo rituals on a Caribbean island (as opposed to radiation from crashed space probe) the explanation for why the dead get up and walk.

In no other aspect of the movie is the influence of B&W zombie pictures apparent. When they're not tearing out throats or piercing the eyeball of a showering starlet, Lucio Fulci’s zombies like nothing better than disappearing beneath the waves to wrestle with sharks. As these killers attempt to eat each other, any resemblance to King Of The Zombies and its ilk is swiftly forgotten.

For a director who didn’t care for horror, Fulci could mount a zombie attack with the best of them, and one of the film’s most famous images (used on the Italian poster) is of the living dead shuffling across the Brooklyn Bridge….with the traffic flowing freely below.

For an exploitation film made quickly and cheaply, it’s astonishingly well-shot (by Sergio Salvati), with astute use of its New York and Caribbean locations. Giannetto De Rossi’s make-up effects are similarly top notch, and Fabio Frizzi and Giorgio Tucci contribute one of the most memorable scores of any Fulci movie.