7. Zombies
Always ready to rip off ideas that were better than their own, Italian horror directors really embraced zombie mania in the 1970s, chiefly inspired by the success of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead. The original Night of the Living Dead had not created zombie mayhem in Italy, but Dawn of the Dead captured many Italian horror film directors' imaginations. The best movie to come out of the Italian zombie cycle was Lucio Fulci's Zombie Flesh Eaters. I think I actually prefer it to Dawn of the Dead. It has a charm all of its own with most of the action happening in an eerie, atmospheric Caribbean setting where it is easy to believe that the dead are coming to life. The zombies are proper maggoty shufflers and there are amazing set pieces in the film such as zombie versus shark, the eye splinter and awakening of the Conquistadors. When the survivors arrive back in New York Harbour, their desire for normality has been crushed by the realisation zombies have overtaken the city. A class act all the way. Other Italian zombie movies which may interest you are Fulci's City of the Living Dead and the inexplicably popular Zombie Creeping Flesh. In City of the Living Dead, a priest commits suicide and by doing so opens up the portal to hell where the dead come to life and start consuming the living. It is left up to a psychic and a journalist to close the portal. Along the way the film features someone literally puking their guts up, lots of fun with maggots and a power drill to the head. Zombie Creeping Flesh, a jungle based zombie movie, directed by Bruno Mattei, features stock footage, a ripped off Goblin soundtrack, lame acting, a terrible script, crappy gore effects but in spite of these faults (or maybe because of them) is growing in Italian horror buffs' estimation who can enjoy it for the trash it is. Fair play to you if you are a Zombie Creeping Flesh fan.