9. Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979)
Godfather of Gore - Lucio Fulci - does a zombie movie to pleasing effect. Critics of Fulci would deride the movie as being derivative of Romero's classic Dawn of the Dead, but I see the film as being uniquely European in flavour and execution. Fulci manages to create a creepy and authentic atmosphere in the Caribbean setting - it just exudes a place that would foment zombies. As well as that, Fulci manages to pull off some stunning set pieces. The plot is your average zombie-fest. Americans get stuck on a Caribbean Island where the dead are coming to life. They have to try and repel the zombie hordes for the sake of their own lives but of course only two people manage to survive the onslaught and they flee in a boat back to America to find a zombie-fuelled apocalypse taking place there too. As I mentioned above, Fulci gives us some amazing set pieces to entertain us along the way. There is the eye gouging by wooden splinter scene that is perhaps the best eye gouging sequence in any Italian horror movie ever (the Italians love ocular mayhem). There is also the underwater battle between a zombie and a shark which is quite extraordinary to behold. And finally, there is the awakening of the very mouldy and maggoty Conquistadors in a cemetery on the island. This is accompanied by the sombre main score which is worth the price of admission alone. Roundly despised by the powers that be as a Video Nasty, Zombie Flesh Eaters has assumed an exalted place in the canon of zombie based movies. Although the Romero influence is blatantly obvious, Fulci manages to create a creepy, highly gory and unnerving movie. The end of the film - "The zombies are in the building! They're coming in the door! Arghhh!" - is as cheesy as the - "I wonder who the real savages are?" ending to Cannibal Holocaust. But it doesn't detract from the overall whole. It just makes you think "I'm watching a Lucio Fulci film and I'm loving it!".