2. Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979)
Without a doubt the best of the copious Italian Dawn of the Dead rip offs, Zombie Flesh Eaters is the film which brought Fulci horror icon status. It also made it onto the official Video Nasty list which ensured its legendary status. There are just so many good things in this film, it is hard to know where to begin. An investigation into nefarious goings on in a Caribbean island reveal that the dead are rising to attack the living. These are the best looking (and by best looking I mean authentic, not handsome!) zombies in any zombie movie. They are rotten, crumbly, shambolic and maggoty. There is an awesome sequence where an underwater zombie takes on a shark only to lose his arm. The hapless survivors stumble upon an ancient graveyard where Conquistadors slowly come to life and savage them. There is perhaps the best eye gouging sequence In Italian horror. There is gore, gore, gore and more gore as well as an apocalyptic ending. Zombie Flesh Eaters boasts a fantastic malevolent score which gets rolled out for the big set pieces and it considerably enhances the mood. The Caribbean setting is extremely atmospheric and well utilised in the film, giving it a sort of voodoo and supernatural vibe. Everything in the film comes together for Fulci and it is one of his best constructed and better paced films in that we can make perfect sense of it. Bravo Lucio! This one deserves a standing ovation!