I know I’ve explained it before, but as it is hard to keep up with, even for someone in the know, I’ll run through it again. Lucio Fulci’s ZOMBI, aka ZOMBIE, was billed as the unofficial sequel to George Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Romero’s film was released overseas as ZOMBI, aka ZOMBIE, and this led to Fulci’s movie ALSO being titled ZOMBI 2, aka ZOMBIE 2. So it’s either ZOMBI, ZOMBIE, ZOMBI 2, or ZOMBIE 2–but they’re all alternate titles of the same movie. We clear?
As a sequel to NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, Fulci’s film functions quite well. In fact it is the natural progression of the storyline. Wherein only the recent dead become reanimated in Romero’s flick and at the beginning of ZOMBI, by the end of the latter movie those who have been dead longer are starting to wake up and feed. It just took a little longer for them to be revived, is all. That’s how we went from the recent dead with little putrescence, as seen in Romero’s flick, to the disintegrating cadavers we’re used to today. (Fulci referred to his actors in zombie makeup as “walking flower pots.”) In a sense, then, THE WALKING DEAD TV series is ripping off Fulci as much as it is Romero. Hate to say it, but it’s true.
Anyhoo, you can now own a really cool ZOMBIE, aka ZOMBI, aka ZOMBIE 2, aka ZOMBI 2 enamel pin. It has spinning eye worms!