WTF?

Last night I watched Zombi 2 ( Zombie). There is no Zombi 1. Confused? You should be. Here's how advertising works: When an American director makes a movie and it does well, or does mediocre, it gets shipped overseas and distributed in other countries. Sometimes the titles change during this time. For instance, if you have seen the French movie, Amelie, you might also know that the actual French title translates as, The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain, (Le Fabuleux Destin de Amelie Poulain). American movie distributors didn't think Americans wanted movies with long titles, so they changed it. George Romero's Dawn of the Dead was given the title Zombi when it was released in Italy. So, since it was very popular, Lucio Fulci called his movie Zombi 2, but the films are unrelated.

But the title is only one reason why this movie is in an entry titled "WTF?" The other reason is a famous scene in which a zombie fights a shark underwater. I know! Right now you're thinking, "WTF?" I thought that too. Here's proof that this scene actually exists in a movie:

How messed up is that? So the zombie squares off against the shark and then grabs him and takes bites out of him. Then the shark bites the zombie's arm off and swims away. It was kinda crazy. The shark's trainer dressed up in some zombie gear and handled the shark for this scene. It's slow and weird but, even without CGI, it's still impressive.

Zombi 2 is pretty famous in horror circles for the above scene and one other graphic effects-heavy scene: the splinter in the eye scene. In the splinter scene a woman is grabbed through a door by a zombie's hand and he pulls her face towards a large splinter of wood which then becomes impaled in her eye. It's all very slow and suspenseful until the eye gets gouged, and then it becomes ridiculous and gory. Here's a taste ( the splinter is hard to see clearly, but is in the upper right part of the picture, just below the zombie hand):

Zombi 2 was released back in the eighties on VHS. It was quickly placed on the Video Nasties list which was better advertising than anyone could buy. More on that next time!

I hope everyone has a Happy Halloween and eats lots of candy / gets blitzed (safely).

Note to Die Frau: I may be in complete favor of "naughty" costumes, but I don't think they belong in school, nor am I into underage girls wearing things that could get them, or me, into trouble.