Just perfect...

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Admirable film.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Claudio Fragasso and Rossella Drudi, our friends who brought Troll 2 to life, were the writing team behind this, setting the film in the Philippines as a cheap and convenient locale. Lucio Fulci claimed that the script was dreadful and that he tried to rewrite most of it, whereas the producers would contend that Fulci's initial cut was a little over an hour yet felt much longer than that. They got Fragasso and Bruno Mattei to finish things up. And we're left. to watch the results.There's this formula called Death One, which brings back the dead. Why anyone would want to create this for the army is beyond me. But Dr. Holder realizes that this is all just a bad idea, so he resigns. As he goes to surrender his findings, criminals attack (if this movie starts to remind you of Nightmare City, you aren't alone) and run away with Death One.That criminal gets infected and even cutting off his own hand - oh that Fulci - can't stop the outbreak. The hotel he ran to is condemned and General Morton orders everyone there killed and the criminal's remains burned by his two right-hand men (played, of course, by Mattei and Fragasso). But just like Return of the Living Dead, the ashes in the air just make things worse. The birds are infected and begin to spread the disease.What follows is a group of victims gets introduced to us and one after another, they are wiped out with pure malice and utter glee. There are some American GI's who mention how horny rock and roll music makes them and the girls on the bus they hook up with. There's a tourist couple, too. No one will be spared when Death One achieves its full power.Everyone heads to the now abandoned resort and is shocked to find so many weapons. As they are killed off, Dr. Holden looks for a cure while General Morton works on killing off every single person and animal he can find.Soon, only five of our heroes - Kenny, Roger, Patricia, Nancy, and Joe - are still alive. As soon as I wrote this down, the soldiers kill Joe. Our survivors make their way to a hospital, where Nancy tries to help a woman deliver a baby - bad news, zombie baby - and gets killed. This scene is packed with the gore that you had hoped that this film would bring. Don't eat while watching, trust me.Who lives? Who dies? You should just buy this and watch it, right? Right. I will say that I loved Blue Heart, the DJ who talks throughout the film and adored how he keeps doing it even after he joins the ranks of the undead. It reminds me a lot of the DJ as narrator scenes in The New York Ripper.I almost forgot! There's an awesome scene where a zombie skull flies out of the freezer and attacks. It wasn't in the script but instead came from Fulci. He would go on to say that it was one of the most clever things he had come up with and the only thing about this film that he was proud of.If you're hoping for the follow-up to Zombi, this isn't it. It's still fun and the last twenty minutes or so really pick up. I'd love to see what happens if they ever did a sequel to this.

Zombi 3 is a bad movie. No doubt. And it was from its conceivement. The producer Gaudenzi called Fulci for shot the sequel of Zombi Flesh Eaters (in Italy Zombi 2), the movie that give to the director an international fame. But we are in the 1988 and the italian cinematogrophy industry is pretty much changed from the '70, especially the exploitation genre. The producers have less money and they are less willing to risk in the projects; furthermore the good technicians that helps many director, like Argento, Bava, Lenzi and Fulci, are disappearing. Also Fulci has several problem with his health and the movies made after 1980 aren't good like their predecessors. With these premises Fulci goes in the Philipine for shot the movie and after 4 weeks come back in Italy with 70 minutes shot; for the producer is not enough and ask to Claudio Fragasso, the screenwriter of the movie, to write other scenes, and to Bruno Mattei, another director that was shoting his film Robowar in the Philipines, to shot the new scenes. The result is Zombi 3: a horror movie that doesn't scare, without suspense, and with several funny moments that I don't know how much are involuntary. The plot is simple: a group of terrorists steal from a scientific centre the virus called Death One; one of them is wounded during the chase and is being infected. From here we follow two stories: one is about a team of scientists that together with the army try to restrain the virus, the other is about a group of marines in permit that try to survive against the zombies. The story is quite ordinary but the real problem is on a several plot holes from the part with the scientists. For example, when they discover that the terrorist is been infected, they state that the virus can be propagate just via blood and in contact with the air die. But when the army catch the terrorist and burn his body, the scientists warn them that in this way the virus can be spread in the nearby through the air. And after, when the scientists try to find a cure, they state that the virus is spreading thanks the contact with the air. So we have a dissociated virus that die if is in contact with the air, but in the same time, thanks to the air, can spread itself. Another thing: where this virus come from? I mean, while watching the movie I understand that the virus has been made by the army, but for some inscrutable reason they give it to an indipendent scientific center, where the virus itself has been studied. Now, with all this people that has studied it why there is no one that has think about an antidote? What have they studied? Surely not how it spread! After that, the acting, oh ghosh! There isn't a single actor that know how to act and the characters are so boring that nobody really care what could do happen to them. But Zombi 3 is also a movie about the zombies, so we have to talk about the zombies. Ok, what are they? Serious, why they act like that? Some of them walk slowly, like the classic Romero's zombies, others jump, run and talk! Exactly, talk! And this, instead to be scary, is only ridicoulous! Also the makeup is not right. I mean, some zombies are ok but others wears rags. Why? The ordinary people in the Philipenes were used to wear rags? I don't think so! So they look likes they were pretty old corpse come back to life, and this is ok but you have to show me, otherwise it doesn't have sense. The same is for the buildings. Some of them have the interior full of webs and dust, like they were abandoned for years, but they aren't! The film try to made an obscure and dark atmosphere that fit more better with some old castle or haunted house, rather than a movie that describe the outbreak of a contagion! One characteristic of the Fulci's movie was the care given to the gore and splatter effects; unfortunately this is not the case. Just watch the scene where a zombi smash the head of a nurse against a mirror: the nurse begin to puke blood but it's pretty clear that she had the fake blood in the mouth. Another example is the infamous fly zombi head. No! This is unacepptable! Ok it's funny but it is useless and it's not a parody! So, why use it? The only real fun for the viewever is try to find out all the scene that pay homage (aka steal) from others zombies movies. All the quarrel between the scientists and the army remember the Romero's Day of the Dead, the spreading of the contagion through the ashes from a zombi corpse is like O'Bannon's Return of the Living Dead. From the same movie come from also the talkies zombies. The scene where a marine run towards some soldiers and he is been shot beacuse mistaken for a zombie remember the final of the Night of the Living Dead. The final scene where the only two survivors escape with a helicopter (found totally by chance) is like the final scene of Dawn of the Living Dead. Finally the siege of the zombies against the marines remember a similar scene from Zombi 2. The only orignal ideas? The flying head the zombi deejay (I don't want to talk about him; if you have the guts watch the movie and find out yourself). Great screenwriter! Unfortunately this is Zombi 3, a horror/action movie that don't scare and where the action is feeble. The movie rapresent perfectly what had become the italian b-movies industry in the 80s: no money, no ideas.

How any zombie movie or Italian horror movie fan could dislike this film I'll never know. This movie has a decent story, loads of action, a healthy amount of gore, an exotic locale and relentless zombie attacks...what else do you people want? Yes, the similarities to Return Of The Living Dead can't be ignored and the filmmakers obviously love George Romero, but they seem more influenced by The Crazies than Night Of The Living Dead. Oh sure the obligatory "let's board up the house to keep the zombies out" scene is here, but it doesn't last long. Granted many of the people trying to survive are portrayed as rather stupid, but they are also rather good hearted. For the most part everyone is trying to help friends and strangers alike to survive the epidemic. The military is portrayed as heartless as they usually are. However this time we also get a trio of kick ass super soldiers who fight off 50 zombies with an M-16 all while carrying an injured woman over their shoulder. That balance is nice as we get to see the military can be evil and ignorant, but they can also still be our heroes. The idea behind this being a virus that can affect not only man, but animal is also really smart. It makes a happy ending appear hopeless as who knows how wide the virus truly spread. Horror movies with happy endings are okay occasionally, but it's those bleak ends that bring a little smirk to my face. Overall, this may be a patchwork film that is technically two movies in one, but the guys who did the patching are honest to God masters of horror.

Its hard to remember a title that I've enjoyed so much like "Zombi 3"!There is so much to choose between in this Fulci/Mattei production but my favorite (besides the flying head, oh my!) would without a doubt be the scenes where the general and Dr Holder interacts with each otherA nerdy guy that stutters all the time and a cynical "I don't give a rats ass!" general with no regard for the civilian population, lovely!Mostly aimed at the splatter-fans but if you somehow track a copy down my advice is to be open and get it (just make sure to turn your brain off just a little, this isn't the kind of movie with a deep serious plot as you probably know!)