Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979) 4K Review

A boat drifts into New York Harbour and when a couple of patrolmen climb aboard to investigate, one of them is attacked by a zombie and other shoots the reanimated corpse, causing it to fall into the Hudson. The boat belonged to the father of Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow) who, after being questioned by police, sets out to find out what happened to her dad, teaming up with roving reporter Peter West (Ian McCulloch). They learn that Anne’s father is gravely ill on the island of Matool and they set sail to the Caribbean to investigate further…

My viewing history of Zombie Flesheaters, in terms of media types at least, is as follows; uncut full screen version on rental VHS which had been played to death and lost most of its already crappy picture quality when any nudity or violence was about to happen; cut widescreen version on VHS, okay picture quality but no eyeball trauma or folks getting chomped upon; uncut widescreen DVD, decent picture quality, gore intact; uncut widescreen Blu-Ray, handsome picture quality, gore intact; and now, this 4K restoration, meaning that torn throats, deserted island villages and Olga Karlatos have never looked quite as beautiful.

The somewhat grubby reputation of Zombie Flesheaters, certainly in the UK, is in no small way due to that original VHS bow on the VIPCO label, whose owner knew that the iconic cover artwork and the promise of a “STRONG UNCUT VERSION” would grab the attention of home video punters (and the BBFC but that’s another story). Crammed into the confines of a television screen robbed the viewer of Fulci’s expertise in crafting expansive shots and the grubby limitations of late 1970s/early 1980s tape only succeeded in giving the gruesome moments more of an element of the forbidden, even though it was difficult to fully appreciate Giannetto De Rossi’s superb effects work in all its glory.

Nowadays, we can look back on the Video Nasty era and wonder just what all the fuss was about other than scapegoating a form of entertainment that was mostly harmless nonsense and viewing Zombie Flesheaters with 2025 eyes – if those eyes haven’t been penetrated by a massive splinter – shows it to be unexpectedly quaint on occasion. It’s also consistently well made by a director who was deadly serious about his work, even when that work was as faintly ludicrous as this. In other hands, this could have been laughable throughout, but Lucio, bless him, gets his cast to play this with as straight a face as possible, drafting in reliable acting talent such as Richard Johnson, who could have phoned it in but never does.

Riding the coattails of Dawn of the Dead, this Italian take on the undead has neither the action chops or satirical bent of a Romero pic and decides to settle on a more leisurely, atmosphere heavy approach, throwing in elements of voodoo and a historical backdrop as a preface to the oncoming mayhem, rationing its zombie action until the final act showdown, when it does lurch into George’s favoured beats of a dwindling group of folks under siege from ever increasing numbers of the undead.

For modern audiences, much of the first hour may seem a gentle mix of travelogue and join the dots search quest, punctuated by spots of spectacular splatter. The shark sequence, regardless of audience age, I would still suggest is genuinely deranged as a majestic predator of the deep is set upon by a ragged corpse. Devoid of CGI trickery, this an actual bloke having an actual scrap with an actual shark underwater. Yes, that zombie was played by the shark’s trainer, I know the shark was possibly in a relaxed state, I know all of that, but it’s still absolutely bonkers. It’s a bloke fighting a shark!

Proving the stiff upper lip quotient, in addition to Johnson, is Italian horror regular McCulloch, bringing a very British charm and stoicism which is the perfect contrast to the gut munching on display. His reaction to wandering in on a gang of ghouls tucking in to what’s left of a supporting character is priceless. Elisa Briganti’s script doesn’t even give our hero time to enjoy an impromptu snog with travel partner Farrow as it’s rudely interrupted by a mass rising from the grave. Farrow herself would round off her career with two further slices of Italian exploitation: Anthropophagous, which is mostly rubbish; and The Last Hunter, which is pretty good. Also, it’s not a gory, Euro-made adventure without Al Cliver and guess what? Al’s present and correct here.

The story touches, albeit lightly, on themes of superstition and occupation but would a deep, philosophical exploration of the third world – and the encroachment on those territories by Westerners – have raked it in at the box office? We’ll never know, as the main event here is the gore and there’s more than enough of that to satisfy a modern audience while not possessing the same power to upset as it did back in the day.

At the end of the day, its original unrated status and Nasty notoriety did Zombie Flesheaters no harm whatsoever. It raked in a sizeable take at the US box office and the element of forbidden fruit had 1980s video kids in the UK desperate to track it down, regardless of just how close to unwatchable it was on an nth generation copy. Cleaned up, it gives me a warm feeling that films like this are back to annoy the easily offended, only this time in ultra-high definition. So, what’s going on here? It might not always be clear but, as the final line of one its terrific trailers promises, “Whatever it is, it makes the dead stand up and walk.” And hooray for that.

Movie Rating:

Zombie Flesh Eaters is available now on limited 4K UHD Blu-ray from Arrow video.

Zombie Flesh Eaters trailer