1970s Asian Horror Part One

BLIND WOMAN'S CURSE
(1970)
Dir - Teruo Ishii
Overall: GOOD

This almost comically bizarre venture Blind Woman's Curse from Japan's "The King of Cult" Teruo Ishii is a jumble of slapstick comedy, yakuza film, ghost story, and the filmmaker's patented ero guro, (erotic grotesque), sub-genre.  Many of the characters spend a great deal of time saying things like "Who the hell are you?", "Who did this?", and "I never heard of you" and the confusion that befuddles them carries over to the audience watching such daftness.  With set pieces involving slow motion sword fighting, black cats licking skin tattoos removed from people's back, a traveling sideshow of zombies or something, a weird hunchback that also licks and bites things and can supernaturally leap backwards onto roof tops, an opium den, torture and gore, a ganglord who lets his bare, unbathed ass hang out in a loin cloth at all times, and the blind woman of the title who of course cannot be bested in combat, it is a pretty amusing mess to say the least.  It crosses into absurdity enough that it becomes difficult to tell what the intended experience was supposed to be, but it also transcends schlock while representing a positively entertaining curiosity amongst Asian cinema in general, one of the overall, many strange, cinematic exports from the Orient.

DEATH AT AN OLD MANSION
(1975)
Dir - Yoichi Takabayash
Overall: GOOD

A remarkably low-key whodunit, Death at an Old Mansion, (Honjin satsujin jiken), is filmmaker Yoichi Takabayash's adaptation of Seishi Yokomizo's mystery novel The Honjin Murders.  It poses a puzzling enough scenario where a locked room killing occurs to the befuddlement of family members and the law enforcement, yet the way the material is explored is quite stylish and deliberately paced.  Virtually the entire film takes place at one location, with numerous flashbacks fleshing out certain details that ultimately have more confusing light shown on them later.  Takabayash films everything very patiently though as the unexcitable cast calmly contemplates things.  The cinematography is quite lovely as is the musical score from none other than Nobuhiko Ôbayashi who would go on to make one of the most acclaimed avant-garde horror films of all time with Housu two years later.  Some of the plot points may be a bit too quirky or ill-defined to fully work, but everything still creates an eerie, ethereal tone even if supernatural components are ultimately not present.

UNDER THE BLOSSOMING CHERRY TREES
(1975)
Dir - Mashario Shinoda
Overall: GREAT

Japanese New Wave filmmaker Mashario Shinoda's Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees is a typical, tragic ghost story, the type of which dozens upon dozens were produced in the country and many of them excellently so.  Based on a story by Ango Sakaguchi and set during the Edo period, there is a barrage of themes explored here.  From the modern day, opening narration, it is clear that the clashing of eras is one of them, but those of class and certainly the sexes play an even bigger role as more things emerge.  All being under the backdrop of a deliberately ambiguous, supernatural tale, it is quite potent throughout.  The characters are never given names and the passage of time is left rather vague, with months if not years going by in various frames.  Horror movie wise, there are moments that are almost ridiculously macabre, but these are also balanced with creepy, utterly superb music and sound design, plus some equally outstanding cinematography.  The cherry trees of the title are gorgeous to behold, but are never once presented outside of a sinister context, reinforcing the questionable narrative and how the visuals are disguising something far different than what we are perceiving.

1970s Mario Bava Part Two

HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON
(1970)
Overall: MEH

Following up the pretty lame giallo Five Dolls for an August Moon released the same year, Mario Bava's Hatchet for the Honeymoon, (Il rosso segno della follia), is yet another subpar affair from the usually excellent director.  While there is no mystery at all as to who the killer is this time, (this is explained in the opening narration by the main antagonist), the one we are presented with instead involving a childhood trauma never picks up any much-needed momentum.  We are shown slight, ghostly flashbacks at random times, but the bizarre and very specific type of madness that inflicts the dashingly handsome Stephen Forsyth is not given enough screen time to really become enthralling.  This leaves only a handful of murder scenes that come off as too mundane, despite Bava utilizing his trusted and true, nifty camera tricks here or there.  The added element of a murdered spouse who stubbornly insists on haunting him is clever yes, but her motivation for doing so is glossed over, ending up being just another somewhat messy ingredient to the whole.  There is certainly some merit to Hatchet, but it is still more on the unremarkable side for Bava who would often take such thriller cliches to much more exciting terrain than here.

A BAY OF BLOOD
(1971)
Overall: MEH

What essentially amounts to "Everybody is horrible, the end", Mario Bava's A Bay of Blood, (Ecologia del delitto, Reazione a catena, Twitch of the Death Nerve, Carnage, and Blood Bath), was another giallo that wound up being wildly influential on the slasher genre.  Motifs such as the murder of young, carefree attractive people being naked and having sex plus the overall brutality of the killings themselves would be routinely adapted later on and for that reason, one could argue that this is the goriest overall Bava film.  It is also one of the more convoluted and frustratingly paced.  While it is certainly an interesting and odd choice to have virtually no music accompany any scene, Bava ultimately spends TOO much time building suspense and especially by the last act when random characters are showing up while it becomes almost impossible to keep anyone's purpose let alone identity straight, it is downright aggravating to watch people very, very slowly walk around in the dark when we know they are just going to get a big hunk of something sliced into their head at any second.  Then with the actual ending being positively ridiculous as if to convey that the entire movie was one big joke, the film is more of a curious entry into Bava's catalog than a good one

LISA AND THE DEVIL
(1974)
Overall: MEH

For his penultimate film released during his lifetime, Mario Bava was rewarded free reign by producer Alfredo Leone, but the result Lisa and the Devil, (El diablo se lleva a los muertos), is only partially successful.  Telly Savalas is a joy as a fiendishly conniving butler, confidently going about most of his scenes either talking to himself, singing, or sucking on a lollipop while all sorts of supernatural shenanigans are taking place around, (and most likely because of), him.  Bava could not make a movie of his look bad if he tried and the ideally sprawling, Gothic mansion where most of the movie takes place is eye popping in nearly every scene.  There are also some great, macabre visuals such as an entire dinner table adorned with almost comically creepy corpses.  The "huh?" story line is where things really fall apart though.  There are sinister reveals and enough appropriately cliche melodrama for such fare, but good luck trying to piece everything together as the plot is steadily perplexing.  Add a rather uncomfortable rape scene, (are any such scenes ever not uncomfortable?), and there are assuredly some elements that could have been improved upon if not removed all together.  The film was later re-cut with new footage for a more explicit, Exorcist cash-in called The House of Exorcism, but the version here is confusing enough as it is without all of the awkwardly forced nudity and gore.

1970s Mario Bava Part One

FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON
(1970)
Overall: MEH

When going through the filmography of Mario Bava, one is inevitably bound to come across some of his rightfully forgotten works.  The giallo Five Dolls for an August Moon, (5 bambole per la luna d'agosto), was not even given an American release at the time and Bava himself allegedly saw no artistic merit in the finished product.  Proving that he could be hired to churn out a competently made if highly forgettable movie on a dime for a European studio though, (which countless other directors made a living doing), the result is probably one of the worst giallos ever or at the very least one of the dumbest.  Using the loose framework of Agatha Christi's And Then There Were None, the script here is baffling, boring, and moronic by film's end, leaving us with a barrage of uninteresting characters that allows it to be anything but engaging.  Bava of course does his best to make the film work at least from a visual standpoint which gives it a sole saving grace.  There are some flashy camera angles and stylized set design that he is able to make use out of, occasionally letting us forget how asinine the plot is.  Still, keep this one at the bottom of your list for such fare as there are oodles better out there.

BARON BLOOD
(1972)
Overall: MEH

Though it is fun at times due to its Gothic atmosphere and Mario Bava's usual, clever direction and cinematography which he once again mostly performed himself, Baron Blood, (Gli orrori del castello di Norimberga), cannot quite triumph over its volley of problems.  Even the gleefully macabre and enjoyable ending still cannot help but to present lazily bypassed plotholes which also show up on the regular for the entire running time.  All of these are there only to give the finished product a few more shocks as well as textbook, horror movie bullet points to check off, but the indifference to logic gets too laughably distracting.  As is confoundingly common, the musical score is either perfectly fitting or atrociously wrong for such a movie.  While there are too many similar offenders to count, you cannot possibly compose a more ridiculous theme for a work of horror that conveys the polar opposite mood than this.  Pacing wise, Bava drops the ball during the second half which is ironically where most of the murders take place, yet also where we are told about seven dozen times that a parchment was destroyed that cannot undue a curse.  Characters then walk from place to place occasionally acting cheerful and normal when so much murder is happening.  The good bits are pretty good as usual for a Bava movie, but such a thing is only as solid as its whole and Baron Blood just does not pull it all off.

RABID DOGS
(1974)
Overall: GOOD

Venturing into the poliziotteschi film genre for the first and only time in his long career, Mario Bava's Rabid Dogs, (Cani arrabbiati, Kidnapped), is a fascinating work for a numerous reasons.  The movie was left incomplete at the time it was shot due to its producer and funder Roberto Loyola declaring bankruptcy, with the rights to it being left almost permanently in limbo.  While Bava never lived to see it released, decades later through various efforts including those of the filmmaker's son Lamberto, Rabid Dogs, (also shown as Semaforo rosso and Kidnapped), finally saw the light of day and it is like nothing else in his catalog.  Intentionally forgoing his Gothic, stylized horror efforts, the film is shown in real time, in broad daylight, and presents a claustrophobic, high tension, vile crime  atmosphere that is more nihilistic than anything else the director would ever attempt.  It is the only of Bava's works that really has any kind of political commentary, portraying the Years of Lead period in Italy as a thoughtfully bleak one where no one is a good guy.  Though it is still a plenty dramatic enough yarn, (based off of Michael J. Carroll's short story "Man and Boy" that appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine), and has a twist that is one for the books, the realism and stripped-down presentation is ambitious in and of itself while it shows a dynamic side to Bava that is quite impressive.

1970s Jesús Franco Part Three

EUGENIE...THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION
(1970)
Overall: MEH

Fittingly adapting the work of Marquis de Sade at the very turn of the 60s into the 70s when such hedonistic subject matter and perverse sexuality was fortifying itself in much of European cinema, Jess Franco's Eugenie...the Story of Her Journey Into Perversion, (Eugenie de Sade, De Sade 2000, Eugenie de Franval, Eugenie Sex Happening, Eugenia, or just Eugenie), was the second such de Sade title that he brought to the screen.  The first was the previous year's Marquis de Sade: Justine, also with Maria Rohm as well as Jack Palance of all blokes.  This was also the last collaboration between the Spanish filmmaker and Christopher Lee, the latter of whom apparently became appalled the the finished product was shown exclusively in London's "blue" district, essentially meaning porn theaters.  Of course watching it particularly by today's standards, it hardly qualifies as pornographic and if anything, the overt sadism in de Sade's original text is quite toned down.  In that regard, the movie rather poorly conveys its subject matter, being the complete corruption of an innocent girl, (who in the novel was anything but innocent from the get-go), as her ultimate, evil about-face comes off kind of sudden and sloppy.  Though it is photographed better than most Franco productions, there are the usual problems of drab pacing, unsuitable music, and ultimately rather yawn-inducing sex scenes that take up lots of screen time.

THE DEMONS
(1973)
Overall: MEH

The early 70s were ripe with nunsploitation and witch trial films so rather hot off the tails of Ken Russell's The Devil's comes Jess Franco's non-union, French/Portugal equivalent The Demons.  The story could not be more predictable considering the source material and being both written and directed by Franco, it is a pretty preposterous story at that.  Women get accused of being witches and then forgotten about, they fall head over heals in love with multiple men at a time, and everyone is so sexually repressed that all of their on-again/off-again morals come off as impossibly messy.  This latter element may be somewhat of the point, but it still makes for an unintentionally goofy presentation where it seems more important to make everyone be whatever cliche is necessary at that particular time than anything else.  Also typical of a Franco film, the nudity, (which there is a consistent stream of), provides one of the most boring parts with more women kissing and fondling each other's rare ends when they are not writhing around on a bed and moaning.  To say that these frequent moments get in the way of the plot is not really that fair since such exploitative, skin-exposed nonsense is as much if not more so the selling point as anything.  Still, Franco knocks out a quick, easy cash-in here as he was beyond competently able to do during his prime.

LORNA THE EXORCIST
(1974)
Overall: MEH

Teetering heavily on the verge of being legitimate pornography, Lorna the Exorcist, (Les possédées du diable), was Jesús Franco's sleazy, exploitative version of Faust more or less, with the "Exorcist" tag being thrown in there merely as a typical European cash-grab to bank off of William Friedkin's mega-huge The Exorcist released the previous year.  The sex scenes are mostly as dull as ever for a Franco film, but the mere abundance of them, the heavily padded plot, (including a long flashback sequence that relays the exact same information that was just painstakingly explained to us via exposition in the scene before), and that fact that at least the women here are actually having sex on screen with full genitalia and all, certainly qualifies it as more than simply an erotic horror movie.  Franco spices it up a little bit by going full-tilt into the bizarre though.  There is incest between Lina Romay and more than one of her parents, including her "mother" feeding her her breasts while calling her her sweet daughter.  Then she does things with a dildo as well as monthly bodily fluids that no one let alone a parent should be doing to anyone let alone their kin.  Another memorably ridiculous moment involving real life crabs takes place on a part of a woman's body that you can easily predict.  Elsewhere, Franco is still hardly much a story teller and it is technically another hodgepodge of tons of zooms, uninspired cinematography, and tedious music, just with more uncomfortable sexuality than one would prefer.

1970s Jean Rollin Part Two

REQUIEM FOR A VAMPIRE
(1971)
Overall: MEH

The forth film in a row to involve vampires, naked women, and abandoned ruins and chateaus, Jean Rollin's Requiem for a Vampire, (Requiem pour un Vampire), sufferers too much from the director's customary, lackadaisical pacing to truly stand as one of his better works.  That said, it has plenty of the filmmaker's other wonderful, curious trademarks on display.  There are shots of hands protruding out of the stone walls, robed skeletons standing in a church, bats eating out a woman's vagina, (or something), two women dressed as clowns in a high-speed shoot out, a piano being played outside in the middle of a wooded area, and almost childish visuals with vampires opening up their red capes and revealing their silly, awkward looking fangs.  Rollin was often a fan of fusing some of these campy, horror cliches as well as preposterous dialog with copious amounts of eerie, tranquil scenery, nudity, and a dab or two of nasty violence, making the whole thing that much more odd to behold.  For nearly the first thirty minutes here though, nothing seems to be happening and random sex, rape, and torture scenes slow things down even further later on.  It is still frequently fascinating, just a step or two down from some of his more commendable movies.

DEMONIACS
(1974)
Overall: MEH

Jean Rollin's follow-up to his first non-vampire film The Iron Rose continued in that vein with Demoniacs, (Les Démoniaques).  Wrought with the usual budgetary problems as well as some non-ideal casting choices allegedly, Rollin attempted a fairytale-esque adventure film that appealed to his more youthful exuberance from reading pirate stories and the like when he was a kid.  That mixed with even more nudity and violence than usual.  As with every movie from the director, Demoniacs has a number of surreal, notable moments, the best of which is probably in a pub adorned with Halloween decorations where a mad Captain hallucinates and sees the ghosts of the two young women he may or may not have just killed.  Another steadfast Rollin motif of a woman in clown make-up also shows up and there are more vague, unimportant religious symbolism that further baffles and enthralls in equal measure.  Elsewhere, too much rape and boring sex scenes plod everything down and while the ending makes as much sense as any for a Rollin movie, (meaning none at all), it is still a bit underwhelming.  Not without its merit here and there, Demoniacs' imperfections unfortunately render it a missed opportunity of sorts.

THE GRAPES OF DEATH
(1978)
Overall: MEH

Made before George Romero's Dawn of the Dead dropped, Jean Rollin's quasi-answer to the zombie film was The Grapes of Death, (Les Raisins de la Mort).  While it is an interesting enough take on the sub-genre, (there are no reanimated corpses here, just infected people who lapse in and out of mindlessly violent outbursts), it is structured very much like your typical, apocalyptic zombie film with characters on the run, growing paranoid, and consistently hiding from all of the crazies after them.  The budget is sparse yet effectively utilized, the simple make-up is more pus-like than bloody, and the deserted village and countryside that the movie takes place in elevates the doomsday feel.  Being a Rollin film of course, it drags along at large intervals with only a small handful of set pieces and lots of slowly-walking-around-moments in between.  The conclusion is sadly very weak as well, forcefully undoing the would-be happy ending with an unnecessary and rather dumb final moment of unpleasantness.  Rare for a Rollin movie, there is even some mild social commentary on hand and honestly it is a bit disappointing that Grapes of Death is so straightforward.  The tone may be low-key and the pacing as deliberate as ever, but the dreamlike, truly bizarre aura of most of Rollin's work is far more lacking.  It is a step in a different direction for the filmmaker, but also one that does not play to the man's strengths as much as it should.

1970s Jean Rollin Part One

THE NUDE VAMPIRE
(1970)
Overall: GOOD

Jean Rollin's sophomore effort and first film in color, The Nude Vampire, (La Vampire Nue), is more ambitious than his debut Le Viol du Vampire though still as leisurely absurd as any of his works.  Very common for a Rollin film of course, the pacing is pretty stagnant throughout.  Characters routinely say things like "all will be revealed to you another time" instead of just explaining things when they have the opportune time.  The film pretty much revolves around Rollin's half-brother Olivier looking like a kid who is excited to be in a movie, going from one scene to the next while being told that he will be told what is going on eventually.  It is all nonsense primarily and gets more ridiculous as it goes on, but it is also breathtakingly weird at regular intervals.  Not one but two bizarre, creepy cults partake of standing around in animal masks and hoods, walking about a chateau either naked or in robes while holding candles, plus the Castel twins wear outfits made of glass.  As usual, the very slow presentation and nonexistent interest in telling a clever story can either enhance or hinder the experience depending on the audience member, but it is assuredly a textbook example of Rollin's singular and at the very least unusual, auteur style.

THE IRON ROSE
(1973)
Overall: MEH

Finally breaking the erotic vampire mold, Jean Rollin made his most deliberately placid and inconclusive movie, (saying something), with the exceptionally lethargic The Iron Rose, (La Rose de Fer).  Outside of an early scene at a normal enough wedding reception and a few strange cameos including a clown putting flowers on a grave and Rollin himself as a questionable looking hobo, the film only features two actors and one location, a gargantuan, labyrinth like cemetery in Amiens, France.  A knowing gamble was taken since Rollin himself has gone on record as saying that he knew the movie would be a commercial disaster, but as always, he took his non-existent budget and concocted something truly dreamlike and unapologetically strange.  While the man's dedication to his own eccentric, art-house whims are routinely admirable, so little actually happens in The Iron Rose that it inescapably becomes a chore to sit through after awhile.  Any moments of menace are so subtle that they may in fact not even be there.  It is wholly possible that the viewer could be imagining that the movie is more intricate and creepy than it actually is.  Still, there is sensational beauty to be found here as with most of the director's works.  The opening, (and especially re-occurring), sequences of Françoise Pascal naked on a beach and the camera exploring the vast graveyard at night, (and not shot in day-for-night as many films of the day were), are wondrous to be sure, but it goes a little too far in its ambiguity to maintain one's full attention.

LIPS OF BLOOD
(1975)
Overall: GREAT

The first of Jean Rollin's films that could fairly be called a masterpiece, (at least by erotic, Euro-horror standards), was his return to vampirism in Lips of Blood, (Lèvres de Sang).  Rollin's movies were always deliberately paced, void of any noticeably budget whatsoever, and nonsensical.  Yet at his best, he was able to transcend these would-be shortcomings into something rather hypnotic and enticing.  It also always helped when he was benefited with extraordinary locations to shoot in.  Utilizing both contemporary Paris, graveyards, crypts, abandoned buildings, castles, and villas, Lips of Blood has beautiful scenery in nearly every shot.  Any moment that take place in apartment buildings or standard, boring rooms are shot in such a flat, brightly lit manner, making the dark, bleak shadows of all the truly eye-popping settings that much more visually remarkable.  This is also that very rare Rollin work where the story is downright comprehensible, though he still takes great liberties in having a number of moments remain unexplained by film's end.  The final sequence involving naked people, a coffin, and the rising tide under a gloomy dawn is the kind of highly memorable and strange visual tapestry that the best of art-house horror has to offer.  Rollin would transcend even what he accomplished here in a few later releases, but this unquestionably ranks among his finest.

1970s Lucio Fulci

A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN
(1971)
Overall: MEH

Lucio Fulci's second giallo A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, (Una lucertola con la pelle di donna, Carole, Schizoid, and also released as a hardcore version in France five years later called Les Salopes vont en Enfer), is ripe with memorable, elaborate visuals that nearly compensate for the preposterous, melodramatic story.  There is no time wasted as the first act contains a series of surreal, acid-laced dream sequences full of naked people, ghoulish figures, blood and guts, and lesbian shenanigans.  Even once the film settles into a conventional giallo by numbers murder mystery, there is still a number of thoroughly Italian set-pieces that are hilariously bizarre.  The most infamous is a moment where a bunch of live dogs are hung up in a laboratory with their stomachs ripped open and vital organs exposed, a scene which is never explained nor brought up again.  It also spawned a real life criminal investigation as Fulci and his special effects supervisor Carlo Rambaldi had to testify and prove in court that they did not actually mutilate real animals for the shot.  While it is somewhat refreshing that it does not end with the standard, heart-racing murder chase where we finally see the killer's true identity for the first time, sadly the last act is still pretty dull as characters have to explain the plot out loud to other characters in long, boring monologues.

DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING
(1972)
Overall: MEH

Two giallos in a row, the appropriately titled Don't Torture a Duckling, (Non si sevizia un paperino), once again saw Lucio Fulci working with screenwriter Roberto Gianviti, switching to rural, southern Italy where of course murders are happening that present everyone as a suspect and continually confound the authorities.  This one is noteworthy for introducing the type of nasty violence that Fulci's later film's would become highly renowned for.  Though the gore level may be comparatively less prominent than later releases, it is still unpleasantly violent and sleazy as we see a woman get brutally beaten to death and another one blatantly tease a young boy whilst fully nude.  It is the type of misogynistic and exploitative stuff that was often common in such European commodities of the day and it gets a laugh now for how in bad taste it is.  The plot is very standard of the giallo genre and kind of a bore because of it, depending on how much of a fan one is.  Characters get posed as suspects so early on that of course it cannot ever be that simple, so there is little to no suspense when the movie presents these people as such.  By the time you are at the ending, there is hardly anyone left and the script kind of goes with an easy twist, all things considered.  Of course, what giallo would be complete without wildly clashing music, Riz Ortolani's lush, romantic score here naturally playing over some of the most brutal murder scenes?

SETTE NOTE IN NERO
(1977)
Overall: GOOD

Working again with screenwriters Roberto Gianviti and Dardano Sacchetti, both of whom he collaborated with several times before and since, Lucio Fulci's Sette note in nero, (Seven Notes In Black, The Psychic, Murder to the Tune of the Seven Black Notes, Death Tolls Seven Times), is probably the director's strongest, straight-forward giallo.  Revolving around a clairvoyant woman who can see the past, present, and future though not necessarily positive of which time-frame she is having visions of, it gives the film a solid and unique enough premise to put the mystery together, differentiating itself from others in the genre.  There are some hokey moments of bringing back vital dialog in voice over at crucial scenes just in case the audience are morons, plus at least one gargantuan plot hole happens near the end where a man is left severely injured in an abandoned church only to find himself fully diagnosed, bandaged, and taken care of in a hospital mere moments later it seems.  Yet aside from these kind of goofy details, the script unveils its secrets excellently and Fulci and cinematographer Sergio Salvati keep everything visually enticing.  For a Fulci movie, it is very low on gore and utterly absent of any sexually-charged imagery, but it needs neither of these things to keep it on the higher end of such Italian thrillers.

ZOMBI 2
(1979)
Overall: GOOD

Outside of his initial giallos, Lucio Fulci's first bonafide horror film was Zombie 2, (Sanguella, The Island of the Living Dead, Zombie Flesh Eaters, Zombie: The Dead Walk Among Us, Gli Ultimi Zombi, Woodoo, L'Enfer de Zombies, Zombie 2: The Dead Are Among Us, Nightmare Island, and just Zombie). A typical, Italian cash-in/unofficial Euro-sequel to George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead, it has held up as one of the quintessential walking corpse movies in its own right. While the story follows a coherent structure, it is as illogically silly as any other film of its kind.  There is a graveyard full of conquistadors that rise up JUUUUUUST at the moment our main characters happen to take five there, a brilliantly ridiculous zombie vs. shark fight, (why was that zombie there to begin with?), and the usual question as to why some recently dead were left lying around without bullet holes in their heads to keep them from coming up while others were bulleted immediately.  Lest we forget, why would our heroes make a last stand in a building they willingly set fire to with themselves still in it when they then simply leave out the back and jump on a boat anyway?  Just as he would in his "Gates of Hell" trilogy, Fulci's zombies move at a typical snails pace and nearly every character who gets bit by them could have easily NOT gotten bit by them, simply by side-stepping a tad.  All this aside though, it is still a lot of damn fun.