ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS

*****

Directed by Lucio Fulci.

Starring Ian McCulloch, Tisa Farrow, Richard Johnson, Al Cliver, Auretta Gay, Lucio Fulci.

Horror, Italy, 91 mins, Certificate 18.

Released in the UK on Limited Edition 4K UHD by Arrow Video on 28th July 2025.

Aboard a seemingly abandoned boat in New York Harbour, the investigating cops get attacked by a huge zombie that emerges from below deck. The boat belongs to the father of Ann Bolt (Tisa Farrow), who had left mainland America to do research on the island of Matool in the US Virgin Islands. Reporter Peter West (Ian McCulloch) is assigned to investigate the mysterious boat and meets up with Ann, where they discover a note from her father saying he is suffering from a strange disease. Travelling to the Virgin Islands they find that the island is in the grip of an epidemic of dead bodies coming back to life, with local doctor Menard (Richard Johnson) desperately trying to find the cause of the problem. As the island’s numbers dwindle the group must try to find a way to escape the growing hordes of rising undead. 

Initially arriving amidst a wave of controversy, ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS has been around in various forms since the dark days of the video nasties panic, only receiving an uncut release in the UK as relatively recent as 2005. Lacking the social commentary and character-driven plots of George A. Romero’s original ...DEAD trilogy, ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS follows Italian horror tradition and basically gives you zombies attacking humans, munching on entrails and getting their heads smashed open in full-on, glorious close-ups that don’t leave anything to the imagination. In amongst all the head-shots and neck-biting there are a few key scenes that are notorious in zombie folklore, namely a zombie-versus-shark underwater (obviously!) fight, and the infamous eye-gouging scene that was the main bone of contention with the censors for many years. However the one that sticks out more on this release is the scene where Ian McCulloch bashes in the top of a zombie’s skull with a crucifix, revealing a lurid palette of gooey colours and textures that spill out like an abattoir at slopping out time.

The zombies themselves are a different breed to Romero’s ghouls. Whereas Romero’s blue/green-faced creations are recently deceased cadavers that have gotten straight up from where they fell, Lucio Fulci’s undead are rotten, gangrenous corpses that crawl up from their earthy graves with nondescript features, except for the clumps of earthworms that live in their eye sockets.

Thanks to this 4K UHD upgrade the colours, especially the blood reds and the blues of the sea, are rich and vibrant whilst the image itself offers up a clarity that belies the fact the film came from the era it did. The remixed Dolby Atmos audio track offers up the zombie moans and the creepy musical cue that signifies their attacks sound in deliciously effective crispness.

The movie itself isn’t as narratively strong as Romero’s DAWN OF THE DEAD or as stupidly fun as Stuart Gordon's RE-ANIMATOR, but the grisly look of the special effects and morbid tone all help play a part and give it an identity of its own. Fans of slicker, more modern zombie movies such as TRAIN TO BUSAN or WORLD WAR Z may not appreciate the low-budget aesthetics and nasty edge the film has, but this is a zombie gut-cruncher in the purest sense and one of the best examples of the genre that Italy has ever produced.

But do you need to upgrade if you already own Arrow’s previous Blu-ray release? Depends on whether you can justify double-dipping for a few corrected visual glitches, a slightly richer colour palette and improved audio. As far as new extras go, there is an audio commentary by critics Eugenio Ercolani, Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson, and a couple of visual essays by Chris Alexander and Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, but the rest – extensive as they may be - have been ported over from the old Blu-ray. That does mean you get the excellent FROM ROMERO TO ROME: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE ITALIAN ZOMBIE FILM documentary, but if you already have it on the old disc, it is debatable whether the new features and the tarted up picture/sound is worth spending another £30 on. 

Chris Ward