6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
When a terrorist's body, infected with a stolen chemical, is recovered by the US military, the corpse is cremated, unintentionally releasing the virus/bacteria into the atmosphere over a small island. Soon the infected populace mutate into flesh-hungry zombies, and a trio of soldiers on leave must team up with a group of tourists and board themselves up in an abandoned hotel as they try to fend off the agile and aggressive living dead...
Starring: Deran Sarafian, Beatrice Ring, Ottaviano Dell'Acqua, Massimo Vanni, Ulli ReinthalerHorror | 100% |
Foreign | 32% |
Sci-Fi | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 16-bit)
BDInfo
English
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 CD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
George A. Romero is often credited with reinvigorating the (un?)dead zombie film genre with Night of the Living Dead, but in contextualizing both Zombi 3 and Zombie 4: After Death (also known simply as After Death), it may be helpful to think back to an earlier era of zombie film as exemplified by I Walked with a Zombie. That 1943 film didn’t posit “homegrown” members of The Walking Dead (so to speak), but instead provided a spookily exotic Caribbean locale laced with a subtext of slavery and voodoo. While there’s not exactly the same idea running through either of these films with at least some input from Claudio Fragasso, there are jungle locations and a feeling of being somewhere well outside of urban environments. Kind of amusingly, Zombi 2, released stateside on Blu-ray as Zombie several years ago, was evidently intended to act as an “unofficial” sequel to Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, since Romero’s film was released overseas as Zombi (got that?). Zombi 2, which bares more than a few passing similarities to “old school” zombie films like that aforementioned Val Lewton outing, was the creation of Lucio Fulci, and Fulci at least began Zombi 3 (there are varying accounts of what happened, including one given by Fragasso in a supplement on Zombi 3). One way or the other, Bruno Mattei and Fragasso stepped in to either finish or at least append material to (depending on which version you believe) the film. Fragasso himself served as director for Zombi 4, and once again a certain “old school” voodoo aspect plays at least a part in the plot proceedings.
Zombie 3 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The back cover of this release doesn't provide a whale of a lot of information on the transfer or its source, stating only that it's a "2K scan" and that the film is "uncut for the first time ever in America". There's rather wide variability in a number of aspects that we cover in our reviews, and so perhaps more than usual my 3.5 score above is an "average" of sorts. The grain field has rather wide variances, clumping at times in understandable moments like the optically printed credits sequence, but then more or less disappearing at others, as in the helicopter theft sequence that follows the credits, a relative absence that leads me to believe some noise reduction may have been applied here, at least in places. Some of the lab material is bathed in red and green tones, and there's a later green hued sequence, and fine detail levels fall rather dramatically in these moments. Clarity is pretty variable as well, with some moments (typically brightly lit outdoor scenes) that I'd personally score closer to the 4.0 mark, but with other (mostly but not entirely interior) scenes looking fairly murky and ill defined. A long mist shrouded sequence starting at around 40:00 presents the roughest looking moments both in terms of general clarity, detail levels and compression. On the whole, though, colors pop rather well throughout, and the gruesome makeup effects look appropriately ghastly, though flesh tones can look a little on the pink side at times and some of the green soldier uniforms don't really resonate too vividly. The elements used for the transfer do show fairly regular if minimal signs of age related wear and tear.
Zombie 3 features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track that has good fidelity but the almost hilariously loose sync that post-dubbed Italian films tend to. Even though some (maybe even most) of the actors seem to have spoken English during the shoot, the match up of lip movements to dialogue is haphazard at best. Stefano Mainetti's effective score offers quite a bit of bombast, especially since it features percussion instruments so prominently.
Zombie 3 is one of those releases where I'm almost guaranteed to get questioning (if not outright angry) responses from viewers, with fans asking how I could give this "only" a 2.5, and newcomers to the film asking why I gave it any stars at all. You have to approach both Zombie 3 and its follow up with the appropriate (low?) expectations, and just go with the flow. For those who like their gore effects extremely gorey, Zombie 3 more than fills the bill, and even though certain plot elements are definitely derivative and the overall acting acumen is (at best) "not ready for prime time", the film still offers some distinctive features. Video has some hurdles (not as many as Zombie 4), but audio is fine, and the supplements outstanding for those considering a purchase.
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