5.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
On a verdant tropical island where, 20 years before, a voodoo priest turned all of its inhabitants into the living dead, the only non-zombie descendent of the island return to her homeland with a band of beer guzzling mercenaries. Soon, the mercenaries find themselves face to face with some rather energetic and hungry zombies while, across the island, a team of scientists unwittingly create even more of the flesh eating corpses.
Starring: Jeff Stryker, Candice Daly, Massimo Vanni, Jim Gaines, Jim MossHorror | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 16-bit)
BDInfo
None
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 CD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
George A. Romero is often credited with reinvigorating the (un?)dead zombie film genre with Night of the Living Dead, but in contextualizing both Zombie 3 and Zombi 4 (also known 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 4: After Death is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Despite being at least a little newer than Zombie 3, this is a much less pleasing high definition presentation, one that is either sourced off of a damaged element or is cobbled together from different elements with varying levels of color saturation, grain thickness and clarity. Most of this presentation looks pretty soft, from the credits on, though it should be noted that a lot of the film takes place in misty, dimly lit forest environments where detail levels are kind of inherently mixed. But there are several pretty rough looking patches here that just suddenly crop up. One notable sequence starts at around 15:35, where suddenly things look much more "dupey", with an almost monochromatic palette just slightly suffused with hue and a much thicker grain field than has already been on display. The "look" tends to ping pong back and forth between these rough patches and segments that look at least relatively clearer and with a better resolved grain field and generally more convincing color saturation. The entire presentation tends to have a slightly bluish tint, and perhaps for that reason some of the actual blues tend to resonate the best or at least the most consistently.
As with Zombie 3, this release sports a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono mix that tends to offer the most energy in some of the enjoyable underscore by Al Festa, or when sound effects accompany some of the gorier moments. Also as with the earlier film, sync is almost delightfully loose a lot of the time, despite a cast which features at least a few principal players who are native English speakers.
As with my final comments in the Zombie 3 Blu-ray review, I'm sure there are those who feel movies like this deserve zero stars and others who feel they're "classics" of some sort and therefore deserve fitting appreciation. I have no illusions about the manifest deficiencies of Zombie 4, but it kind of charmed me, nonetheless. While the supplements aren't quite as numerous on this release as on Zombie 3, the interview with Fragasso and Drudi is a lot of fun. Video has some pretty rough patches on this one, but audio sounds fine for those considering a purchase.
Limited Edition of 3000 | Zombi 3 | Zombie Flesh Eaters 2
1988
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Rosso Sangue
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Zombie 5: Killing Birds
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Zombi 2 / Zombie Flesh Eaters
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Terminator II
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Le notti del terrore
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Also Includes = I Eat Your Skin and Blue Sextet
1970
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1984
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1973
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1966