[The Limey]

Review from AVF:

Picture

“Whatever it is, it makes the dead get up and walk!”

What we have here is a 2K transfer taken from the original uncensored camera negative. For the first time, Arrow – who have a chequered past with the quality of their hi-def releases of European movies – had complete control over the encode, with the process overseen by James White, who was responsible for the painstaking work undertaken on Tokyo Story and The Passion of Joan of Arc, so the potential for a good job certainly seemed greater than ever before.

Now, without wanting to muddy the waters any further, I am of the understanding that BU’s transfer was also minted from the OCN. But the results are certainly different, and this comes to how the 2K harvest has been dealt with after the scan.

This disc offers us the choice of watching the movie with any of three different title sequences - Zombie Flesh Eaters, Zombi and Zombi 2. But the film remains the same, folks, with no differing cuts. Opting for Zombie Flesh Easters results in a grainier set of titles, though. That’s one thing I noticed. The black backing on the other two, like in the BU transfer, is much smoother and less noisy.

Print damage is minimal. We still have the dancing yellow streak that flickers about during the shark-attack scene, of course, and something that is a little odd is that the small hair, or bit of debris that is caught at the top of the frame as Peter finishes his phone-call to his boss (cameo’d by Fulci) to inform him that he is travelling out to Matul with Ann is longer in the Arrow print than in the BU. Otherwise, the image is very clean.

Immediately, we can see differences from the Blue Underground transfer. This version does not have the same colour-boosting, thankfully. I much prefer this more natural, far less exaggerated palette. Now, granted, the BU disc was often gorgeously redolent and EC-style lurid, but I personally had a couple of problems with it as well. The throat-rippings of both the harbour-cop and of Auretta Gay, as well as the head-mashing that Peter does of the Worm-Eye zombie with the wooden cross, were so over-saturated that they seemed to contaminate the entire frame, ironically lessening the shock-value of the effects with gaudy overkill. There are no such problems here. The colour-balance is much more akin to how I have always seen it in Zombi. Skin-tones, for the living, are nowhere near as ruddy as they are on the US disc. The vegetation on Matul isn’t as lividly presented, the gore not as lurid. Don’t complain about the latter, though. This looks much better, with the contrast between flesh, clothing and backdrops and the blood that we see gushing against them is far keener and, therefore, considerably more effective. It sounds a bizarre reference-point – the blood contrast and its visual consistency – but you know how much it matters here.

There is no smearing and no banding. The pale blue skies still have a propensity to appear grey/white in some shots, but then they always did. Without the frozen grain, they certainly look better now.

Regardless of which version you prefer, there is no uniformity to the presentation of film grain. The original photography from Sergio Salvati, especially in the opening scene in the New York Harbour, for example, changes from shot-to-shot. Some are surprisingly well-textured and highly detailed, whilst a couple (throat-bite cop going below deck) look very soft and clean-swept of detail. Grain is not as apparent on this version. Yep, in the BU there was plenty of it at times – but it frequently took on that frozen, crystalline appearance that can look quite horrible and artificial. On the Arrow release, it has been dramatically smoothened, and allowed to look more even, more consistently spread across the frame. This opening segment highlights the differences quite dramatically. The UK transfer has none of that glistening noise in the skies. Now before you go screaming about DNR – yes, there has undoubtedly been some reduction made, but to my eyes, it results in a picture that is considerably less waxy than evidenced in those troublesome shots that the American disc has in abundance, such as the close-ups of Auretta Gay as she turns to face the zombie uprooting himself from the ground, for instance. There was clearly a loss of detail on the US disc that was being compensated for with the horrid grain. Here, however, there is a lot more texture on display on the whole, despite the noise reduction.

And it doesn’t look smudgy beneath a veil of silver-stippled grain.

In terms of detail, both versions are probably pretty much the same when you first compare them … although, as you would expect from someone scrutinising a film that he knows so damn well and looking for anomalies, I actually discovered a couple of things that I’d never noticed before. Good things to look out for are people moving about on Liberty Island, the red van trundling along beside the Hudson, the stringy striations on latex wounds, the spit that travels down the sinew being chewed by one of the zombies as he savours a chunk of flesh from Mrs. Menard’s severed hand, the covers on the books strewn about the floor of the derelict, and the leaves and twigs that litter the frame when our heroes stop off for that unfortunate rest in the Conquistador graveyard. Without a doubt, these things looked incredibly clean and crisp and clear in BU’s version, but I wouldn’t hesitate in saying that they look better here. The appearance of foliage and detritus on the shabby streets in deeper shots is no longer as “clumpy” – it is much better defined. Now the colour cast and suffusion that swathed the BU edition may have something to do with this, possibly losing some of the finer resolution as a result of the saturation, but this transfer seems to yield many more improvements on top of that.

The woodgrain in the clapboard hospital, the material in clothing (the badges and leather jackets on the harbour cops, the pattern on Peter’s shirt), the bottles and jars on the shelves, the torn threads as a dead-head pushes through its shroud. All of this seems crisper to me. Even the plants underwater and the stripes on the shark, the bubble-streams in the sea, the mangled flesh, the wisps of gunsmoke from Dr. Menard's revolver, and the bullet hits in the side of Lucas’ head and just under the eye of the zombie who eats Dr. Menard’s cheek off. These last two elements you could never really see until the film arrived on Blu, and they look clearer here than on the BU disc. Facial close-ups can be extremely detailed, especially those of Richard Johnson, and the various clay-pasted cadavers. Again, there is more finite clarity and resolution in eyes and hair than evidenced in the American transfer.

Depth too, is increased. The shambling ghouls in the streets of the shanty-town, and those we see in portrait shots loitering outside the hospital at dusk, have a keener sense of three-dimensionality that it is very welcome. The zombies looming up through the shuttered windows. The image is now even more luxuriously cinematic, though I appreciate that this could well be down to the eye of the beholder. But look at Peter with his revolver outstretched towards Susan, and see that little stem of a dried plant waggling out of the frame as the camera moves in on Peter and Ann as they settle down on the ground. Suddenly, these apparently small images become more pronounced than previously – and the US disc was no slouch in this department, itself. But then, how about the zombie hand that emerges from the ground and moves for Ann’s head? Or the ghastly fingers that paw at the glass as Mrs. Menard takes a shower? Once more, there is a degree of three-dimensionality that, as good it seemed in the BU image, looks better again, here.

Good contrast and strong blacks compliment the growing sense of approaching menace and depravity. Shadows are reliably deep, and there is no detail lost within them.

There is no edge enhancement to the image. Delineation is smoothly handled. I wasn’t distracted by any artefacts, or aliasing.

Some people had their doubts about how good this was going to look, especially after a very rewarding hi-def debut on its US disc. Could it actually look any different, they reasoned, with it being taken from apparently the same source? Well, it certainly can, and does. This new restoration is tremendous, and a bloody feather in Arrow’s cap.

I gave the BU transfer an 8 out of 10, which pretty much means that I should award this a 9, doesn’t it? It most certainly is better, but a 9???? Come on, now.

Then again, for a low-budget Italian gut-muncher from 1979, this looks fantastic. So hey … bite me!

Picture score : 9

Sound

Whereas the Blue Underground edition sported 7.1 and 5.1 options, as well as the original mono tracks in both English and Italian, Arrow have the film presented with just the an LPCM 2.0 track, in either English or Italian.

There’s nothing wrong with this, of course. I mean let’s be honest, there isn’t a great deal that was done with the original audio elements in BU’s surround options, despite Zombi having quite a clever and ingeniously in-yer-face sound design from Bruno Moreal. So purists shouldn’t have much to moan about regarding any unnecessary manipulation.

Dialogue is blissfully warped out by the bugaboo-dubbing that we all know and love from Italian Cinema. It doesn’t fit the mouths, and you shouldn’t expect it to. But the speech is clear and clean, even Al Cliver’s (erm … Nick Alexander’s) occasionally chunky and mumbled words, and faint babbling of those stricken, snot-covered patients about to succumb to the mysterious plague. Tisa Farrow's simply dreadful screaming is still sure to set the teeth on-edge.

The creaking and yawing of the derelict boat is still presented quite atmospherically, the sudden whumpff of the sail landing on the older copper still makes me jump. The horrible fat synth effect – whuh-whuh-whuh-whuh – when his doomed partner goes below and makes some horrible discoveries is deep and suitably repulsive. The sudden crash of timber as the rampaging zombie comes thundering through the door to get him makes me jump even more. Bass levels for crunches like this, and other impacts, aren't too shabby considering the limitations of the mix.

Fabio Frizzi’s score is a splattery belter, and it has some depth and appreciable vigour in this mix. There’s not a great deal of range or warmth to it, but it hits all the right notes with the sort of nerve-jangling nastiness that is required. The glittering, bubble-burst cue when Susan goes for a swim sounds nicely ethereal. The doomed chanting of the main theme is solid, though undeniably dated, and the steroidal synth-shrieking when we stumble upon the banquet being made of Mrs. Menard lacks any sort of senses-paralysing high ends, yet still delivers a fine jolt. But you can’t complain about what was originally just a hemmed-in mono mix sounding flat.

Personally, I enjoy the added oomph afforded the gunshots in the meatier surround mixes on the US disc. Brian’s shotgun is much more formidable and chunky-sounding, and as daft as the triple-blast effect is when he blows the zombie apart who has been poking his rotting head through the hospital window, I love the boosted shockwave as the timbers rain down. Here, in Arrow’s more faithful soundtrack mix, this echoing effect is nowhere near as pronounced. But it is more accurate to the source, though.

Although completely frontally presented, there is still some subtle ambience that works reasonably well. The moaning of the zombies and the sound of their rasping, dead lungs is quite decently presented. When the yacht is just approaching Matul after the “eye” scene, we can hear an unseen deadster lurking in the bushes just off the beach, and this effect certainly comes over with some unsettling presence, although this sort of thing did, perhaps, sound more effective in the lossless surround track of the BU disc.

This is a good, consistent track that sounds faithful and accurate to me.

Sound score : 6

Verdict

Despite some reservations about this release from Arrow in certain quarters, this new restored edition of Zombie Flesh Eaters is very definitely worth your while.

“The boat can leave now. Tell the crew.”

One of the greatest gore-flicks ever made, and certainly one of the most notorious, Zombi, Zombi 2, or Zombie Flesh Eaters as many of us know and love it, chews its bloody way onto region-free UK Blu-ray to ravage itself into the ghoulish dark hearts of a new generation, and to warm the exposed and steaming cockles of those of the die-hards. The pantheon of the cannibalistic undead had been long established even by the time that Spaghetti-horror troll Lucio Fulci unveiled his own brand of zombie-gut-muncher, thanks to George Romero and Jorge Grau. But their classic films had the artistic merit of being societal observations and deliberate sticks of cultural dynamite. Fulci had no such aspirations. He loved the concept of endless slaughter – both of the living and the already dead – and wanted to out-gross the past-masters at their own game. And he definitely succeeded.

Zombie is infinitely nastier than anything Romero would conjure up, but even if it’s sole raison-d’être is to turn stomachs and to sensationalise close-up uber-violence, Fulci, perhaps unwittingly, opens the door to a few metaphysical concepts that he would certainly go on to pursue in the following three horror classics he would make straight afterwards.

The story is simple and saturated with grue.

A mysterious plague brings back the dead on the Caribbean island of Matul, and makes them hungry for the flesh of the living. The local doctor, Menard (Richard Johnson), battles to find a cure or a solution to the epidemic, but his attempts are in vain. Carnage and mutilation ensue as an investigative reporter escorts a dim damsel on a search for her lost father on the island and, together with another couple, discover the horror of the living dead. A desperate battle for survival leaves the tropical enclave awash with blood … and when it becomes clear that the plague has reached civilisation, it seems as if the apocalypse has arrived.

Zombie’s second scooping of Blu entrails has been much ballyhooed by fans, and with good reason. Made in 1979, on a sinew-taut shoestring, Fulci’s splatter-tacular has never looked better. Its AVC transfer is vibrant, clean and detailed. The concerns about the colour timing that I had about the Blue Underground release do not figure in this very impressive, frame-by-frame restored transfer from the OCN. There are no audio surround remixes here, but the LPCM 2.0 track is not lacking in atmosphere or 80’s synth ferocity. A slew of fine new extras seal the deal on this unparalleled cult classic, and it is hard to imagine fans left feeling unsatisfied by Arrow Video’s sumptuously grisly UK Blu-ray release.

Nubile young ladies served-up as tasty titbits? A zombie grappling with a real live Tiger Shark? Bugaboo dubbing and a script that makes only a modicum of sense? More fresh offal than an abattoir, and the longest, nastiest wooden splinter in cinematic history? Aye, that’ll be Uncle Lucio’s Zombie Flesh Eaters. Good wholesome family entertainment guaranteed … provided your family live in Texas and have an obsession with chainsaws and head-cheese.

Highly recommended for those with souls as jaded as mine.

Overall score : 9

Zombie Flesh Eaters Blu-ray Review | AVForums.com - UK Online