Earlier this year  discovered that I could get DVDs mailed to my by Blockbuster and that the selection online was a million times greater than any brick and mortar store (though still like the brick and mortar stores and hope they don’t all disappear).  This discovery overwhelmed me and after spending nearly an hour reading through all the different horror movies they had available and adding the titles to my queue, I said ‘screw it’ and just started adding every single movie they had.  Of course I have somewhat come to regret this decision a bit since I now have to search through my entire queue in order to find movies that I suddenly have a

craving to see, and also because I sometimes will end up with the third or forth movie in a series that I have never even heard of before, hence my viewing of Zombi 3, which, as some of you may know is the sequel to Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 (Zombi 2 was actually the first in the series and was given this title as a gimmick to make people think it was the sequel to Dawn of the Dead).  Thankfully, having done some research, I learned that it wasn’t absolutely necessary to have seen Zombi 2 in order to understand Zombi 3 and felt justified in watching it.  

Zombi 3 is the story of a bacteriological agent that is being created by some scientist for a military out in some Asian Pacific region (some people online have said it is supposed to be the Philippines, but I don’t know this for sure).  After working on the bacteriological agent for a while in a room with an annoying flashing red light (I have no idea why a flashing light would be important in a room like that, but apparently it was) they decide to transport it somewhere else, their minds startled to have seen a dead body come back to life from the chemical and them kind of melt and explode (the effects were pretty good and it grossed me out).  Unfortunately they don’t get very far with the chemical because a group of gunmen attack them, one of whom runs off into the jungle with the case, which eventually sickens him to the point where he must hole up in a resort, where he starts to murder people as his body mutates into a putrid rotting pulsating glob of zombie flesh that still clings to the bone (all really gross).  Thankfully the military swarms in before the infection is spread too far and eliminates all the people who were there -- healthy and infected.  Unfortunately they then cremate the body of the infected man, which puts the chemical into the air (sound familiar), which then infects a flock of birds who start spreading the contagion throughout the population.     

The movie wasn’t really all that great, but was entertaining and would have been perfectly suited for a Mystery Science Theater episode (for all I know, maybe it was one, and if so I would like to see it).  I also enjoyed the new look of the zombies and the way some ran around rather than just stumbling about, a few of them even set up ambushes inside of buildings and would drop down on top of their victims as they were backing away from other zombies, which, of course would turn into a little kung fu zombie fight (Joe Bob Briggs would have probably called this Zombie Fu during his Monster Vision drive in totals).  Some also carried weapons and seemed very capable of hacking a person to death with a machete, or stabbing them with a knife.  The best part, however, was the rotting pulsating greenish boils that seemed to appear all over the victims faces after they were infected with the chemical agent, which was disgustingly delicious to watch.  I also liked how when the scientist were working on a solution to the problem their main mode of creating an antidote was by writing the word Death One (the name of the chemical agent) all over the black board with different lines and molecule symbols rather than using microscopes and test slides and syringes filled with potential antidotes that they would test on infect beings.  I also loved it how all the military guys seemed to have no clue how to handle weapons and would constantly be pointing the barrels at fellow soldier’s heads or backs while waiting around, or resting their own chin or head upon the barrel opening while on guard duty.  Talk about an accident waiting to happen.     

All in all not a bad movie, though one I wouldn’t really recommend spending money on unless you are a fan of this director’s work and like Italian horror movies of this type.  For me personally I would only watch them if I could get them for free, which, with the Blockbuster membership, kind of feels that way, so I will be seeing more in the future, probably starting with some of Lucio Fulci’s non-Zombi films and then returning to this series, which I’ve read extends beyond Zombi 3.