About the same time that I picked up Zombi 2, I noticed a sequel to it and decided to pick that movie up as well. Turns out that, while it did have the same director, today’s movie was a sequel in name only. To be honest, it didn’t really matter as I was in a zombie mood and another new zombie movie was just what the doctor ordered. So I picked it up and watched it and my opinion of Italian horror movies pretty much increased in terms of their desire to add more gore to their horror movies. So let’s get ready for some more zombie goodness with today’s movie, Zombi 3.
The plot: In a government lab on an island, Dr. Alan Holder and his assistant Norma are working on a virus called Death One, in the hopes that it will revive the dead. Though the tests on animals were successful, when he tests it on a human corpse, it reacts violently and ends up disfiguring the corpse and turning it into a zombie. Dr. Holder reports to his superiors the failure and resigns from the project and the military arrives to take the remaining samples of the serum to another facility. As the helicopter arrives to pick up the serum, Holder and Norma, accompanied by an armed security escort, head outside to meet it. Suddenly, a van pulls up and three armed men begin shooting at the guards. The guards, as well as the co-pilot for the helicopter, fire back and manage to kill two of the thieves before they are killed but the third crook manages to grab the case and run off as more guards appear. Holder tells the guards to catch the man, as he stole top secret research, and the head off after him, with one guard climbing into the helicopter as it takes off. The helicopter spots the man and the guard opens fire on him, eventually shooting the case out of his hand, and unknowingly breaking the canisters inside. As the crook goes to pick it up, his hand is burned by the contents of the case and he screams before leaving the area. Making his way through the jungle, he comes to a resort and quickly gets a room so he can rest. Meanwhile, Holder is talking with his staff at the facility when General Morton and his aides, Sgts. Tracey and Cheney, enter the room and ask to speak with him and Norma. As the rest of the scientists leave, Morton tells Holder that they found the case but the vial was broken and the contents got out. Holder isn’t worried, as the compound would be rendered inert within 30 seconds after exposure to oxygen but when Morton tells him that the crook was most likely contaminated, as they found blood at the scene, Holder tells him he must find and contain him before he spreads the contagion. At the resort, a bellhop brings some water to the crook’s room but when he get’s no response, he leaves and runs into a maid, causing him to drop the water glass and he cuts his finger on the glass as he picks it up. Inside the room’s bathroom, the crook is becoming even more infected from his contact with the contagion and he cuts off his hand to try and stop the infection’s spread. When a maid comes in to change the sheets, she hears a moan from the bathroom and heads inside and finds the severed hand, just before the crook, now a zombie, kills her. The military, wearing hazmat suits, arrive at the resort and hold everyone at bay, not noticing the bellhop holding his hand, where his cut finger shows signs of being infected with Death One. When the enter the crook’s room, they find the body of the maid pinned to the door with a machete before a soldier says he found the man, leading them to the laundry room where the body is. Morton orders everyone at the resort to be killed and buried in a mass grave, while the infected man’s body is taken to a facility to be burned. When Holder learns about what happened to the body, he chastises Morton for burning the body, as Norma tells him that the ashes could contain the virus and come back down to Earth but Morton dismisses their concerns. However, the smoke that billows out from the smoke stacks does contain the virus, and when some birds fly through the smoke, they become infected and fall to the ground. In the island’s major city, 3 soldiers (Bo, Kenny, and Roger) are on leave and planning on heading out to find some women to hook up with. As they are driving along, they come across a bus containing Nancy, Suzanne, Carole, Lia, Jane, as well as Jane’s boyfriend Tom, David, and the bus driver Joe. Nancy, Carole, and Suzanne start flirting with the soldiers, who decide to follow the bus and try and hook up with them. Meanwhile, two tourists, Patricia and Glenn, are driving along when they come across the birds on the road and go to move them off the road when they reanimate and one of them pecks Glenn in the face before they are able to leave. Meanwhile, the soldiers are still following the bus when some more infected birds attack the bus, managing to get in through the open windows. The birds peck one of the girls, Lia, and when the soldiers go to try and help them, they say there isn’t a hospital nearby but there is a resort they can go to tend to her wounds. Meanwhile, Patricia stops at a run down gas station, as Glenn’s wound is getting worse, and she heads inside the garage to try and find some help but gets no response. When the door closes and locks her in, she continues looking around to try and find some help only to encounter a zombie chained to the wall. As she stumbles back from it, a second zombie, wielding a machete, attacks her. Patricia manages to make it outside and as the zombie continues to attack her, it accidentally cuts one of the lines for the fuel pump, covering it in gasoline. Patricia manages to get back to her car, then seeing the leaking gas, grabs her lighter and throws it at the fuel, setting the zombie on fire, as well as causing the station to explode as she drives away. Back at the research lab, Holder and Norma go to see Morton, telling him that their sensors picked up a radioactive cloud over the city, just as reports start coming in of violence and people eating other people. Holder and Norma realize that Death One is responsible and Morton wants to deal with the problem by killing all of those infected but Holder says that they should focus on creating a cure for Death One. When Morton agrees to let him work on a cure but says he will continue to handle things his way until then, Holder yells at him for not explaining the risks beforehand but Morton mocks him, saying he is just a simple soldier. Elsewhere, the soldiers and bus passengers arrive at the resort, only to find it in disrepair after Morton’s men killed everyone there. Taking Lia inside to the lobby, Roger tries the phone only to find it not working, while Kenny hears a noise coming from the upper floors and goes to investigate. Roger finds a crate of guns left over from when Morton’s men were there and after getting Kenny and Tom to help him, they carry it inside. Meanwhile, Lia’s condition is getting worse so Bo and Carole decide to take the soldiers’s jeep and go find some medical help. As they are driving through the nearby town, which Carole finds unnerving because there is nobody around, the jeep breaks down and when Bo checks the engine, he says they will need some water for the radiator. Carole goes to get some water as Bo starts working on the jeep and as she cries out to see if anybody is there, she doesn’t notice a zombie approaching behind her. As she checks an apartment on the upper floor, the zombie suddenly pushes her over the railing, where she lands in the pool. Carole calls out for help and Bo sees her predicament and dives in to save her but as he drags her out of the water, her legs are shown to have been bitten off. Suddenly, Carole turns and starts to attack him but he manages to push her back into the water, just as more zombies start trying to attack him. Bo manages to get out of the town just as the military arrive and begin killing all the zombies they find. Blue Heart, the local DJ, can be heard over the radio telling people about the reported violence and giving a list of hospitals and police stations they can go to. Bo sees Patricia and Glenn driving by and flags them down, then hops in when Patricia stops, telling him she is heading to the nearest hospital. As night falls, Blue Heart gives another report saying to stay indoors and Kenny and the others, listening at the resort, decide to settle in for the night, with Kenny and Roger keeping watch. Tom and Jane decide to go look for some food in the kitchen and as Tom opens the freezer, a zombie head that was inside suddenly comes to life and attacks him, while Jane is killed by another zombie (or the severed head’s body). Outside, Bo, Patricia, and Glenn are continuing to drive and Bo convinces Patricia to swing by the resort when Glenn suddenly turns and begins attacking Patricia. As Bo struggles with him, Patricia is able to stop the car on a bridge and get out, but injures her leg in the process. Bo continues fighting with Glenn, managing to stop him but more zombies show up and proceed to kill him. As more zombies appear on the bridge and approach her, Patricia jumps off the bridge and into the water below, then swims to shore. Back at the hotel, Roger and Kenny continue keeping watch but are growing uneasy that Bo hasn’t made it back yet. Inside, Lia has changed and killed Suzanne in her sleep then goes after Nancy, who manages to wake up and fends her off. When Lia continues trying to attack her, Nancy ducks out of the way and Nancy ends up falling out the window and onto the street below in front of the two soldiers, killing her. Suddenly, the lights on the bus come on and the soldiers start to check it out when they see Patricia approaching. Seeing the soldiers, she heads towards them and warns them that the zombies are coming. As the others head down to find out what is happening, Kenny and Roger tell them they have to barricade the entrance, unaware that some more zombies are breaking in on the second floor. As the zombies break in to the lobby, Roger sets some of them on fire with a flamethrower but the zombies manage to grab Joe and kill him. Retreating upstairs, they continue fending off the zombies but are forced to leave the hotel when some of the flaming zombies set it on fire. As they make their way through the jungle, Roger goes out in front to scout around and is attacked by some zombies but is able to kill them, then yells for the others to hurry down as there are some canoes they can use to paddle upstream. Back at the research station, Holder and his team continue working on a cure for Death One and think they have come finding one, while Morton’s men continue patrolling the area and killing everyone, zombies and humans alike. Kenny, Patricia, Roger, David, and Nancy make it up river and as they stop to catch their breath, Nancy tends to Patricia’s wound. Seeing a chicken nearby, David tries to catch it but as it gets away, he finds himself facing some of Morton’s troops and is gunned down. The soldiers then try to kill the others but Kenny and Roger begin shooting back, killing two of the soldiers, as they head back to their canoes and get away. As a helicopter team spots them and radios in their position, the helicopter has to refuel and heads to a nearby village to do so. Meanwhile, Morton is addressing Holder and his staff and says the infection is contained and would soon be eradicated but Holder tells him that the virus had mutated when he burned the body and it might be capable of spreading past the island now but Morton feels that isn’t his problem, but Holder and the other scientists, as they created the virus and need to still find a cure. Kenny, Roger, Patricia, and Nancy reach the village and as they explore the area, Nancy and Patricia discover a pregnant woman inside. Patricia goes to get Kenny and Roger for help but she is attacked by Glenn and dragged into another room. Roger and Kenny encounter more of Morton’s cleanup crew and as they reluctantly drop their weapons but when the cleanup crew moves to attack them, they are forced to fend them off. Nancy helps tend to the pregnant woman as she starts to go into labor but a zombie suddenly attacks her and shoves her towards the pregnant woman’s stomach, where a hand suddenly bursts out and grabs her, killing her. Patricia fends off Glenn and manages to behead him, then she is grabbed by Kenny and Roger, who help her out of there, seeing what happened to Nancy as they do. As they head outside, they are confronted by more zombies and are forced to fend them off when they spot the helicopter, now abandoned, and head for it. Kenny and Patricia make it to the helicopter while Roger covers them but as Roger goes to jump onto the helicopter, some zombies spring up from the ground and drag him back down. Kenny and Patricia fly away as some more members of the cleanup crew arrive and begin killing all of the zombies, as well as Roger. As Kenny and Patricia fly away, the hear Blue Heart speaking over the radio, playing a song for his fellow undead as he is revealed to have been infected and turned as well. Patricia wonders what is going to happen to them but Kenny tells her they are going to have to go back and fight.
As good of a movie as Zombi 2 was, this fell short of reaching that same effect. The acting was ok but the dubbing was pretty atrocious at times. The story kind of used the theme that the modern zombie movies (at the time) were using to explain zombies, basically that some chemical reaction revitalized the dead. While I thought the initial idea was good, I felt like the whole bit about the birds carrying the disease was a bit much, though I will admit that it was a somewhat ingenious way to introduce the virus to multiple people in different locations. The special effects with the make up and gore was pretty good and they definitely decided to put some gore into this movie. One thing that I did find incredibly stupid was the bit with the severed head, and how it somehow flew out of the fridge and killed Tom. I’m sorry, but that there had to be one of the stupidest bit of cinematic licensing I have ever seen in regards to a zombie movie. Look, I will give you that a severed zombie head might still try biting you, as the brain would still be “relatively” functioning, but how in the hell is it supposed to move. I mean, if it had used it’s tongue to somehow roll along on the floor, I might, MIGHT, find that believable, in a pretty minuscule sense. That aspect aside, this was a pretty decent zombie movie and worth giving a watch.
Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5
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