I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

Outright Rip-Offs of George Romero Movies


Zombie Island aka Zombi 2 (1979) Italian

This stinker of a film is acknowledged as an 'unofficial' sequel to Romero's Dawn of the Dead, although there is nothing about this movie that follows the other.


George Romero,  genius that he is can make good movies and movies that, well, you'll only want to see once, if not at all.


This Italian rip-off I wish I could erase from my brain but unfortunately, it's in there.


A murky story of a missing doctor and the daughter who searches for him starts in New York and ends up on some uncharted island. (Although an Italian film, they attempted to make it American).


The beginning finds the NY Harbor Patrol investigate a rogue boat with no one on board. While searching the boat and bloated zombie shows up and kills one of the officers.


We flash to the daughter looking for her father. Together with her boyfriend they charter a boat to take to the island he is supposedly doing research on. This zombie premise (according to the doctor) is that somehow voodoo is responsible and the undead are actually cureable - as long as it happens before they actually die (never happens). He ends up shooting all his 'patients' in the head - duh.


During the trip to the island we have an obligatory scene of the co-owner woman of the boat going scuba diving in almost total nudity. Now I'm never gonna try scuba diving myself, much less go down there totally exposed like that - but I guess they have to keep up interest.



Of course a shark shows up (guess she wishes she had better protection now) and while hiding from it, a zombie who apparently 'lives' underwater attacks her. She manages to get away and we have a rather unique scene of zombie vs. shark. There weren't any bubbles coming from the zombie so they must have had to shoot this in small increments - not bad. Oh, the shark wins.


We don't. We have to endure the rest of the trip, the discovery of the island and its grisly inhabitants (they're not as intact as in other movies - which is more realistic and another unique aspect of the movie).


After killings, gore, mayhem, boredom, the daughter and her boyfriend (daddy's now dead - or is he?) return to New York, only to find out that because of the Harbor Patrol officer's death the whole city is now infected. And blissfully the movie is over.