Zombi, Zombie, Zambino: The chaotic story of the world’s weirdest non-franchise.
In 1978, George Romero said “let there be zombies”, Dawn of the Dead happened, and it was good. Actually, it was a pretty massive success.
In Italy it was re-cut and re-scored, and it came out under the title “Zombi”. It was such a success that a year later a guy named Lucio Fulci made a movie called… Zombi 2. And it was advertised as a real sequel to Zombi, a.k.a. slightly tweaked Dawn of the Dead.
From now on, I’ll refer to Dawn of the Dead and Zombi 1 collectively as D1, and Zombi 2 as Z2. This will be important later. If that was all there was to it, it would just be a classic case of people making a ripoff in the wild 70's and we wouldn’t be sitting here, bewildered and mildly annoyed. But it didn’t stop there, oh no.
NINE YEARS LATER, Zombi 3 (henceforth Z3) came out, also directed by Fulci, but a sequel only insofar as it carries the same title, much like Halloween 3 has nothing to do with 1 and 2. Weird, but still understandable. D1, Z2, Z3, nice and organized.
But the rest of the world refused to accept this.
By the time D1 was re-cut and released as Zombi in Italy, its original cut had already come out in the UK as Dawn of the Dead, so Zombi 2 was released in the UK as Zombie Flesh Eaters, as in, the first in a series. And Z3 came out as, well, Zombie Flesh Eaters 2. No problem, right? Just remove the first movie from the equation and adjust accordingly… Right?
No. UK also has a Zombie Flesh Eaters 3, 1989’s Oltre La Morte, a.k.a. After Death, an Italian movie that really doesn’t have anything to do with Fulci’s Zombi series besides being a zombie movie. Let’s call that Z0, because the naming conventions are already starting to fall apart.
Germany saw this from a safe distance and generally went “Well, this is really silly. Time to make it worse.” In 1979, they released Zombie, the original cut of D1. In 1985, they released Zombie 2: Das Letzte Kapitel (The Last Chapter), which is… George Romero’s Day of the Dead, the real sequel to the original D1. Let’s file that under D2. But, three years later, Germany graced its audience with Zombie 3, originally known as Zombi 3, the Z3 that has nothing to do with neither D1, D2 or Z2.
Thailand played it straight.
They followed the UK model: Zombie Flesh Eaters is Z2, then Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 is Z3, Zombie Flesh Eaters 3 is Z0 (After Death).
Remember how I said Thai played it straight? That’s what we in the business call a lie. After Z0’s Thai release, they released Zombie Flesh Eaters 4 (T4), which is actually an Italian movie called Uccelli Assassini, which translates to KILLING BIRDS! Eat your heart out, Birdemic!
Let’s take a trip to the land down undah’. Australia did the thing Australians do and made us all wonder why, how and why again. Using the series title Zombi, it follows the Italian release scheme of D1, Z2, Z3, with Roman numerals, but then adds Zombi IV: Bakterion, also known as the 1982 Italian movie Panic. No codes for Australia, as these are mostly self-contained.
Then, Zombi V: Vengeance is 1973’s Vengeance of the Zombies.
Then, Zombi VI: The Mirage, is 82’s Oasis of the Zombies. It has treasure hunters, Nazi gold, and zombified Afrika Korps guards. It’s not as good as it sounds.
Zombi VII: Last Rites came in hot from 1975’s Night of the Seagulls. Eat your heart out, Killing Birds! Actually it’s not about birds, it’s about Zombie Templars, shut up.
And just a few months ago, in 2020, we were graced with ZOMBI VIII: URBAN DECAY. The plot seems to be a callback to the original Z2, set 40 years after the Fulci classic, but the IMDb page is literally a sentence long and I have nothing in me to watch this garbage. The covers for the Australian Zombi movies are my favorite.
Don’t you feel something’s amiss? Something red, white, and blue?
You know it baby, America saw whatever the hell just happened and decided to make which is possibly the most confusing addition to this hell franchise.
It wastes no time kicking the door down and doing whatever the hell it wants.
Z2 came out as Zombie.
Z3 came out as, well, Zombie 3. America does not have a movie titled Zombie 2 at this time, which was a tactical decision to avoid further confusion. Hah.
Z0 came out as Zombie 4: After Death. Great! Maybe we can finally put this all behind us.
Out of left field, T4 swoops in as Zombie 5: Killing Birds! Okay, sure, maybe they wanted to borrow another title for the series. Long-numbered movie series were in vogue at the time.
And for a few years, peace reigned in America. But it wasn’t meant to last, oh no.
In the 90's, someone decided it would be a great idea to re-release the original Fulci Zombi duology under an entirely new naming scheme along with a bunch of… Random garbage? No codes, as we won’t be talking about these again.
Zombie is still Z2, but Z3 was re-released as Zombie 2! Now Z3 is Zombie 2 and 3!
Zombie 3: Return of the Zombies, which is the worst title so far, is actually Merino’s The Hanging Woman, a Spanish movie called La Orgia de Los Muertos.
Enter Zombie 4: A Virgin Among The Living Dead. A French movie originally known as Christina, princesse de l’érotisme, slightly edited with new scenes.
Zombie 5: Revenge in the House of Usher? Sure, why not. Directed by the same guy who directed Christina, but an entirely different story. Note that “Zombie 5” was only added to the box and not anywhere else.
Zombie 6: Monster Hunter proves that 2020’s Monster Hunter movie adaptation isn’t the only embarrassment to a franchise to use that name. It’s Absurd. As in, a movie called Absurd, which is appropriately a production disaster: It was supposed to be a proper sequel to 1980’s Anthropophagous, but creative differences turned it into a weird Halloween ripoff about a dudebro Wolverine that was gifted his healing factor by a church-sponsored botched science experiment.
And finally, Zombie 7, no subtitle, is just a traditional, original Zombie movie.
Just kidding. Fuck you. Zombie 7 is Anthropophagous, the movie that was supposed to come before Zombie 6 Monster Hunter.
Honorary Mentions!
This is just a random grab bag of movies that came out around the world under the Zombi banner but don’t fit the structure we tried to set up:
Italy’s Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti, Zombie Holocaust (yeah, really), Nightmare City and Burial Ground have all, at some point, been released as or referred to as Zombi 3 or Zombie 3.
Panic, a.k.a. Zombi IV: Bakterion in Australia, was released in Greece as Zombie 4.
1991’s Zombie ’90 Extreme Pestilence, a.k.a. Zombie 2001 Battle Royale, was also released as Zombi 7, somehow. Three titles, one underwhelming movie.
Zombie 1, from 1995, sometimes titled Zombi 1, is a random Dutch short film, part of an anthology, don’t worry about it.
And, for my personal favorite:
Pulgasari is an 1985 Korean Kaiju movie. The cover looks really cool, but the movie was made by Shin Sang-Ok during his time as a literal victim of kidnapping by the North Korean government, where he was forced to produce movies for the State for 7 years, Pulgasari being his last. Kind of a bummer.
How does it connect to Zombi, you ask?
In Pakistan, it was released under the title Zombi 34: Communist Bull Monster.
Good night.
