YMMV / Zombi 2

• Awesome Music: Fabio Frizzi's ice-cold electronic score perfectly captures the hopelessness and despair of the coming Zombie Apocalypse. Especially the main theme. ^note Which is actually a remix of Frizzi's theme from Cozzilla.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: The film's probably as famous for featuring cool zombie scenes as it is for Auretta Gay's bare-breasted scuba diving scenes.
• Creepy Awesome: This movie has some of the most disgustingly graphic zombies in all of film history but damn if they don't look realistic as hell. Unlike a lot of movie zombies in the pre-CGI era, these ones genuinely look decayed and rotting, covered in dirt and (in one memorable case) with worms coming out of their eyes.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • "Ol' Worm Eye," one of the most famous zombies in movie history, actually only has about 5 minutes of screentime.
  • The shark-punching zombie is equally popular, for somewhat obvious reasons.
• Fight Scene Failure: Near the end of the hospital shootout, the characters are fighting their way through several groups of zombies by whacking them in the head with their weapons. However, some of the zombies react a little too late to the impact.
• Funny Moments: As Susan gets ready to go scuba diving, Peter can't help but stare as she gets undressed. When Anne, Peter's Implied Love Interest, notices him ogling Susan, he quickly looks away and tries to act casual. Meanwhile Brian, Susan's actual boyfriend, is nonchalantly munching on a snack with a look that says 'Eh, seen it.'
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Imagine being shunned by much of the movie making business and laughed at. Many people, actors and crew, experienced this. It wasn't until a Con invited Lucio Fulci and the rest of the film's crew to America did they realize just how much people loved the film. They truly felt honored to have a devoted fanbase and were so happy to see people enjoy it. They were even moved to tears once people began to thank them for the film.
• Moment of Awesome: The scene where a zombie fights a shark underwater is easily the highlight of the film both in-universe and out, and worth the price of admission all on its own. The guy who agreed to wrestle an actual goddamned shark in full zombie makeup deserves the movie's entire budget as a raise. The best part? That wasn't even a stuntman. That was just some random guy they found, ^note Ramon Bravo, a local shark trainer who agreed to do the scene. And he does an incredible job, because not only is he wrestling with an actual tiger shark (one of the most dangerous breeds!) but he doesn't let off so much as an air bubble the entire time.
• Narm:
  • The acting ranges from stilted to over-the-top, which can otherwise ruin the impact of some of the more legitimately serious moments in the film. This isn't helped by the combination of rather gratuitous closeups and jump cuts in these particular scenes.
  • The ending would normally be horrifying...except for the fact that despite zombies slowly walking towards New York City (which they apparently already control), cars are seen driving both out of and into the infested city at no faster speed than one would expect on the average NYC day. While this is obviously due to that the film didn't have enough money to close down one of the streets in the busiest city on Earth for filming, it's still a surreally hilarious shot in an otherwise realistic film (for a zombie movie, anyway).
• Nausea Fuel: A lot of the gore qualifies due to how realistic it looks, especially considering the budget. Special mention goes to the eye-gouging scene. Of a different sort of nauseating, there's the awful gurgling sounds Susan makes after "Ol' Worm Eye" rips her throat out.
• Signature Scene: It's split between the eye-gouge scene and the shark-wrestling scene.
• Stock Footage Failure: The beginning of the hospital shootout involves the survivors tossing Molotov cocktails at the breaching zombies. However, it repeatedly cuts back and fourth between the same shots of the characters throwing the Molotovs and the yet to be on fire hospital.
• Strangled by the Red String: Anne and Peter, after going the entire movie with hardly any romantic tension, suddenly pick a time where they're lost on an island crawling with undead, having just narrowly avoided being killed, to start making out on the ground. Though it was probably justified by the filmmakers as it creates an excuse for a zombie's hand to come out of the ground and grab Anne's hair.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Dr. Manard having to shoot the corpse of Anne's father. It's clear the two men were good friends from the way Manard agonizes over the action. At one point he even seems to break down and almost start to cry before he finally works up the nerve to pull the trigger.
  • Brian cradling Susan's dead body after she's killed by a zombie.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Richard Johnson was embarrassed about appearing in this film. But being the consummate professional that he was, he gave it his all and it shows. The world-weariness, the good intentions, Johnson manages to turn the role of a Mad Scientist into a tragic, well-intentioned scientist trying to solve the problem instead of exacerbating it.
• Vindicated by History: Upon its release it was labeled a video nasty and critics weren't too impressed. Even the Italian critics felt it was below par. However, once YouTube began clips featuring the now-famous Shark vs. Zombie and the eye gouging scenes they racked up views in the millions. Couple that with some newer reviews from online film critics and people were actively seeking out the film in droves. Nowadays, it's considered up there with other great zombie films like George A. Romero's original Living Dead film trilogy. Hell, most will likely be offended nowadays to not see this film on "Best Horror Movies"/"Best Zombie Movies" lists.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: For a low-budget '70s horror film, the makeup and gore effects are very realistic. Arguably some of the most impressive makeup work in the history of exploitation cinema. Seriously, when you've seen Dawn of the Dead (1978), which had ground breaking effects for the time, compared to this one the zombies are much better and scarier. Couple this with how even the effects crew thought they'd do a bad job with this film. Additionally, there is no substitute in any film for the sight of a stuntman in zombie makeup brawling with an actual shark underwater.
• The Woobie:
  • Poor Paola. She's scared out of her wits being on an island full of zombies and isn't allowed to leave just because her husband wants to study them further. She ends up getting the most brutal death in the film.
  • Anne as well. She unexpectedly loses contact with her father while he's on a trip, her only clue to his whereabouts being his boat turning up with a single zombie on-board. She goes to Matul looking for answers, only to find out that her father became infected with the zombie plague and had to be mercy killed by his friend. And that's before she has to spend the rest of the movie running from zombies!

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