Zombie 4: After Death (1988)

October 27, 2004

by Nathan Shumate

aka Oltre la Morte, aka Zombie Flesh Eaters 3

Directed by “Clyde Anderson” (Claudio Fragasso)
Written by Rossella Drudi
Starring
- Chuck Peyton
- Candice Daly
- “Alex McBride” (Massimo Vanni)
- Jim Gaines
- Don (not “the Dragon”) Wilson

It’s not just that Italian zombie flicks are uniformly bad movies (although heaven knows that’s an unassailable matter of fact); they also manage to be some of the least classy movies ever. It’s like a pall of cheapness hanging over a production that you know must have been adequately funded. It’s an endomonetary reaction: More money goes in the front end than comes out on the screen.

In this case, the biggest waste of money seems to have been the paycheck to the credited screenwriter, Rossella Drudi, as she appears to have only turned in random scenes from the completed script. Either that, or editor Maurizio Baglivo too zealously excised anything containing forward momentum, meaningful exposition, or a level of quality above the lowest common denominator.

By this stage in the Zombie non-franchise (from the re-edited version of Dawn of the Dead released as “Zombie” in Italy, to Fulci’s non-sequel which was retitled “Zombie” in the States just to muddy the pedigree, to Fulci’s bastard stepchild Zombie 3, which other reviewers have already lambasted ably and justifiably), you really have to step back in apprehension at any film that would willingly adopt the free-for-anyone-who-wants-it “Zombie #” title. I mean, if your movie sucks so badly that association with Zombie 3 would help its profitability…

To ratchet us into the plot, a helpful narrator tells us all about a group of scientists who believed that (in his words) “they could solve the mystery of mysteries.” That’s death, you know. So they do what scientists always do when they want to bring incredible research forces to bear on a problem that literally affects everyone alive: They set up shop on a remote tropical island with a suspicious and superstitious native population.

No, sorry, this isn’t going into the breast totals.

The movie proper starts with that hallmark of horror cinema, a disco dance scene. No, my mistake; it’s actually a voodoo ritual, with the voodoo priest chanting while his wife gyrates and throbs all around the cave. (The disco vibe is accentuated by the, um, “interesting” lighting; could no one convince the lighting guy that the candles that supposedly illuminate the cave simply don’t give off green and purple glows?) At the apex of the ritual, pink lights fly out of the priest’s sacred book, and the wife swallows them! Then she gets pulled down into a sinkhole that opens in the floor! Pretty cool way to start a movie, huh? Seriously, this is as good as it gets.

The priest is soon confronted by a bunch of the scientists from the lab, who’ve come down with semiautomatic weapons to gently persuade the priest to call of the army of vengeful zombies he’s called up. Seems he’s peeved because his daughter had cancer, and the scientists weren’t able to cure her. One of the scientist lets his itchy trigger finger get the best of him, but not before the priest pronounces a curse upon all of the scientists and their families and household pets. Then the zombie wife leaps out of the floor and chases the scientists through the tunnels, in a sequence that takes much longer to play out than to describe.

Meanwhile, a little family consisting of father, mother, and little blonde girl stumble through the jungle, trying to keep away from the black-clad zombies that keep popping up. Once Dad wanders off to find a way to get himself killed (I swear, they’re just breeding the survival instinct out of white folks these days), Mom tells the girl to run on through the jungle on her own to get away. Because, you know, a three-year-old can pick her way through the undergrowth so much faster than if Mom had just tucked her under one arm and did a steeplechase. and just to scar her daughter emotionally for life, Mom adds, “And if you’re obedient, Mother will join you later.” Oh, great — so now it’s your kid’s fault that you stupidly hung back and waited for zombies to pull you to pieces? “And if Mommy let’s herself be eaten by the living dead, it’s because you’re naughty!” Oh, and she gives her daughter a little voodoo amulet, which will serve its most important purpose…

…right now, because suddenly we’ve jumped ahead twenty years into the future, where a small speedboat-full of people just happens to be cruising among those very same island. And the little blonde girl has become a big blonde girl (Candice Daly), as evidenced by the same voodoo amulet around her neck, which she’s playing with in a very conspicuous “See? See? It’s me, all grown up!” fashion. No, they haven’t given her a name; we’ll get to that later. Otherwise, the boat is occupied by four men who were in ‘Nam together and have since gone into private practice as mercenaries, and one other woman. None have names at this point, nor is it clear how the two women hooked up with the four men, or why in the world the blonde is back in this part of the world. She does mention that the island they’re passing reminds her of one she used to know when she was little. Except there were more zombies, of course.

“I just LOVE these three-hour cruises!”

The boat motor then starts acting up, and the steering quits; they’ve got no choice but to run her to a convenient wharf and go looking for help. (Because instead of simply trying to fix the boat while docked, it’s much easier to wander a deserted-looking island looking for a boat shop.) The straggler of the party sees someone dressed in black skulking through the woods, so he gives chase, and ends up in hand-to-hand combat with a surprisingly spry zombie. (Good thing it turned out to be a zombie, because whomping on the first local you meet is not usually the best way to finagle some mechanical assistance out of the natives.) The others start calling for him, which finally gives us a character name: The one whomping on the zombie is Tommy (Don Wilson). But no sooner does he get named than he gets bitten good by the zombie. This, you should know, is going to be a recurring motif in our beloved screenplay: Whenever a character is finally referred to by name, odds are better than even that that character is about to meet an ugly end.

Everyone helps Tommy along as they reach a rundown jungle hospital, completely deserted. Even the graves are empty. (Memo to self: If ever in a similar situation, find something to use as an impromptu paddle and get the hell offa the island.) They let Tommy lie down on a bed while the rest of them explore the place. One of them finds a bottle of IV blood connected to a tube, still dripping on the floor. Another finds a whole ring of lit candles on a table. No one makes the awfully tough intuitive leap that there might be someone around in the hospital. (Memo to self: If ever in a similar situation, be prepared to dive in, start swimming, and get the hell offa the island.) Oh, and a third finds a cache of M-16s, which might conceivably come in handy.

While all of this has been going on, there are three other characters hiking across the island, two men and a woman. Naturally, they have no names yet — after all, they’re not in imminent danger of death — but I’ll skip ahead and tell you that one of them is played by one Chuck Peyton. You may know Peyton better (though if you do, I really don’t want to hear about it) as gay pornstar Jeff Stryker. What did I say about the classiness quotient of these Italian zombie flicks? Anyway, this threesome is here to find out what happened to all of the researchers. I guess twenty years without results or so much as a postcard finally aroused someone’s curiosity.

All they lack is a couple of flashing binkies.

Anyway, they find what they were looking for: Not the hospital, but the entrance to the voodoo priest’s underground lair. (Why were they looking for that? Damned if I know.) They discover their own circle of lit candles, plus a book which they say is “The Book of the Dead,” though the cover clearly reads “The Book of Death.” They discover in it the four-world spell for opening the gate of hell and summoning the dead, and one of them “pulls an Ash,” you might say. Next thing you know…. Well, let’s put it this way: They start shouting each other’s names. Uh-oh. The only one that survives the ensuing zombie onslaught is our pornstar friend, whose character is Chuck. The other two… well, it’s kind of moot now, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, back at the hospital, the rest of our fodder has bedded down for the night. The girl who isn’t the blonde demonstrates her continued lack of survival instincts by coming up behind the ‘Nam vet who’s standing guard and placing her hand on his shoulder. (Mebbe she didn’t know his name either.) They almost share a moment, when — zombies! Everywhere! The front lawn is full of zombies! While the menfolk starts shooting, the non-blonde sits down on the edge of Tommy’s bed. Uh-oh… somebody called her by name. She’s Louise (Adrianne Joseph). Good-bye, Louise, courtesy of the newly-zombified Tommy. (Voodoo curses are contagious? Who knew?)

Now, every movie needs a way to distinguish its zombies from all other zombies, and this movie has found its formula. Not only do these walking corpses wear ratty black pajamas and shrouds (quite a fetching ensemble, really), but they’re ninja zombies! They don’t just lurch onto the scene; their favorite mode of attack is to pounce as if they just bounced off a springboard.

Didn’t I see this same scene on a Three’s Company rerun?

Meanwhile, the blonde — and, breaking the pattern, her name is Jenny, but she’ll be here until the end of the movie — runs back upstairs to the circle of candles, which the blond mercenary had earlier blown out. See, she knows that the circle is a gate to hell, and if the candles are lit and her amulet is sitting in the middle, it will close the gate to hell, and the zombies will all become docile and –

BZZZT! Sorry, my bullshit-o-meter just buried the needle. Let’s apply a meager ten braincells to that, shall we? First up, are you telling me that the candles have been burning for the past twenty years to keep the zombies in check, until whatsisface decided to read the spell? By whom? I mean, we never do see another living person on the island. And secondly, um, there were already zombies roaming the island, even with the candles burning and the Book of Death/the Dead unread! Remember that ugly smelly guy who bit your friend Tommy? Yeah, him! And thirdly, Jenny girl, howcome you have only vague memories of the way in which your parents died, but you know chapter and verse about the amulet that your mother hung around your neck right before she got chomped?

Ah, hell with it. Let’s just barrel through:

A stray breeze blows out all of Jenny’s candles (so much for the “lit for two decades” hypothesis), so the zombies attack again. Two of the zombies, plus Captain Porno (who’s shown up here, naturally) keep shooting and setting fire to them, but with Tommy gone zombie inside, they’re fighting on two fronts. The blond mercenary gets a name — Rod (Nick Nicholson) — just in time to decide on a “blaze of glory” instead of getting bitten and going like Tommy did, so he rushes out of the house, shoots a lot of zombies, and gets himself bitten by zombie Louise. Meanwhile, the moustachioed merc gets a name — he’s Mad (Jim Moss) — and gets bitten by Tommy. The remaining merc, Dan (Jim Gaines), decides to let Mad die peacefully before putting a bullet in his brain. Unfortunately, he also let the corpse keep ahold of its M-16 until it revived. Alas, Dan, we hardly knew ye.

So now there’s only Chuck and Jenny left. (And this is where knowing that Chuck is played by a gay pornstar becomes a great punchline — there’s only one man and woman left, and he’s gay!) And from here…

What a trooper — this actor even brought his own zombie teeth!

Hell, it’s only been 24 hours since I watched this, and already it’s getting hazy. I think there’s a point at which your brain refuses to cycle down any further into stupidity, because a certain number of mental RPMs are necessary to maintain basic bodily functions. This movie had stupided itself below my ability to follow it. There was more falderall about the amulet, and closing the door to hell with one’s soul, and in the end everyone dies.

At least (and believe me, this is the very least), Zombie 4 is in something like the same vein as the far superior Zombie/Zombie 2, keeping itself confined to voodoo junk instead of a secret government bio-chem project a la Zombie 3 (although this one was, like Zombie 3, shot in the Philippines). Later entries in the non-franchise would often be nothing more than an appropriation of the “Zombie” name, attached to movies with no actual zombies in them. I think Zombie 4 is the point at which that’s a good thing; as bizarre as it is to label an unrelated movie as “Zombie #,” it couldn’t help but to plaster the box with the message, “Bearing absolutely no resemblance to previous Zombie movies!”