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A sailboat bobs around aimlessly in New York Harbor, stumbling into the path of seemingly every ship and ferry that tries to make its way across. One attempt after another to raise the crew fails. A helicopter circling overhead is unable to spot any signs of life. Harbor Patrol is dispatched to take a look, not expecting to find much more than a drunken skipper passed out in the cabin. As one of the cops skulks around below, a bloated corpse – swollen like a tick from having devoured the ship's crew – breaks down a door to feast again. A couple shots from a pistol later, this...thing tumbles off the sailboat and sinks into the bay. The chaos unfolds too quickly for the surviving officer to make any sense of it. That he'd stared down a zombie never occurs to him. It's not immediately understood that the fallen officer met his end courtesy of a bite to the jugular. No one's sure what the hell has just happened.

Newspaper reporter Peter West (Ian McCulloch) and the daughter of the sailboat's missing owner (Tisa Farrow) are hellbent on uncovering the truth. It's a search that takes them thousands of miles away to the Caribbean island of Matool. Whether it's some sort of previously unidentified disease or a voodoo curse, no one knows for certain, but something is making the dead on Matool rise from their graves to feed upon the living. The infection has consumed nearly everyone on this remote speck of an island. Only a few straggling survivors remain, and the ravenous legions of the undead are quickly closing in.

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Zombie's producers may have merely been aiming to cash in on the colossal success of Dawn of the Dead, but Lucio Fulci – in the seasoned director's first outing helming this type of horror film – elevated it into something far beyond any sort of cheap knockoff. Romero's original trilogy aside, this is the most enduring and influential cinematic gutmuncher the world over. No one of the right age ever walked past the 'Horror' aisles of a video store without the sight of its most infamous ghoul – a ravaged corpse caked in dirt, its teeth rotten and jagged, and worms spewing from its right eyesocket – inexorably seared into their minds. The undead throughout the film consistently live up to that unforgettable image. Whereas Dawn of the Dead's zombies were more or less ordinary looking people splashed with a coat of blue paint, the faces of the undead here are covered with grave dirt...their flesh tattered and decaying...their eyes hollow and dead. Zombie is unflinchingly brutal, even by the grisly standards of modern horror. The dead feast slowly upon the living, tearing into their bodies to find just the right parts to gnaw on. Geysers of blood spurt out as a couple of these zombies go straight for the jugular. At one point, a corpse gouges out a young woman's eye, and Fulci's camera is closed in tightly to capture every last nightmarish, oozing detail.

There's not a scene with the undead in Zombie that isn't iconic, really. The opening attack in New York Harbor ought to silence those who'd criticize Lucio Fulci's work as splatter-over-substance. It's a sequence that's atmospheric, unnerving, and masterfully crafted. As brilliant as Dawn of the Dead is, Fulci's introduction of his zombies is far more impactful than Romero's the year prior. An underwater sequence which pits a zombie against a tiger shark long ago devolved into an Internet meme and then some, but it's still an inspired and wildly effective scene, and the leadup to that assault ranks among the movie's best as well. Fulci proves as adept at building suspense as he is at unleashing graphic gore. There's no shortage of sequences in which he delivers both, particularly throughout a third act that's wall-to-wall unrelenting, apocalyptic dread.

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The problem I've long had with Zombie is...well, everything else. Every last scene with the ravenous undead is spectacular, yes, but the film can rarely be bothered to come up with much of anything compelling to bridge them. Its skeleton of a story is threadbare, and Fulci doesn't infuse those moments in between the feasts with the same entrancingly unique, surreal edge as The Beyond or City of the Living Dead. The characters are thinly sketched and largely uninvolving, able to coast somewhat on the charms of actors like Ian McCulloch and Richard Johnson, though that (and, sure, some gratuitous nudity) only goes so far. Unless a zombie is shambling across the frame or devouring some poor bastard's innards, there's little reason to feel invested in anything that's happening or who it's happening to. It doesn't help matters that after the tremendous sequence in the harbor, Zombie settles into nearly a half hour of setup and filler, and the middle stretch of the film sags poorly.

Zombie is a movie of moments. Even many of its most ardent admirers – including those contributing commentary and interviews for this lavish special edition – acknowledge the uneven pacing, anemic characterization, clumsy dialogue, and a story that the film grudgingly seems to tolerate. I don't consider it among Fulci's best work, and it's far from the first zombie movie I'd likely grab off my shelf to watch. Still, when Zombie is at its bloodiest, most brutal, wildly imaginative, visually dazzling, and unnervingly suspenseful, its standout moments eclipse virtually everything else out there. Every time I watch it, I find myself with a greater appreciation for the film. It's little wonder that Zombie continues to endure these many decades later, with a ravenously loyal fanbase champing at the bit whenever this longtime favorite is reissued. Leading into the film's fortieth anniversary, Blue Underground is reviving the seminal zombie classic with an achingly gorgeous 4K remaster, a series of lenticular slipcovers, and six hours of extras – every last second of which is well-worth setting aside the time to devour. The result easily ranks among the the year's most exceptional releases and is a compelling upgrade even for those who've already picked up Blue Underground's previous two-disc Blu-ray special edition. DVD Talk Collector Series.

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Disc One

• Introduction (30 sec.; HD): Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro offers a brief, optional introduction to Zombie.


• When the Earth Spits Out the Dead (33 min.; HD): Exclusive to this 2018 release is a half hour interview with Stephen Thrower, the author of the recently reissued Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci. For someone like myself who primarily associates Fulci with horror and thrillers, it's fascinating to see excerpts of his early work spanning so many other genres: comedies, musicals, and, unavoidably for an Italian director of his era, westerns. Thrower charts Fulci's progression towards horror – to the point that it makes a great deal of sense why Zombie's producers would seek him out, even if Fulci was at best their third choice. The development of the film is also explored at length, and it's intriguing to hear how it transformed as awareness of Dawn of the Dead grew in Italy. Along with discussing Zombie's staggering success in theaters and that it spawned numerous imitators all its own, Thrower even delves into the cinematic history of underwater zombies. He is, as ever, an endlessly engaging speaker, offering insight and context that stand out even among the many hours of extras elsewhere in this collection. Essential viewing.

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• Audio Commentaries: Listening to the first of Zombie's commentary tracks, there's little to suggest that star Ian McCulloch had never before gotten around to watching the film from start to finish. Accompanied by Diabolik editor Jason J. Slater – whose skilled moderation proves to be quite an asset late in the track when the conversation slows down somewhat – McCulloch unleashes a seemingly endless barrage of astonishing stories. Among the innumerable highlights are an Italian film crew invading a newspaper office and being told to fuck off by someone who may or may not have been Rupert Murdoch, a relative in the House of Lords being devastated upon learning just how many Video Nasties starred McCulloch, and an amateur diver struggling to stay afloat when weighed down by misconfigured scuba gear. McCulloch also does a marvelous job painting a picture of what it was like to be a part of a film shoot in which everyone was speaking so many different languages and no one could be bothered to file for a permit. This is an infectiously fun commentary and a longtime favorite.
  
  Troy Howarth, the author of Splintered Visions: Lucio Fulci and His Films and a fixture on half the cult cinema releases arriving on Blu-ray this year, has recorded a commentary exclusive to this most recent reissue. Howarth details the lives, filmographies, and, where applicable, voice stand-ins for essentially everyone on either side of the camera, though he is understandably stymied by a few of the uncredited actors. He also speaks to how the mystery and adventure elements to the storytelling helped ease Fulci's transition towards horror, Richard Johnson's insistence on adlibbing or rewriting much of his dialogue, the zombie-versus-toothless-doped-up-shark battle royale struggling with both Fulci's lack of interest in the sequence and a starlet's inability to swim, and the crew destroying a pier while shooting on location. Dawn of the Dead is, naturally, a favorite topic, and Howarth takes care to contrast Fulci and Romero's zombie masterworks, including their films' very different approaches to makeup. I always have a great time with Troy Howarth's commentaries, and the story isn't any different here. Certainly worth a listen.

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• Promotional Material (8 min.; partially HD): The same as the original Blu-ray release, Zombie features a pair of TV spots in standard definition, four radio promos, and two HD trailers – one international, the other domestic, and both in English.


• Still Gallery (10 min.; HD): An extensive image gallery cycles through one-sheets, promotional stills, lobby cards, pressbooks, behind-the-scenes photos, soundtracks, and international video art. The resolution varies throughout but generally looks terrific.

Disc Two

At least once they've given it a proper spin, Zombie's dedicated disc of extras will look familiar to longtime admirers of the film. The contents are the same as Blue Underground's 2011 special edition release, and it's appreciated that the screened artwork has been updated along the way.

• Zombie Wasteland (22 min.; HD): Actors Ian McCulloch, Richard Johnson, Al Cliver, and Ottaviano Dell'acqua rang in Zombie's thirtieth anniversary with an appearance at the Cinema Wasteland convention in Ohio. The first of the disc's featurettes splices together appearances from their booth at the show, a Q&A panel, and individual interviews. Among the topics of discussion are what it was like to work with someone as passionate and notoriously difficult as Lucio Fulci, the outrageous atmosphere on the set, how grueling the worm-eyed zombie makeup was, and what it means to them to have a fanbase this rabid.


• Flesh Eaters on Film (10 min.; HD): Fabrizio De Angelis approaches Zombie from a producer's perspective, chatting candidly about the lack of permits, the film's enormous financial success, selling the movie internationally, and struggling with a lawsuit by Dario Argento over the title. De Angelis also touches on bringing Fulci onboard this already-established project as well as the over-the-top and almost comic tone he sees in the film.


• Deadtime Stories (14 min.; HD): Uncredited writer Dardano Sacchetti has a sharper memory about the genesis of Zombie than Fabrizio De Angelis, describing how the germ of an idea was spawned by a Tex Willer comic melding Westerns with the walking dead. "Deadtime Stories" also features co-writer Elisa Briganti, and she and Sacchetti speak about how problematic it was finding a director, how Zombie marked the first true horror movie to be helmed by Fulci, and the role the film played in bringing Italian horror to the rest of the world.

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• World of the Dead (16 min.; HD): Cinematographer Sergio Salvati and costume/production designer Walter Patriarca discuss crafting the look of Zombie, including the use of lighting to exaggerate the horror of the zombies' makeup, deliberately keeping some elements of the frame out-of-focus, filming the eye-gouging sequence with three cameras, ramming a bulldozer into a lovingly crafted church set that looked a bit too beautiful, and spelling out just how many of the film's most memorable shots were stolen. Patriarca shows off some of his original conceptual artwork, and it's impressive to see how closely the hospital in the film mirrors his art.


• Zombi Italiano (17 min.; HD): Makeup effects artists Giannetto de Rossi, Maurizio Trani, and Gino de Rossi delve into creating the look of Zombie's legions of the undead, making them look more like ancient, decaying corpses than Dawn of the Dead's freshly-dead blue zombies. All of the most memorable attacks in the film are discussed in detail, including the process of tracking down a live shark and gouging the eye of an incomplete head.


• Notes on a Headstone (7 min.; HD): Composer Fabio Frizzi speaks briefly about his collaborations with Lucio Fulci. Frizzi tends to speak in somewhat general terms, but he does have a few intriguing comments about his music for Zombie, such as the restraint shown in the spectacular sequence in New York Harbor and the use of overlapping sounds throughout the eye-gouging assault sequence.

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• All in the Family (6 min.; HD): Antonella Fulci speaks about her late father, explaining why his movies are so violent and why she believes Zombie in particular continues to endure. Home movies and candid photographs are featured throughout as well.


• Zombie Lover (10 min.; HD): Finally, Guillermo del Toro dissects Zombie and details why he feels it's such a brilliant film. This ten minute conversation approaches Zombie from both an intensely personal perspective and that of a director with an encyclopediac knowledge of the genre, and it's well-worth taking the time to watch.

Disc Three

The third and final disc in this set is a compact disc, collecting eight of Fabio Frizzi's compositions for Zombie. Also included is the disco-fried bonus track, "There's No Matter", which can be heard playing on the radio early on. The CD clocks in at 28 minutes, all told.