ZOMBIE (1979) (aka ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS) TURNS 45!!!

ZOMBIE (aka ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS / ZOMBI 2) (1979) d. Lucio Fulci (Italy)

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When George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead became a major success worldwide, Italians had a stake in the matter since horror icon Dario Argento was one of its producers. In Italy, the trimmed-down Dawn was rechristened Zombi, and its blockbuster status dramatically altered the horror landscape, with molto filmmakers clamoring to ride the coattails of its success. Veteran direction Lucio Fulci was first out of the gate in 1979 with his own rendering of the undead mythos. Its name was....

ZOMBIE (1979) Blu-ray release!!

Zombie (1979) d. Lucio Fulci (Italy) (92 min)

In Italy, it was released as Zombi 2, the unofficial sequel to Dawn of the Dead. In England, it was known as Zombie Flesh Eaters and banned as an official Video Nasty. In America, it was called Zombie and advertised with the depraved tag line, “We Are Going To Eat You!” Tisa Farrow (Anthropophagus), Ian McCulloch (Contamination), Al Cliver (Cannibals), and Richard Johnson (The Haunting) star in this worldwide splatter sensation directed by Lucio Fulci (City of the Living Dead, The House by the Cemetery) that remains one of the most eye-skewering, skin-ripping, shark-chomping, gore-gushingly graphic horror hits of all time!

THE INITIATION OF SARAH (1978) DVD review

Initiation of Sarah, The (1978) d. Robert Day (USA)

It's easy to see why this this late-'70s TV-movie has been historically categorized as a low-fi rip-off of Brian De Palma's stellar screen version of Carrie, released two years prior to much critical and commercial acclaim. Both feature ugly duckling female teen protagonists with pyschic abilities, both have snotty popular cliques tormenting our hapless heroine, both have "beautiful swan" moments that end in humiliation, and both conclude with fiery climaxes of death and destruction. It's probably not too much of a stretch to say that the walking orders for screenwriters Don Ingalls, Kenette Gfeller, and Carol Saraceno (who wrote the original screen story with genre veteran-to-be Tom Holland) were to "crank out something along the lines of Stephen King's novel while making enough changes to avoid any legal proceedings." That said, The Initiation of Sarah still manages to be a fairly entertaining slice of mainstream fright fare.