If you name your band after one of the most infamous Italian horror directors of all time, you better know your zombie cinema. Thankfully, Caserta’s Fulci live up to their moniker, making the kind of blood-drenched, scum-fleshed death metal that the undead would probably request as the soundtrack to crawling their way out of their graves. While the band made their name on 2015’s Opening the Gates of Hell and 2019’s crushing Tropical Sun, this year will see them release Exhumed Information, an album that goes deeper into the creepy crawl of the underworld’s footsoldiers instead of just the trail of innards they leave in their wake.
Since we trust Fulci in all zombie-related matters, we asked the band to come up with a list of the best scenes in cinema in which a reanimated corpse kills a living human. The three-piece not only came back with ten scenes of horror so unspeakable that YouTube won’t even let us show most of them, but they included amongst them their choice of the most horrific zombie kill of all time. Check out their list below, and make sure no one’s looking over your shoulder before you click through some of these embeds…
10. Hell of the Living Dead (1980)
“Simply one of the best example of ’80s gore splatter analog effects! Taken from Virus, AKA Hell of the Living Dead.”
9. Voices From Beyond (1991) – Pascal Persiano gets zombied in the face
“Lucio Fulci used to add zombie whenever he could. In this giallo movie titled Voices From Beyond. the actor Pascal Persiano tries to escape from a crypt, but every time he opens the exit door, he enter in the same crypt until a horde of zombies come out from their graves [About the 46 minute mark. -Ed]. Very ’80s!”
8. The Return of the Living Dead (1985) – Tarman meets Suicide
“We always loved punks in the ’80s movies. But when punks are the main characters in a horror movies it’s even better. Enjoy this zombie vs punks scene taken from The Return of the Living Dead.”
7. Braindead [AKA Dead Alive] (1992) – Kickin’ ass for the Lord
“Before Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson did a couple of cult splatter masterpieces. One of these was the horror, gore, comic film titled Braindead [Known to U.S. audiences as Dead Alive. -Ed]. We love this absurd scene where a Kung-fu expert priest (yes) kills some zombies. But, in the end…”
6. Redneck Zombies (1987) – Headcrush
“Troma is cult! The number of sick unwatchable movies they produced is countless. But “Redneck Zombies” is one of their best/worst!”
5. The Beyond (1981) – Zombie pops an eye out…from the back
“As you can understand we are totally addicted to Lucio Fulci filmography. We love his zombies because they are so graphic and rotten. Lucio’s masterpiece is “The Beyond” and Joe the plumber is one of our favorite character.”
4. Burial Ground (1981) – Zombie child takes a bite out of mom’s breast
“If you are into ‘Z’ movies you will love this extremely absurd horror movie called Burial Ground. The cringe-est character of this movie (and maybe of the cinema history) is Michael, a dwarf acting as a child who is in love with his mother. When he turns into a zombie, he kills his mother biting her breast.”
3. Zombie (1979) – The worm zombie rises and feeds
“Italian horror movies directors were very brilliant, but they had also a team of talented people working behind the scenes. One of the sickest make-up and special effect artist was Giannetto De Rossi. Unfortunately he died this year but he will live forever trough his amazing work. Enjoy this cult disgusting rotten zombie he created for Lucio Fulci.”
2. Day of the Dead (1982) – Bub hunts down Rhodes
“Romero had a different idea about zombies. He used zombies to criticize the decadence of the society. We think that this scene taken from Day of the Dead is brilliant because it was the first time we saw a zombie killing for revenge, using a gun and not biting. Ah! Big ups to the zombie military salute.”
1. Zombie (1979) – The eye splinter
“Lucio Fulci was obsessed with the eyes. In many movies he focuses some shots on someone’s eyes. In this Zombi 2 [The Italian title for Zombie, which was released as a supposed sequel to Dawn of the Dead. -Ed] scene, he reached the perfection. This is, in our opinion, the best zombie killing scene ever made in a zombie movie.”
Fulci’s Exhumed Information comes out July 23rd on Time to Kill Records, and is available for preorder.
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Words by Chris Krovatin
