Zombi 2 Trivia (1980)

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Zombi 2 Trivia

• Zombie was more like I walk with a zombie, Voodoo island, and The walking dead than dawn of the dead.
• When first submitted to the BBFC in 1980, the movie was passed with an X rating with 1 minute, 46 seconds cut. Then, with the Video Recordings Act, it was banned in 1984 as a "video nasty". It was removed from the DPP list, and the original cinema release was re-rated in 1992 with an 18 rating. In 1999, it was once again re-rated, with only 23 seconds of cuts for an 18 rating. Finally, it was passed uncut with an 18 rating in 2005, with a 91 minute run time.
• According to the production crew interviewed for the Shriek Show DVD, scenes were shot of the zombies coming out of the water in New York. They never made it into the final edit though.
• Scriptwriter Dardano Sacchetti chose to take his name off the credits due to his father's death during preproduction. As a result of his loss, Sacchetti felt uncomfortable about being connected with a movie about the dead returning to a semblance of life and then being destroyed.
• Like many Italian horror films of the time, half the cast spoke only English and the other half only Italian. Many Italian films produced for international distribution filmed without sound and recorded several dialog tracks in different languages in the studio for later overdubbing. Because the actors are speaking a number of different languages (or some are speaking a non-native language phonetically), the dubbing in all versions of the film is not 100% synchronized. Ian McCulloch, Tisa Farrow, Olga Karlatos, and Stefania D'Amario were of the main English speaking cast, while Al Cliver, Auretta Gay, and Dakar were of the main Italian-speaking cast.
• Enzo G. Castellari was asked to direct this film early in its development, but turned it down on the basis that he was not a fan of horror and primarily made action films. However, he suggested his friend Lucio Fulci as a possible replacement.
• The make-up effects were done by renowned Italian Giannetto De Rossi. The make-up for the zombies was "caked" on in several stages and Lucio Fulci, the director, constantly referred to the extras as "walking flower pots".
• Several of the actors playing the zombies were actually brothers. They look so similar that some people have speculated that all the zombies were played by one man.
• As shown in trailers before the film was released, airline "barf bags" were handed out to theater moviegoers due to the unusually high amount of violence and gore for a horror film of that time.
• While shooting on location in New York City, Captain Haggerty, who plays the large bald zombie who attacks the harbor patrol at the beginning of the film, walked into CBGB's (a tiny Bowery bar which was a flourishing punk rock venue at the time) in full zombie makeup complete with splattered fake blood and mud caked all over his face and body. Due to the outrageous punk styles in those days of the other bar patrons, he was barely noticed. Even the bartender never looked twice at him.
• Hordes of the living dead stumble across the Brooklyn Bridge at the end of the film. Although a national state of emergency had been declared and the local radio station had been overrun by zombies, the traffic below still flows freely. This was due to budgetary constraints - there was not enough money to stop traffic on the bridge.
• According to Ian McCulloch on the DVD commentary, the harbor patrol cops were actually off-duty policemen. The advantage was that no costumes were required as they brought their own uniforms.
• Some of the zombies used in the film was actually dead bodies.
• The actor scheduled to play the underwater zombie got sick at the last minute and had to be replaced by the shark's trainer.
• Zombie is known as "Zombi 2" in Italy, the country where it was originally released. It was marketed as a sequel to George Romero's 1979 movie "Dawn of the Dead", which was known as "Zombi" in Italy.