Zombi 3

In a covert biological weapons laboratory somewhere in the Philippines, a group of scientists are working on a serum called Death One, which reanimates the dead. When Dr. Alan Holder and his assistant Norma experiment on a deceased human test subject, the corpse becomes reanimated and reacts violently, prompting Dr. Holder to resign from the project. As he prepares to surrender the serum to waiting military officers, a small group of criminals ambush the center; all but one are killed, and the surviving criminal manages to abscond with Death One. During a chase the container with the serum is breached by gunfire; as he tries to pick it back up, he accidentally touches the serum and is infected. He flees to the Sweet River Resort and settles in Room 4. General Morton promises Dr. Holder that he and his men will capture the criminal. By the time the soldiers catch up to him, however, he has already succumbed to the disease, but not before infecting a bellhop and killing a maid before finally cutting off his own hand in a failed attempt to stop the necrotizing spread of the infection. Morton orders the patrons and staff killed and buried in a mass grave and condemns the resort; the criminal's remains are delivered to him and his two right-hand men, Sergeants Tracey and Cheney, and later incinerated in a crematorium. As Dr. Holder and Norma fear, the ashes quickly disperse into the air, infecting an entire flock of birds passing by.

Meanwhile, a trio of GIs on vacation are on the lookout for some girls to make out with during their holiday; they find several on a nearby bus. Among the bus's passengers are David, Nancy, Carol, Lia, Suzanna, Jane, Jane's boyfriend Tom, and the bus driver, Joe.

Not too far away, a tourist named Patricia and her boyfriend Glenn discover the dead birds and are promptly horrified when the creatures reanimate and attack, with Glenn being pecked and clawed repeatedly. The birds then assault the bus while the GIs attempt to extricate everyone from it, but not before Lia gets bitten. Patricia and Glenn stop at a nearby garage but are forced to flee when a crazed zombie wielding a machete attacks Patricia and the garage explodes in flames after she sets the zombie afire.

The GIs and the bus party make a stop at Sweet River Resort, which is now deserted. The men find a crate full of guns left behind by the soldiers and set about fortifying the place. Carol and Bo, one of the GIs, take an abandoned car from the resort's parking lot and drive off to look for some help.

When their car breaks down, Carol goes looking for some water but is attacked and mauled by the zombies. Bo tries and fails to save her when she becomes zombified after her legs are torn off by zombies lurking beneath the surface of the water. Bo is forced to flee when more zombies emerge from the lake. He eventually joins up with Patricia and Glenn. On the way to Santa Monica Hospital, Glenn dies and reanimates as a zombie on a bridge. During the resulting confrontation with the living dead, Bo is killed, but Patricia escapes with her life. Back at the covert lab, Dr. Holder and his team start work on an antidote to counter the effects of Death One. Meanwhile, Morton's men initiate a blanket operation to eradicate the zombies, which the extermination teams now identify by the codename "locusts" in reference to the zombies' behavior pattern of swarming from town to town while stripping away everything in their path.

Back at the hotel, Jane and Tom go to the kitchen to look for some food but are ambushed and killed by a zombie head that had been resting in the freezer. Lia reanimates, kills and devours Susanna and almost kills Nancy before being thrown off the balcony and killed. Kenny and Roger encounter Patricia as she arrives to try to break the news about Bo's demise, but the living dead start swarming the hotel. Kenny, Roger, Patricia, Nancy, and Joe kill as many zombies as they can by using their newly acquired guns and a flamethrower before fleeing but David is devoured and killed in the ensuing fight.

The next morning after crossing the river, the survivors are met by some of Morton's soldiers, who kill Joe. The other four escape as the final stage of Morton's zombie eradication begins and Dr. Holder expresses his worries that the infection of the atmosphere may not be restricted to the island. Arriving at the nearby Santa Monica Hospital, the four encounter a pregnant woman in labor. As Nancy helps deliver the newborn, Patricia engages in a final deathmatch against the zombie Glenn and beheads him, while Kenny and Roger have another run-in with Morton's cleanup crew. Nancy is killed by the zombified newborn when it tears its way out of the mother's womb and latches onto her face. Meanwhile Kenny, Roger and Patricia escape to find more zombies waiting for the kill. They make it to a helicopter, but only Kenny and Patricia are able to escape with their lives. Roger is attacked by the zombies while trying to join them and is subsequently killed by the cleanup crew. To Patricia's horror, the zombies have taken over; Blue Heart, the DJ who provided commentary for much of the film, even dedicates his next record to "all the undead around the world", having been infected himself. Upon hearing the broadcast, Kenny decides to return to the island, assuring Patricia that he intends to save what's left of humanity from the zombies.

• Deran Sarafian as Kenny
• Beatrice Ring as Patricia
• Ottaviano Dell'acqua as Roger
• Massimo Vanni as Bo
• Ulli Reinthaler as Nancy
• Marina Loi as Carol
• Deborah Bergamini as Lia

Rossella Drudi developed most of the script of Zombi 3 without credit.[4] The film only credits Drudi's husband, Claudio Fragasso, who co-authored the screenplay.[4] Their script set the film in the Philippines, as it was a cheap and convenient location to shoot.[4] Zombi 3 was originally announced as a 3D film, but the film was never released in this format.[5] Director Lucio Fulci went to the Philippines along with his daughter, Camilla Fulci, and spent six weeks shooting Zombi 3.[4]

Fulci left the production partway through and opposing views were given for his departure, the first being an illness that left him unable to film and the second being that he was having disputes with producers.[6] Fulci would later state that he "didn't finish making Zombie 3, but the reason wasn't anything to do with illness [...] there were arguments and so, I finished off an hour and a quarter of the film".[4] Fulci stated that he couldn't get the script changed, which he deemed to be "dreadful", and modified it with his daughter.[4] Fragasso stated that Fulci simplified his screenplay and shot a seventy-minute film, which shocked producer Franco Gaudenzi.[7] Fragasso went on to state that after the final editing of the film, it had a running time of one hour and ten minutes, but felt like a slow montage, and was cut down further to 50 minutes.[4]

Producer Gaudenzi was worried about the film and had second unit director Bruno Mattei brought in to work on the production with Fragasso in order to complete it.[4] Mattei had been in the Philippines at the time filming Strike Commando 2,[4] went home to spend Christmas with his family and later returned to film more scenes for Zombi 3.[8][9] Both Fragasso and Mattei worked on new scenes, and since they could not get the main actors to return to filming, the new scenes became subplots.[10]

Mattei claimed that he shot about 40% of the film, including all the early scenes in the film and the scenes in which the men are dressed in white anti-contamination suits.[10] He elaborated that this included the entire beginning with the stolen suitcase, the helicopter scene, the scenes involving security guards storming a hotel room and the scenes where the zombies start to burn.[8] Fragasso later said he directed a number of the additional scenes that Mattei is credited with having directed, but he let Mattei take full credit because he didn't want to get into a conflict later with Fulci.[11] Both Fragasso and Mattei make cameos in the film as soldiers who are putting a corpse into an incinerator.[4]

When asked if the film should be credited solely to Fulci, Mattei responded that it was "hard to say" and that "the film's soul is from Fulci. It was his object, not mine. I only took it over after the main production was finally finished. Fulci was informed about everything and there was little discussion about it."[9]

Zombi 3 was screened at a Paris Horror Film Festival in June 1988.[12] The film premiered in Italy on 29 July 1988,[13][3] where it was released in a severely edited form.[5]

Zombi 3 is regarded as the official follow-up to Zombi 2,[14] although other films were released internationally that were also billed as sequels.[14] These include Andrea Bianchi's Burial Ground, released as Zombi III: Nights of Terror, and Return of the Zombies, as Zombi 3.[14]

From a contemporary review, Philip Nutman and Mario Cortini wrote in Gorezone that Zombi 3 was less original than Fulci's Aenigma, and that its main problem was its budgetary restraints and that "when the makeup FX do happen, they're so damn amateurish that they're embarrassing."[18]

From retrospective reviews, Video Watchdog commented that the film had "slow patches" but plenty of exciting (and extremely gory) highlights throughout"[5] The review also commented on Stefano Mainetti's score that "certainly helps things along".[5] Writing in The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia, academic Peter Dendle said, "Most of the movie is a quilt of scenes and motifs shamelessly pasted together from Dawn of the Dead and Return of the Living Dead, but fast pacing and continuous shooting help distract from the absence of plot or character development."[19] Dread Central included the film in their top ten list of best viral outbreak films.[20]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Zombi 3

• Zombi 3 at IMDb
• Zombi 3 at AllMovie