Coming in at number 98 on the list of the '100 Greatest Scary Movies' is a bit of a controversial pick: Lucio Fulci's seminal gore-fest, Zombie. Released in 1979, Zombie was originally released as Zombi 2 in attempt to cash in on the phenomena of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead which was released in Europe under the title of Zombi. The film, however, had nothing to do with the mythos created by Romero for his Dead films and most recognize it now as a stand-alone film with its own merits and faults. Reaction to movie by the film community at large was largely negative, mostly because of the excessive gore and violence that permeates it, which was considerable, even for a film within the zombie film genre. It was seen as mostly a rip-off of Romero in general and for the most part cast aside. The years have been a tad kinder, to both the film and Fulci himself and while it is still seen as somewhat sub-par as far as story and juxtaposition, the film has become a favorite of gore-hounds and horror-geeks. Despite much of what has been said about Zombie, there are genuinely suspenseful moments; the final onslaught of terror is among the greatest of all zombie surges. But the film essentially is a mere string of scenes put together to display the leaps and bounds that gore-effects had made. The bloodshed is plenty and the gore is excessive, with bodies being eaten and people being torn to pieces and if you have the stomach to handle it, it can be quite fun, dumb as it may be. The explanation for the rising of the dead is, as always, somewhat far-fetched and contrived, but that doesn't totally matter because the film pretty much achieves what it intended to do: be shocking and pour on the blood. Two scenes in particular have stood out over the years as some of the best in the genre. Perhaps the nerdiest of these is the famous 'zombie versus shark' scene. What could be better than that? A young woman goes into the water, scuba diving nearby the cursed island where a majority of the action takes place and said zombie soon attacks her. All seems lost for the young lass when help comes to her from the most unlikely source: a shark. The shark takes a bite of the zombie, a zombie takes a bite out of the shark and the young woman escapes. And after she swims away in a panic, we are treated to an awkwardly awesome fight in the depths of the ocean between to horror icons. The second and far more unsettling scene has become known to aficionados as the 'eye-ball scene.' It takes so long, watching the character pulled towards the wooden splinter and it is almost hard to watch but soon the pay-off comes and the eyeball plunges onto the wooden spike slowly and methodically. The opinion on Fulci is divided, some regard him as an under appreciated master of the form, and some see him as an overrated hack. And the film? Well, it is what it is. As a zombie film, it works and is fun, but it has no metaphorical merits whatsoever and cannot be regarded as anything more than a cheap thrill. But I have no problem with that.