It all starts with George Romero's horror classic Dawn of the Dead in 1978. That movie was re-edited by Dario Argento and released in Italy as Zombi . And finally, Zombi 2 was released in the US as just plain old Zombie . Not that there's anything plain about Zombie . The movie features some great special effects make-up, and the filmmakers seemed hell bent on including as much gore and nudity as they could cram in and still have some sort of story.
Zombie opens with the New York City harbor patrol intercepting a derelict yacht in New York harbor.
The boat is deserted, with the notable exception of a cannibalistic corpse. One of the two cops who board the yacht encounters the undead stowaway below decks and becomes its latest snack. His partner stops the zombie with a well-placed shot to the head, but it's too late to save his masticated fellow officer. Once the deceased policeman has been shuttled off to the morgue, the rest of the force concerns itself with the ownership of the boat. Ann and Peter decide to go to Matoul to discern the details of the old man's passing.