On Friday nights, IndieWire After Darkish honors fringe cinema within the streaming age with midnight films from any second in movie historical past.
First, the BAIT: a bizarre style decide and why we’re exploring its particular area of interest proper now. Then, the BITE: a spoiler-filled reply to the all-important query, “Is that this previous cult movie really value recommending now?”
The Bait: We’re Gonna Want a Greater Boat(y McBoatface)
In 2016, Britain’s Pure Atmosphere Analysis Council (NERC) added an thrilling new vessel to its polar fleet. The spectacular analysis ship took 4 years to assemble and price greater than £200 million in labor and supplies. In the present day, she’s a feat of recent engineering on voyages throughout the Arctic, the place her specialised hull cuts into thick partitions of sea ice as her passengers’ chart their paths to educational success.
Sure, that is what occurred to Boaty McBoatface.
9 years in the past, when the British public was requested to vote on a reputation for his or her coast’s newest floating landmark, the goofy half-joke “Boaty McBoatface” was proposed by BBC presenter James Hand. It received in a landslide, and although council members tried to disregard the outcomes of the favored web ballot at first, phrase of a attainable snub unfold and became outrage quick.
In the summertime of 2025, the huge watercraft from the U.Ok. is proudly often known as the RSS Sir David Attenborough — so named for the beloved English broadcaster and nature historian. Nonetheless, the surprisingly vocal Boaty McBoatface voters secured a severely symbolic concession in the long run.
The Attenborough measures practically 129 meters from bow to stern, and it’s residence to necessary educational research and maritime expeditions. So, no, the ship continues to be not named “Boaty McBoatface.” However the Nationwide Oceanography Heart does have one other watercraft with that identify. The second Boaty is an autonomous underwater automobile that’s smaller, brilliant yellow, and beloved for her becoming identifier.
The cultural influence of the NERC’s crowdsourcing mess in 2016 signifies that the Attenborough and Boaty may go on inflicting confusion eternally. The same state of affairs has been enjoying out within the scary film world for the reason that late Nineteen Seventies, when “Evening of the Dwelling Useless” genius George A. Romero made his triumphant return to ghoulish cinema with the masterful “Daybreak of the Useless” in 1978.
Enter Lucio Fulci, the director of the gleefully grotesque “Zombi 2” (1979). Recognized by at the least a dozen different titles — together with “Zombie,” “Island of the Dwelling Useless,” “Zombie Flesh Eaters,” and extra — this poorly dubbed gore-fest rose to midnight infamy on a tidal wave of “video nasties” streaming out of the U.Ok within the early Nineteen Eighties. These excessive underground horror efforts different in high quality, however many controversial hits like “Zombi 2” earned their place in artwork historical past by circulating on the fringes first.
At 51 years previous, Fulci had already made dozens of style films. He was well-respected for his suspense and giallo, however he’s remembered by trendy horror followers because the Godfather of Gore. “Zombi 2” is a testomony to the late filmmaker’s hair-brained dedication to weird stunts (learn that headline once more: a ZOMBIE fights a SHARK!) and rigorous sensible results, designed by the unimaginable Giannetto De Rossi.
Comfortably seated aboard the area of interest subgenre of “tropical horror” (which additionally contains titles from 1985’s surprising “Cannibal Holocaust” to the lovable live-action “Scooby-Doo”), Fulci’s vibrant island haunting blends (regrettably) dated voodoo tropes and graphic encounters with the undead to surprisingly contemporary and provocative impact. It’s sluggish at occasions however a blast to look at in case you can abdomen the rotting flesh, writhing bugs, and sneaky director’s resolution to slyly screw over the Father of Zombies.
After directing “Evening of the Dwelling Useless” in 1968, Romero stepped again from horror for a big interval. Venturing by means of comedy, romance, science fiction, and different lighter fare, that break was usually thought of good for the director. Nonetheless, he struggled to make a dwelling, and when Romero lastly returned to terror together with his second undead triumph a decade later, the director’s satirical “Daybreak of the Useless” was acclaimed however grew to become chum for a vicious faculty of copycats, together with Fulci.
Distributed by co-financier Dario Argento, Romero’s finest film arrived in Italian theaters underneath the title “Zombi.” The next yr, Fulci named his movie “Zombi 2” to pressure an affiliation between the initiatives, which share some sensibilities however no actual narrative. The unofficial “Daybreak of the Useless” spinoff has flapped within the breeze as a complicated hidden gem ever since. It managed to encourage a quick frenzy amongst up to date cinephiles again then and would later spark a franchise of extra (largely) unrelated movies.
The sequel you might be about to see created a murky historical past between Fulci and Romero. Devoted zombie aficionados proceed to match the 2 filmmakers’ approaches to the undead right now — however even missing a British humorousness, you’d hope Romero could be the sort of American director to vote for Boaty McBoatface… or, on the very least, not swim in her method
Lucio Fulci’s “Zombi 2” (1979) is now streaming on Tubi.
The Chew: Wow, These Subheads Certain Labored Out, Huh?
Examine again in a feature-length. Are you watching “Zombi 2”?