The makers of HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD unmake Lucio Fulci's late 1980s return to the zombie genre with ZOMBIE 3, on Blu-ray from Severin Films.

When bacteriological weapon Death One turns out to be highly unstable, not only resurrecting the dead but mutating them into flesh-eating zombies, scientist Dr. Holder (Robert Marius, WARRIORS OF THE APOCALYPSE) refuses to experiment further and agrees to surrender it to General Morton (Mike Monty, JUNGLE RAIDERS) only for the handover to be ambushed by terrorists. One of them escapes but is not only wounded by a gunshot but also exposed to the chemical. He seeks refuge in a resort during his transformation but is tracked down by the military who kill all of the guests and staff, burying them in a mass grave, and retrieving the terrorist's corpse. Despite the warnings of Holder, Morton orders the corpse cremated and the ashes escape into the atmosphere and turns birds into carriers who subsequently attack humans: among them Lia (Deborah Bergamini) – who is traveling in a motorhome with friends Nancy (Ulli Reinthaler, AENIGMA), Carol (Marina Loi, DEMONS 2), and Suzanna (Maricar Totengco) – and Glen whose girlfriend Patricia (Beatrice Ring, LOVE RITUAL) tries to get him medical attention in the middle of the countryside. The girls in the motorhome get help from Kenny (INTERZONE's Deran Sarafian who has gone on to a prolific television directing career), Bo (Massimo Vanni, RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR), and Roger (Ottaviano Dell'Acqua, CUT AND RUN), a trio of soldiers on a weekend pass who seek help at a resort only to find it abandoned… by the living, at least. The two groups converge when Bo and Carol go out to find help and Patricia narrowly escapes a zombie attack. While the dwindling number of survivors fight off the living dead hordes, General Morton has ordered the extermination of everyone living or otherwise in the quarantined area of the city.

This late 1980s entry in to the Italian zombie genre started with high hopes under the direction of Lucio Fulci in the cost-effective Philippines with enthusiastic extras, stuntmen Vanni (billed as "Alex Mc Bride") and Dell'Acqua (billed as "Richard Raymond") filling out the cast in addition to coordinating the stunts and performing them alongside some enthusiastic local extras, but the budget was lower and could not stretch in ways that it could in the early 1980s – reportedly it was either planned as 3D or started as such and abandoned – and a sick Fulci did not fare well in the tropical heat. Reportedly, Fulci's cut ran only an hour minus some endless padding meant to bring the film up to feature-length, and it was up to screenwriters Claudio Fragasso (TROLL 2) and Rossella Drudi (VIOLENCE IN A WOMEN'S PRISON) to write some new scenes and Bruno Mattei (STRIKE COMMANDO), who had already done some second unit directing on the original shoot, to helm the new bits which were mainly action set-pieces since the main cast in no uncertain terms turned down the request to return. While ZOMBIE and Fulci's gothic films were as simplistically-plotted, his energy, the cinematography of Sergio Salvati (HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY), and the effects of Giannetto de Rossi – who had moved onto his own directorial career at this point under Fulci's former producer Fabrizio de Angelis – gave the film a stylistic verve while the crude gore effects of Franco Di Girolamo (NIGHTMARE CITY) and a couple inventive compositions that suggest that the film did indeed start filming in 3D (among them an attack by flying zombie severed head) are the only things that distinguish the film from the many late 1980s Filipino-lensed Italian action films. Attempts at ecological concern in the form of sermons by blind radio DJ Blueheart (Del Russel, FROM BEYOND) are as much lip service as the DAY OF THE DEAD-esque schism between the scientists and the military, and touches of irony are cynical retreads of dramatic moments in other films. Fulci, Mattei, and the Fragasso/Drudi writing team rightly keep things moving quick – literally with an undercranked machete zombie attack sequence – while the main cast turn in performances that re models of restraint compared to the uncredited Marius (replacing scenes shot by Fulci featuring BARON BLOOD's Luciano Pigozzi who appeared in a number of Italian-produced Filipino flicks during this period). Producer Giovanni Paolucci would go on to produced Mattei's later direct-to-video genre flicks also shot in the Philippines as well as Dario Argento's DRACULA 3D. Stefano Mainetti, who composed the cues for the musical in STAGE FRIGHT, provides a droning synth score that is technologically on the extreme opposite end of his later orchestral score for Russell Mulcahy's TALOS THE MUMMY.

Unreleased theatrically or on home video in the United States, ZOMBI 3 first became available to English-speaking audiences via a Japanese letterboxed cassette of the uncut version while a butchered version was available to Italian audiences. The cutting made sourcing an uncut version for DVD difficult for Shriek Show who got a Digital Betacam element missing the prologue and a number of gory shots that had to be digitized from the Japanese tape master. Fortunately, the uncut trims were discovered when 88 Films put the film out on Blu-ray as ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS 2 – retitled as a sequel to the Fulci film in the UK – and they have also been reinstated for Severin's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen Blu-ray which was derived from a new 2K scan. ZOMBI 3 will never look great due to patchwork nature of its assemblage, the diffusion of cinematographer Roberto Grassetti (SHOCKING DARK) – along with crisper-looking second unit and reshoot work by Luigi Ciccarese (DEMONIA) whose works for Lucio Fulci looked like they were shot through cheesecloth – but the HD image blows the previous DVD out of the water easily even if it is not as revelatory as one would hope. Colors are richer and less noisy, creative use of light and shadow is evident in the interiors which either looked overly bright or dark on DVD, and the zombie make-up effects no longer look like a bunch of crap thrown onto the faces of extras with some sculptural detail actually eliciting disgust. The daylight exteriors of the original footage is still diffused, but the whites bloom a little less and the highlights no longer glare as much, and scenes bathed in gel lighting look less murky. The transfer may not impress newcomers but it is a breath of fresh air to those who have made do with the DVD. The title in the English credits is still ZOMBI 3 as previously seen on the Shriek Show transfer which had opening and closing credits in Italian. The sole audio option is an English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track with has some intermittent sibilance issues most evident during Patricia's dialogue (dubbed by Pat Starke, voice artist of many an Italian horror heroine) while the music and effects fare better overall. English SDH subtitles are also provided and do their best to translate the lyrics of Clue in the Crew's memorable song "The Sound of Fear" which are understandably nonsensical.

The film is accompanied by an audio commentary by actors Ring and Sarafian ported over from the Shriek Show disc which is slightly clipped at the start. The pair reveal that they were dating at the time and Sarafian states that he got the role by accompanying her to an audition (although Fragasso says in his interview that he had met Sarafian who was directing ALIEN PREDATORS in Spain while he was directing MONSTER DOG and cast him and then Ring), and presumably she is has grown accustomed to him talking over her and poking fun at her. They make some forced jokes about the shoot and the onscreen action while also discussing shooting in the Philippines, working with Italian-speaking actors and Fulci (who was kind to Ring but gave Sarafian a hard time), and Ring suggests the Blueheart character was inspired by Cleavon Little's Super Soul in VANISHING POINT which was directed by Sarafian's father. Since they were there only for the Fulci shoot, they are unaware of what footage was reshot and assume that Fulci directed all of it, not knowing who Mattei was or mentioning Fragasso asking them to return. It is overall an entertaining track in fits and starts.

"The Last Zombies" (18:49), interview with co-director/co-writer Fragasso and co-writer Drudi, is the only new interview in which the couple recall being commissioned to write the film for producer Franco Gaudenzi as a Lucio Fulci effort, casting the film, and the original shoot which netted a film that ran short. They then discuss the reshoot with Mattei and are a little vague about the exact differences apart from the action sequences since they only had Vanni and Dell'Acqua from the original cast, along with the scenes featuring the scientists and the general (in which Mattei and Fragasso make cameos as the soldiers who cremate the corpse). They speak respectfully of Fulci and Fragasso claims that Argento told him at the director's funeral that Fulci recommended him to direct WAX MASK which he turned down because he did not think that a period piece could be done on the stated budget.

The rest of the featurettes are reedited from the interviews conducted for the Shriek Show disc. In "Tough Guys" (4:55), actors/stuntmen Vanni and Dell’Acqua recall shooting in the Philippines with guerillas killing people in the streets. Dell'Acqua's relationship with Fulci went back to ZOMBIE in which he played the worm-faced poster zombie while Vanni only got to work with Fulci on this film. They recall both Fulci and Mattei giving them creative freedom in realizing the film's stunt sequences. In "The Problem Solver" (8:30), replacement director Mattei recalls working on STRIKE COMMANDO 2 while ZOMBI 3's original shoot went over-schedule, with Fulci requesting that he shoot some second unit before he was brought on for the reshoot. Shot around 2002, the interview has Mattei saying that 1992 was the last time he was in the Philippines although he would return there in 2004 to mount a series of direct-to-video films including back-to-back cannibal films IN THE LAND OF THE CANNIBALS and the shameless CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST rip-off MONDO CANNIBAL, the women-in-prison film THE JAIL: THE WOMEN'S HELL, back-to-back zombie films ZOMBIES: THE BEGINNING and ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD, along with a quartet of lesser-seen softcore erotic films.