Zombi 2

• The infamous eye-gouging scene (Olga Karlatos as Paola Menard) was a practical splinter prop with simulated blood, crafted by effects artist Giannetto De Rossi — the agonizingly slow build-up is why it's still ranked among horror's most infamous gore moments.
• The legendary underwater zombie-vs-shark fight was real: local diver and shark trainer Ramon Bravo suited up as the zombie and got in the water with an actual shark off Isla Mujeres, Mexico -- a stunt devised by Ugo Tucci and shot without Fulci's direct involvement.
• The film landed on the UK's DPP 'video nasties' list in 1983 under the title Zombie Flesh Eaters. It was cut for theatrical and home-video release for years afterward and wasn't available fully uncut in Britain until 2005.
• Producer Fabrizio De Angelis fast-tracked the project through his company Variety Films to cash in on the huge Italian success of Dawn of the Dead, which had been released in Italy as 'Zombi' -- hence this film's title, Zombi 2, despite not being an official sequel.
• Fulci reportedly nicknamed his rotting zombie extras 'walking flower pots.' Their makeup, built by Giannetto De Rossi, was applied in thick, caked, multi-stage layers of latex and foam directly on set rather than as pre-molded masks.

The island of Matool functions not as a geographical location but as a purgatorial limbo where the dead recycle endlessly, explaining why the zombies persist despite head trauma that should kill them.

The voodoo priest is merely a conduit for a deeper, cosmic indifference; the zombies are not controlled by him but are manifestations of the island itself rejecting human intrusion.

The final escape is an illusion or death dream, suggested by the sudden cut to black and the lack of resolution for the surviving characters, trapping them in the loop forever.

A missing scientist drags his daughter and a reporter to the Caribbean island of Matool, where voodoo curses have already resurrected the dead. Fulci ignores zombie rules; these corpses rot in real-time, driven by primal hunger rather than viral infection. The duo fights through jungle decay and shark-infested waters, facing an army of the undead that refuses to stay buried. It is a descent into a tropical hell where science fails and ancient magic reigns, culminating in a gore-soaked siege that prioritizes spectacle over survival logic.