Lucio Fulci

No. 5: "Zombi 2" (1979)

Released as "Zombie" in the United States, this was sold in its native Italy as a sequel to "Dawn of the Dead" (which was known as "Zombi" in that country). Surprisingly, however, director Lucio Fulci achieved his own genre classic, launching a wave ... moreof Italian zombie films. Set on a fictional Caribbean island (a nod to the zombie's voodoo roots), the movie features the most horrific corpses seen on-screen to that point, not to mention a nonstop tide of visceral gore that shocked even Romero fans. Two scenes that remain high points of the genre: the eyeball impalement sequence and a zombie's underwater battle with a shark (which ends up a draw!).

('Zombi 2'/Jerry Gross Organization/Courtesy Everett Collection)