What do you get if you mix an island of scientists, a voodoo witch doctor, zombies... and then open the third door to Hell (apparently neglecting the fact that Fulci had already opened all seven doors)? Well, you get "After Death".The first thing you'll notice about this film is the 80s metal soundtrack thrown together by Alberto Festa (including his song, repeated throughout the film, "Living After Death"). Not unlike other 80s Italian horror films, this seems to make sense even though it really doesn't.The second thing you'll notice is that this film features gay porn star Jeff Stryker. (Unless, of course, you don't know gay porn stars... then you won't notice at all.) This film is greatly under-appreciated by audiences, I fear. I loved it, and it seems that the hardcore fans of Italian horror do, too, despite the general agreement that this film fails. Jim Harper says the film features "fast-paced, sharply edited action scenes that rely heavily on excessive gore", and despite the fact "the story is patently absurd" the film is "gruesome enough to please gorehounds." Likewise, Jay Slater praises the film when he says the picture is "a blast of energy, rippling with violent action and awash with gore", an "energetic splatter picture in the spirit of Herschell Gordon Lewis" This is absolutely right. While trying to pass itself off as a sequel to "Dawn of the Dead", it has much more in common with Lamberto Bava's "Demons". The splatter effects and rock music make it perfect for this series.Director Claudio Fragasso laments that the most intense gore had been stripped by the censors. He also insists that the "special effects were all made laboriously by hand", which I think pays off -- most of the zombies are remarkable. What gore was cut is unknown to me... it's already a fairly gory picture as is... to increase it would make this one for the record books.If you only know Fragasso from the "best worst movie" "Troll 2" or don't know his work at all, this is a fine introduction. Taking the zombie jungle island formula many others have used and mixing it with the gore and colorful blood of Lamberto Bava, "After Death" is a film worth catching, and at least for me, owning.

Black magic is used to release the undead on American scientists who came to an island to help find a cure for cancer, securing the wrath of a voodoo priest whose daughter was a victim of their experimental research. The lone survivor, a little girl, will unknowingly return to the island accompanying a group of mercenaries(soldiers of fortune only "working for the good guys")who find themselves on the same island as the voodoo ghouls from the opening of the movie. We also follow three who are on the island attempting to find out what happened to those who were killed on the settlement. You have a Book of the Dead, lit candles, an amulet which supposedly keeps the door to hell closed, four words which will free the undead from captivity, and the non believer who scoffs at the mere notion of such a thing as zombies occupying the earth releasing them to once again terrorize the living by quoting forbidden lines.Shot in the Philipines, using Filipino actors as the zombies, Claudio Fragrasso(Troll 2)shot "After Death"(tagged as Zombie 4)in two weeks with little budget(a little over 100,000 dollars). He even admits the film carries the typical plot associated with the immensely popular genre and devoted inspiration to the splatter rather than story. Fragrasso admits that it is an empty film and that it was used to recoup loss from another movie(Fragrasso calls "After Death" a "recovery" movie). The characters have no personality and the damaged faces of many of the zombies favored, to me anyway, burn make-up rather than the usual rotted flesh we are accustomed to. To me the zombies, for the most part, resembled the creatures from the wildly popular Argento/Lamberto Bava DEMONS movies than the undead from the Italian ZOMBI series, their ghoulish complexion, grotesque features and hideous teeth. The ending, when two remaining members of those yet consumed by the zombies find themselves in the cave containing the book of the dead, is incomprehensible and bizarre(the physical "metamorphosis" of the girl regarding her face/eyeball). The story itself is essentially pure formula zombie movie..the zombies besiege live humans who are surrounded with little place to escape and no refuge to protect themselves. It looks like a film shot on the cheap and feels as if it was thrown together on the fly with little preparation, except in the gore effects with heavy dependency on prosthetics. Many of the zombies( of those who turn in the film) spit out blood and slime, with lots of icky slobber. Splatter fans might be more forgiving towards this than the casual horror fan who'll find it nothing more than a junk film clearly proclaiming that the ZOMBI series had run it's course. Faces and skin are torn apart and gnawed into. A hand goes completely through a victim. Bodies are shot multiple times by machine guns.The mercenaries aren't exactly a bright group and it's not surprising they wind up in their predicament..impulsive and irrational behavior/decisions are definitely their undoing(not killing those bitten and visibly changing into the undead; not leaving the island when it was clear that danger was present; engaging the zombies without regard to their advantage in numbers).

I saw this movie quite recently as 'Zombie Flesh Eaters 3' on Vipco DVD. Anyway, to put it bluntly it was awful. I've heard similar things about 'Zombie Flesh Eaters 2' (Zombie 3) which I haven't seen yet but trust me; 'Zombie Flesh Eaters 3' (Zombie 4: After Death) is a cacophony of rubbish, definitely not something Lucio Fulci would have approved of.We open in an old cave on a remote tropical island with some cheesy jungle 'Eye of the Tiger' style music playing and this black priest in robes is chanting while a lady nearby (his wife) goes ballistic, eventually sinking into the ground, agonisingly slow too. Some safari lookalikes enter (they're actually scientists) and accuse the priest of spreading a plague on the island that reanimates the dead because the priest's daughter died of cancer while in their care. Stupidly, the priest doesn't care and says his wife will avenge her daughter and he himself will 'come back for your intestines!'. Wifey returns as a ridiculous fanged creature and starts mutilating the scientists in sadistic fashion. We then see a mother, father and daughter running through the island being pursued by zombies. Daddy cops it, mummy gives amulet to the little girl and tells her to run, then mummy suffers same fate as daddy. In the next shot, the little girl is now completely grown up after somehow escaping the island and just happens to pass by the island when the boat conks out. They dock at the island and explore. Three other kids are on the island and they find the cave from the beginning (looks a little different) where they find a movie prop, the book of the dead (really, its an ancient book, yet someone has just written 'The Book of Death' on the front in black marker!). Anyway, one of them reads it and zombies are upon them. After that, the strangely intelligent zombies grow in numbers and bite (not devour) everyone in the group till they are whittled down to just two. The grown up girl thinks she can stop it using her mummy's amulet, but alas it fails and while her companion is mauled to death behind her, she pulls off her own face and becomes a zombie. The End! Plot holes are abound so much in this film, its really laughable. First, you're driven to think the dead are back via a plague or virus unleashed on the island using voodoo. However they are brought back by the book of the dead?? Plus, there are already zombies loose on the island before they read the damn book! Then we have the candles and the amulet, which halts all the zombies movement. Why didn't they keep the candles lit all the time? And why all of a sudden are the zombies part of magic curses and gates of hell? The priest in the beginning mentioned nothing about the dead coming from hell, except for his wife whom he personally sent there.Even the zombies themselves are stupid. They do so many things zombies just DO NOT do, like being able to sprint like an Olympic runner, they only have a tiny nibble on humans just to transform them or they just kill them in a gruesome way. They can even speak and fire weapons, taunting their former allies and such. And they are dressed in silly cowls that make them look like ninjas! Why is it called 'Zombie Flesh Eaters 3' if the zombies don't even eat?? I normally love zombie movies but this one really was just too painful to bear. The acting is atrocious, the plot is too thin and full of holes and errors and there is no satisfactory or logical conclusion at the end of the film. There is one thing I must credit the film with though: Although some make-up effects look silly, overdone and just out of place, the gore effects are well done and plentiful as well. I'd only recommend this movie to someone interested in just seeing a few gory death scenes stringed together. Really bad stuff people.

While working in a research for the cure of brain damage, a group of scientists are attacked and killed by a horde of zombies unleashed by a voodoo priest, and only a little girl saves. Twenty years later, she returns to the island with a group of mercenaries, while three researchers find a Book of the Dead and release the flesh-eater zombies again.The lame and cheesy "After Death" has an awful screenplay with a terrible development of characters and their motives; the acting is laughable with histrionic movement of lips of the ham actors and actresses; the dubbing in English is unpleasant; the cinematography and locations are very poor and the soundtrack is annoying. The gore special effects are reasonable considering the extremely low-budget of this flick. My vote is three.Title (Brazil): Not Available