@Reb_Brown said:

Fulci's zombies were always a little different from Romero's. In ZOMBIE they were probably the closest in spirit, largely killing in order to later feast on their victims and dying only with trauma to the brain. In CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD they bite people on at least one occasion and can be seen munching on the corpses of the guys in the bar, but largely kill people purely out of cruelty by ripping their brains out of their heads, etc. With those zombies, brain damage apparently wasn't as critical to the destruction of the creature so much as stabbing them in the stomach. Also by CITY they gained the ability to teleport in and out of reality and possibly to other locations as well.

So by BEYOND, we are back to zombies dying from being shot in the head but they never seem to stop and munch on the corpse of anyone they kill. In this film, zombies are just moaning, slow-moving psycho-killers out to murder you in the most horrible way possible with no other motivation. They apparently don't need eyes to see (as almost all have their eyes closed) and are not very strong when it comes to forcing open doors. However they demonstrate the ability to overpower people from time to time. It seems to me here that there really aren't any "rules" with these later Fulci zombies as they were shoehorned in the plot late in the game at the behest of the German distributor, but why oh why does it make sense for David Warbeck to waste so many bullets shooting the zombies anywhere but the head? This is particularly frustrating with the last zombie encounter with him facing off against the warlock coming out of the closet in the morgue. He shoots him in the stomach about 4 times. Was it because he'd seen CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD and believed the "main boss" zombie could only die from trauma to the stomach?

I should have read your post before I made mine about how much of an idiot that guy was for wasting bullets as he was too dense to piece together that head shots put them down. But you just reminded me of one of the most aggravating aspects of City of the Living Dead and that was that teleportation crap. Were they really teleporting or was that just an explanation viewers came up with to cover up the ridiculous senselessness most of the films have. Most of these films make absolutely no logical sense.

The Beyond (1981) - 3 outta 10 stars

I have a feeling that these films were sort of designed to be senseless on purpose.... but look at the inspiration for CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, which I think was THE FOG. The zombies in that movie kinda faded in and out of existence when the fog rolled in. I think Fulci (or the Writers, like Sacchetti) were trying to emulate what they think worked in that film, only in a much more hamfisted and less artful manner.

@Reb_Brown said:

I have a feeling that these films were sort of designed to be senseless on purpose.... but look at the inspiration for CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, which I think was THE FOG. The zombies in that movie kinda faded in and out of existence when the fog rolled in. I think Fulci (or the Writers, like Sacchetti) were trying to emulate what they think worked in that film, only in a much more hamfisted and less artful manner.

Now that you mention it, I think I remember reading somewhere that Fulci was going for that dream-like experience where nonsensical events occur much like in a dream. It definitely doesn't work IMO. It just serves to piss your audience off.