After a New York harbor patrolman is murdered at the hands of a flesh-hungry ghoul aboard what was believed to be an abandoned yacht, Anne (Tisa Farrow)--the daughter of the ship's missing owner--teams up with a newspaper reporter named Peter West (Ian McCulloch) for a private investigation. With the help of a pair of sightseers, they travel to the secluded Caribbean island of Matul, where Anne's father was last seen conducting medical research. There, they meet his colleague, Dr. Menard (Richard Johnson), who frantically attempts to find a scientific explanation for a phenomenon that has plagued the island; it seems as if the dead refuse to stay dead. The locals believe a voodoo curse is at work as scores of animated corpses rise from their graves to hungrily seek out live flesh. Anne learns her father has died, but before she and the others can return to civilization, they are forced into battle with a plethora of bloodthirsty zombies.

Italian maestro Lucio Fulci's most lucrative outing features an abundance of shockingly gruesome sequences filmed in the director's regular close-up style, wasting none of frequent collaborator Giannetto De Rossi's amazing makeup effects. The ominous synthesizer soundtrack by Fabio Frizzi splendidly shrouds the action with simplistic, yet catchy hooks that are sure to continue buzzing in viewer's mind long after the film's spine-chilling ending. Released abroad as a sequel to George A. Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD, produced by Dario Argento in Italy as ZOMBI.