Plot
In a cold open, a shrouded corpse reanimates, and is shot in the head by a silhouetted man. The man then tells his colleague “The boat can leave now, tell the crew.”
Some time later, an abandoned boat drifts into New York Harbor, and is boarded by two harbor patrolmen. A hidden zombie kills one of the patrolmen, but is shot by the patrolman's partner and falls overboard; the dead patrolman's body is taken to the morgue. Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow) is questioned by the police, as the boat belonged to her father. She claims he is conducting research on Matool, a Caribbean island. British journalist Peter West (Ian McCulloch) is investigating the story; he and Bowles learn that Bowles' father was suffering from a strange illness on the island. They hire a boat and two guides—Brian Hull and his girlfriend, Susan Barrett—to reach Matool.
Meanwhile, on Matool, British doctor David Menard and his wife Paola have been researching the phenomenon of zombie reanimation. Paola wishes to flee the island, but Menard insists on staying. That night, Paola is alone in the house when a zombie tries to enter; she pushes the door shut, but it breaks through with one arm. Paola is dragged through the hole and killed, with her eye being gouged out by splintered wood.
Approaching Matool, Barrett dives into the ocean around the boat. She encounters a shark and flees behind a reef only to be accosted by a submerged zombie. Surfacing, she reaches the boat while the shark and zombie attack each other. Eventually, the boat docks at Matool.
Menard is alarmed to find that one of his colleagues, Fritz, has died of the zombie infection and tells his remaining staff to shoot all the dead bodies in the head. While digging a grave for a body, he hears a signal flare and follows it to discover the boat group. Menard sends them back to his mansion to fetch his wife, where they discover Paola's corpse being eaten by zombies. The group fends off an attack against them and escapes in a jeep, with West suffering an ankle injury when the vehicle veers off-road after slamming into a zombie. Resting in a jungle clearing, the group realizes they have stumbled upon a graveyard; Barrett is killed when one of the corpses rises from the earth and bites out her throat.
As more corpses reanimate, the group flees to the local hospital, where Menard explains that the dead are rising as a result of a voodoo curse that he has been trying to stop. The hospital is besieged by zombies, and Menard is killed by a reanimated Fritz. As the zombies attempt to enter, those being treated for infection inside the hospital also reanimate, killing several hospital staff who have stayed behind. As the dead outside breach the door, Bowles, West, and Hull set the building on fire and start to shoot the zombies; the undead Barrett bites Hull in the arm but is shot by West. Bowles, West, and Hull escape to the boat and leave the island. At sea, Hull dies of his infection, and his body is locked in a cabin to be used as evidence of what has happened. However, as the boat approaches New York again, a radio broadcast reports that the city is under attack from zombies—the result of the initial attack in the harbor.
At the Brooklyn Bridge, a horde of zombies walk slowly towards the city.
