Review LXVI
Zombi Holocaust (1980)
This film has a little anecdote to it. Well, even more so than usual. Anyway, my mother always mentioned a film she thought absolutely disgusting whenever I brought up horror films (my mom is not into horror films). She told me she was over at a friend's house with my father, and one of the friends had rented this film called Doctor Butcher, M.D., or Zombi(e) Holocaust, or Zombie 3 (low budget B-movie horror flicks always have a ton of various titles). She told me she found the bodies grotesque and the cannibalism, horrifying. She's told me about this film for years, but I'd always forget about it shortly after she'd share her experience. Not this time, muahaha! I decided to check out the film directed by "Frank Martin", or Marino Girolami as he is really known, and starring a bunch of actors and actresses who never got beyond the zombie genre and weird masochism-sadism porno films (no link for your protection).
The film opens up with a man sneaking into a morgue with a briefcase. He stops at a cadaver and lifts off the cover, revealing a middle-aged man. He places the briefcase on a table, opens it, and - big shocker - takes out a lengthy knife. He proceeds to cut off the left hand of the victim as if the man did not have any bones. He examines the hand and places it into the briefcase. The next day, a doctor and a nurse explain that someone has been stealing extremities from various corpses. They decide to not contact the police, but it proves to not be a problem as they soon find the culprit - a South Asian worker! He jumps out a window (that escalated quickly!) and, before dying, utters the terrible word "Kito". A gang of individuals - with two awesomely beautiful women - head to the Mollucas Islands in search of Kito, but soon run into a gang of flesh-eating cannibals and a doctor with a medical degree in MURDER (cue blood dripping from word) and resurrection.
All I can say is this film was not even close as to how bad my mother made it out to be. I mean, it was made in 1980, so I wasn't expecting anything superb, but I was sorely disappointed with the lack of gore in this movie. I got the super cheesy, "eerie" music, and I got the completely-unnecessary-but-expected nudity and undressing scenes, along with its own super cheesy, porno-style theme (it was the same one both times). I even got the awkward racist theme of "natives are all cannibals"! What this film did not have, though, was full-on crazy gore scenes. I can recall two pretty gorey scenes: one, where a guy's stomach is cut open and his entrails are eaten by natives; two, a girl's skull is cut open while she is alive. That first gore scene was lame because the natives ate chunky bits of his entrails and not his intestines, which were clearly pouring out of him. The second scene? It was ruined by the fact that the doctor removed the girl's vocal chords before proceeding with the operation. While I really hate listening to girls crying and screaming all the time in horror films (yeah, yeah, maybe it's symbolic of how women's cries are ignored in society, but screw that chick at the end of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), you took out the defining element to revealing how painful the operation was! My guess is the girl couldn't act and also couldn't stand listening to screaming girls, so he decided to just add this bit in to save the viewer. Regardless, it was a bad move on their part. And again, that makes two super gorey scenes, and they weren't even that bad. If your film has a title containing "zombie", and you have cannibals, not zombies, AND you barely have any gore scenes, you really have a problem. At least I could make fun of the acting, which was atrocious, as well as the miserable dialogue. Guys, guys, I'll ruin the first scene because it just defines the film:
Doctor (not Dr. Butcher, just some regular doctor): Okay, it's time for anatomy class. Today we will examine the digestive system.He lifts cover off of corpse sexy nurse brought in revealing a corpse with, gasp, no hand! The nurse and doctor look at each other quickly, but the doctor coughs and continues with the lesson.
Doctor: As I was saying, we will look at the digestive system.
The doctor proceeds to sound scientific and say duodenum in a way I never heard before.
Random medical student, male, turning to female peer: I bet you took the hand.
Female student: Why would you say that?
Male student: Didn't you say you wanted a hand to help you study?
The group erupts into laughter. The doctor proceeds to kick them all out for the bad joke - I mean, because they aren't taking the class seriously.
I don't think I need to even give this one a rating. That above scene illustrates the number of stars it deserves. Next movie!
No comments:
Post a Comment