I can't tell you how excited I was to finally be seeing this film, which I snagged on Blu Ray at a horror convention a few months back. I have seen so many Italian horror/cannibal films, but for one reason or another, Marino Girolami's Zombie Holocaust (a.k.a. Dr. Butcher, MD in the USA) has always slipped under my radar. When I first started really watching horror films many years ago, one of the first films I fell in love with outside of horror classics such as Hellraiser, The Evil Dead, A Nightmare on Elm Street, etc. was Ruggero Deodato's infamous Cannibal Holocaust. At the time I was probably around 13 years old, and that movie was like nothing that I'd ever seen before. As I began to delve deeper and deeper into this incredible new-to-me genre of Italian cannibal films, I realized that I'd fallen in love. The cheesy effects, the ridiculous storylines, the perfectly shaved women (and men) with breast implants trying to make us believe they were uncivilized amazonian cannibals. I just loved every aspect. From that point forward, I was a gorehound for life. Thank you, Italy.
Now, I know you may be looking at the title of this review and be thinking, 'what the hell does a movie called 'Zombie Holocaust' have to do with cannibals?'. Well my friends, Zombie Holocaust actually features a mix of cannibals AND zombies. HOW FRIGGIN AWESOME! At least, that was what the nerdy fangirl part of me was squealing with delight as I sat down to finally check this bad boy out. I really do love these kinds of films. Intrigued yet?
Zombie Holocaust starts us off in New York City, reminding me pretty much of the opening scenes of any cannibal movie. A lot of these films tend to have very similar plotlines to each other, some of them even borrowed the same footage. That's alright, this isn't really a movie you go into looking for a solid plot. We are taken to a New York City hospital, where there have been disturbing reports of body parts missing off of corpses in the morgue. When a hospital employee is caught red handed having an afternoon snack on said body parts, this leads hospital employee and anthropologist (how convenient) Lori to become intrigued with the case, and it just so happens the body of the hospital worker/cannibal is marked with a strange symbol that Lori happens to recognize (By the way, the scene where the cannibal worker jumps out the window and the mannequins arms fly off is hilarious. Unintended I'm sure, but one of my favorite scenes). This symbol is the mark of the Kito tribe, located on some distant tropical island somewhere far, far away. Rather than contacting the authorities, Dr. Chandler (a doctor employed at the hospital where all this madness is taking place) decides to take Lori, his assistant George, and a journalist named Susan to this island to try to get to the bottom of all this.Upon arriving to the Island, the team meets up with Dr. Obrero, a man seemingly known very well by Dr. Peter Chandler and a long-time resident of the island where this cannibal tribe resides. If all of this seems way too convenient to you, then these kinds of movies are probably not for you. I find the absurdity charming and fun, and this ridiculous plot line actually helped me like the film even more. Dr. Obrero has his assistant, Molotto, take the team out in search of the tribe.
As our merry gang of wanderers delve deeper into the jungle, here's where things get fun. We are introduced to the cannibals, who waste no time attacking the group and picking off some of the members. We are treated to an AWESOME eyeball gouging scene and an absolutely hilarious scene where the cannibals throw some BRIGHT RED rope around Susan, effectively kidnapping her in what must be the greatest lasso scene ever committed to film. As the carnage ensues, the cannibals get spooked by the appearance of several menacing beings approaching them in the woods, and they scatter. Lo and behold, the zombies are finally here! The surviving members run off, thanking their lucky stars that the zombies showed up and saved their sorry asses. Peter, Lori, and Molotto continue their trek through the woods until they reach some white monastery looking building, where Dr. Obrero is waiting for them. He warns them that they should leave, and that he has a motorboat waiting for them at a beach for their escape. Peter and Lori head off, find the boat, and after an awesome zombie-boat-motor-propeller death, they decide that there is something fishy with this Dr. Obrero character. Naturally, they head back to the monastery to investigate.
It turns out that Dr. Obrero is actually a mad scientist who has been experimenting on the native people for years. One of his favorite experiments is taking the brain of a living human and transplanting it into the body of a corpse, which is where all those wonderfully realistic looking zombie creatures are coming from. Of course, we are treated to a scene in which Dr. Chandler shows us exactly how he performs this transplant, bone saw and all in tow. Really a very well done scene, by the way. Dr. Chandler is very upset that Peter and Lori have intruded on his work. Lori gets kidnapped by the cannibals, and Peter gets captured for the next brain transplant extravaganza. The ending of this film is very sudden and unsatisfying, but we do get some nice zombie burning in fire scenes, and that douche Dr. Chandler does get whats coming to him.
Gripes about the film? I have a few. First off, the title is misleading. There can't be more than ten zombies in this entire movie, and NOT ONE of them eats anyone. I suppose they are not traditional 'zombies' per say, but at least we get treated to some nice cannibal dinner shots. Speaking of the cannibals, they are a ton of fun when they do show up, but they show up way too late in the film. This is not a very long movie and while the gore was sufficient enough to satisfy me, most of it gets crammed towards the end. The gore scenes are really wonderful for such a low budget film, but the plot was over the top stupid. In fact, the plot was pretty much an exact copy of Luci Fulci's classic Zombi 2. Like I said before, most of these movies copied each other anyway so the similar plot lines shouldn't deter hardcore fans. Would I recommend this? Absolutely, especially to a genre fan. If you are new to Italian cannibal films, I highly suggest you check out Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust or even Fulci's Zombi 2 before this film. Still, Zombie Holocaust was a fun little film that satisfied the cannibal fan in me. Not the best, but certainly not the worst either.
RATING:
*** out of *****
Now, I know you may be looking at the title of this review and be thinking, 'what the hell does a movie called 'Zombie Holocaust' have to do with cannibals?'. Well my friends, Zombie Holocaust actually features a mix of cannibals AND zombies. HOW FRIGGIN AWESOME! At least, that was what the nerdy fangirl part of me was squealing with delight as I sat down to finally check this bad boy out. I really do love these kinds of films. Intrigued yet?
Zombie Holocaust starts us off in New York City, reminding me pretty much of the opening scenes of any cannibal movie. A lot of these films tend to have very similar plotlines to each other, some of them even borrowed the same footage. That's alright, this isn't really a movie you go into looking for a solid plot. We are taken to a New York City hospital, where there have been disturbing reports of body parts missing off of corpses in the morgue. When a hospital employee is caught red handed having an afternoon snack on said body parts, this leads hospital employee and anthropologist (how convenient) Lori to become intrigued with the case, and it just so happens the body of the hospital worker/cannibal is marked with a strange symbol that Lori happens to recognize (By the way, the scene where the cannibal worker jumps out the window and the mannequins arms fly off is hilarious. Unintended I'm sure, but one of my favorite scenes). This symbol is the mark of the Kito tribe, located on some distant tropical island somewhere far, far away. Rather than contacting the authorities, Dr. Chandler (a doctor employed at the hospital where all this madness is taking place) decides to take Lori, his assistant George, and a journalist named Susan to this island to try to get to the bottom of all this.Upon arriving to the Island, the team meets up with Dr. Obrero, a man seemingly known very well by Dr. Peter Chandler and a long-time resident of the island where this cannibal tribe resides. If all of this seems way too convenient to you, then these kinds of movies are probably not for you. I find the absurdity charming and fun, and this ridiculous plot line actually helped me like the film even more. Dr. Obrero has his assistant, Molotto, take the team out in search of the tribe.
As our merry gang of wanderers delve deeper into the jungle, here's where things get fun. We are introduced to the cannibals, who waste no time attacking the group and picking off some of the members. We are treated to an AWESOME eyeball gouging scene and an absolutely hilarious scene where the cannibals throw some BRIGHT RED rope around Susan, effectively kidnapping her in what must be the greatest lasso scene ever committed to film. As the carnage ensues, the cannibals get spooked by the appearance of several menacing beings approaching them in the woods, and they scatter. Lo and behold, the zombies are finally here! The surviving members run off, thanking their lucky stars that the zombies showed up and saved their sorry asses. Peter, Lori, and Molotto continue their trek through the woods until they reach some white monastery looking building, where Dr. Obrero is waiting for them. He warns them that they should leave, and that he has a motorboat waiting for them at a beach for their escape. Peter and Lori head off, find the boat, and after an awesome zombie-boat-motor-propeller death, they decide that there is something fishy with this Dr. Obrero character. Naturally, they head back to the monastery to investigate.
It turns out that Dr. Obrero is actually a mad scientist who has been experimenting on the native people for years. One of his favorite experiments is taking the brain of a living human and transplanting it into the body of a corpse, which is where all those wonderfully realistic looking zombie creatures are coming from. Of course, we are treated to a scene in which Dr. Chandler shows us exactly how he performs this transplant, bone saw and all in tow. Really a very well done scene, by the way. Dr. Chandler is very upset that Peter and Lori have intruded on his work. Lori gets kidnapped by the cannibals, and Peter gets captured for the next brain transplant extravaganza. The ending of this film is very sudden and unsatisfying, but we do get some nice zombie burning in fire scenes, and that douche Dr. Chandler does get whats coming to him.
Gripes about the film? I have a few. First off, the title is misleading. There can't be more than ten zombies in this entire movie, and NOT ONE of them eats anyone. I suppose they are not traditional 'zombies' per say, but at least we get treated to some nice cannibal dinner shots. Speaking of the cannibals, they are a ton of fun when they do show up, but they show up way too late in the film. This is not a very long movie and while the gore was sufficient enough to satisfy me, most of it gets crammed towards the end. The gore scenes are really wonderful for such a low budget film, but the plot was over the top stupid. In fact, the plot was pretty much an exact copy of Luci Fulci's classic Zombi 2. Like I said before, most of these movies copied each other anyway so the similar plot lines shouldn't deter hardcore fans. Would I recommend this? Absolutely, especially to a genre fan. If you are new to Italian cannibal films, I highly suggest you check out Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust or even Fulci's Zombi 2 before this film. Still, Zombie Holocaust was a fun little film that satisfied the cannibal fan in me. Not the best, but certainly not the worst either.
RATING:
*** out of *****