Zombie Holocaust
The dead will rise from the grave... to walk among us.
Year of Release: 1980
Also Known As: Zombi Holocaust, Dr. Butcher M.D., Queen of the Cannibals
Genre: Horror
Rated: R
Running Time: 88 minutes (1:28)
Director: Marino Girolami
Cast:
Ian McCulloch ... Dr. Peter Chandler
Alexandra Delli Colli ... Lori Ridgeway
Sherry Buchanan ... Susan Kelly
Peter O'Neal ... George Harper
Donald O'Brien ... Dr. Obrero
Dakar ... Molotto
Summary:
A mad doctor's deranged dream of creating "perfect people" by taking parts of one person and interchanging them with another backfires as his creations develop strange side effects.
Review:
Zombie Holocaust, remindin' us that when you get right down to it, zombies're just cannibals with a PR problem.
And speakin' of people who go through life not knowin' where their next meal's gonna come from, I consider myself a pretty tolerant guy, but if there's one thing I can't stand its people who refuse to grow up.
I realize this might be hard to believe given the lengths I go to to paint Chickawalka County as a bastion of emotional maturity, but there're a lotta people livin' here who haven't been able to move on from the 1980s and as a result, I got sucked into a grudge match that's been 38 years in the making despite my moral responsibility to get this year's zombie flick posted by Easter to pay my respects to the J-man. I'm sure he'll cut me some slack this one time, but Duke Tankersley was unwilling to extend me the same courtesy after he got into it with Mark Skidman at the Gutter Bowl on the eve of Resurrection. I hate to be critical 'cause Duke's a good friend, but some guys can go an entire lifetime without gettin' their priorities straight.
"Set us up, Sally!" Mark hollered, briefly pausing the noogie he was inflicting upon Blair Lemus to place his order as he and his squad of high school peakin' putzes came strollin' in.
"City Council finally let you guys use the Little League diamond, huh?" Sally Turlinger asked, filling nine mugs of Pole Cat for Mark and his mid-life crisis actors.
"Nope. But those kids usually clear out after a few warning shots," Deputy Dahl winked, settin' his service pistol on the counter.
'Course this *had* to happen on an afternoon when Duke was in there watchin' SportsCenter, explainin' to Otis Turlinger how the Athletics were only nine players short of a contender, and so what happened next was basically unavoidable.
"Say, Sally, pour one for ole Duke here while you're at it. Gotta be tough knowin' he left it all on the field senior year," Mark smirked, spinnin' his cap around to reveal the old Chickawalka Stalkas team logo from the cursed '87 season.
I imagine mosta you know this story already, but a little Chickawalka history is probably in order for the foreign readers. See, back in the day, Duke and Mark used to play ball for the Stalkas baseball team with Duke catchin' and Mark on the mound, and I'm sure you're all aware of my position on Mark Skidman and his rampant dipshittery, but one thing I'll say for the guy - he could really hurl the ole horsehide.
The Stalkas made it to the league championship series that year, and in the decidin' game of the semis, Duke crushed a high fastball in the top of the 9th that drove in three runs and put us up by one against the Mulepiddle County Maulers in a game Mark was able to hold against the heart of the Maulers' lineup. Coach Butts gave Duke the game ball for his late-inning heroics, and the short version is that Mark came down with a terminal case of butthurt, believing it shoulda been him receiving the honor after retiring the side and strikin' out eight batters besides.
The team never was the same after that; half the guys sided with Duke while the other half backed Mark, and so they ended up gettin' swept in the finals because from that point on gettin' anybody to work together was about like tryna get a budget bill through congress one day before the recess period. That was also the year Duke graduated, and in the '88 season, Mark's pitchin' alone was only able to carry the Stalkas to a 12-8 record in a year that ended with the team bein' knocked out of contention in the first round of the playoffs, leading most folks to attribute the previous year's success to Duke's bat.
Normally I don't like to dredge up the past (you see how easy it sneaks up on ya?), but I feel a little context is necessary for those of you who weren't at the Gutter Bowl to understand Duke's reaction.
"Thank ya, kindly. And you're right, it was tough leavin' it all on the field. But I was only 18 years old at the time and I HAD to leave 'er there. And I wantcha to understand somethin' - whacher mama and I did behind home plate that night doesn't mean she loves you any less. I'm sure it musta been scary at the time, but those noises she was makin' were completely normal under the circumstances," Duke replied, hoisting his glass to Mark.
While Mark was over at the bar showin' off his pimply ass to the world, Billy Hilliard and I were in the arcade arguin' about who the initials "MAU" occupyin' the #3 spot on the Asteroids high score list belong to, and so after the two of us and Mark's eight teammates managed to pull Duke offa 'im it was mutually agreed between the two parties that Duke could find any eight players he wanted and that if they could beat Mark's beer-battered wimps he would never set foot inside the Gutter Bowl again, but that if Mark's boys won, Duke hadda cough up the game ball from their '87 semifinals victory.
Billy and I were at the wrong place at the wrong time, and so that left just six more players Duke needed to field a complete team even though Billy and I hadn't played since high school and I couldn't catch crabs from a $10 hooker even in the days before my knees started makin' a sound like somebody twistin' a wad of bubble wrap when I get outta bed in the mornin'.
To suggest that Duke is overly competitive is probably an understatement given that the "assemble the squad" speech he gave us sounded less like Vince Lombardi and more like General Patton, but the short version was that the three of us were to find two players each and meet up at the field in an hour, and since he was still clutchin' a handfulla Mark's hair at the time Billy and I agreed it'd be a bad time to decline.
Billy went out and collected Roxanne Bigelow and B.J. Wilder and I recruited Bambi Mastrude and Tetnis, but Duke spent his entire allotted hour tryna talk Sadie Bonebreak into playin', and so by the time we'd all arrived we were still a man short.
"I don't wanna spark a controversy or anything, but Duke either missed a few days in Kindergarten or else he thinks you count for two," I said, gesturing towards Sadie. A
"An' dih'un you guy'v pway vuh fame povifun?" Billy asked.
"After careful... uh... consideration, I've decided to play center field and let Sadie catch," Duke grumbled, rubbin' his left kidney.
"Ya see? He can be reasonable," Sadie smiled sweetly, pinchin' Duke's cheeks.
"Ow! Come on, this's serious! Roxanne, you play ball?" Duke asked, leanin' against the backstop to ensure at least one side was protected.
"I work with Jeannie to keep her sharp. Even get a hit off her now and then," Roxanne replied after takin' a practice swing.
"Good enough. B.J., you used to pitch softball, yeah? Think you still got it?" Duke queried.
"Dropped a dine and dasher with a coffee cup Thursday mornin'. Mack says the doctor's keepin' 'im another day or so for observation," B.J. shrugged.
"'Atta girl. Bambi... you don't strike me as the athletic type," Duke chastened.
"I'll vouch for her physical conditioning and, um, ball-handling skills," I trailed off.
"I'll be happy to try out," Bambi grinned, rubbin' her hands over Duke's chest.
"Hey! Come on, woman, this's... maybe later, okay? What's *he* doin' here?" Duke snarled, gesturing toward Tetnis.
"Savin' your ass, most likely," Tetnis answered, shifting the ball he'd brought into position.
"Guess I oughta be grateful that our savior's arrived, is that it?" Duke growled.
"That's about the size of it," Tetnis replied before windin' up, whirlin' around, and shattering an old beer bottle that'd been left in front of the visitor's dugout.
"Jevuf," Billy gasped, watchin' the ball roll off into the distance.
"B.J.?" Duke posited, tryin' not to look impressed.
"Mound's yours. I used to play shortstop too," B.J. abdicated, tossin' Tetnis her own ball.
I don't usually think too much about it because I like the number of joints that came standard with my extremities, but there's a lot we don't know about Tetnis. Nothin' too serious, just things like his real name, where he came from, how he spent the first 30 years of his life, stuff like that. It's just that, in my experience, it doesn't pay to pry too deep into the identity of a man with a background in the removal of foreign bodies from the human anatomy, but he did confide to me after the game that he played Double-A ball in the late '90s before havin' to give it up after an incident involving a fan who thought it'd be cute to run out on the field durin' a game and then try escapin' through the dugout.
"Alright, good enough. Tetnis you're pitchin'. Billy, 1st. B.J., short. Roxanne, 2nd. Sadie'll catch, apparently. Bambi, take right field. I'll take center. Guess that leaves you - 3rd," Duke said, pointin' to it in case I was confused as to its location.
"What about left field?" Roxanne asked.
"Oh hell, nobody ever hits to left. Forget it," Duke groaned.
"Ahem," I interjected.
"3rd base - move it," Duke reiterated.
"Wasn't requesting a transfer. It's just that I know a guy who might help ya out," I explained, motioning toward Apollo, who by that time had excavated a coupla feet of dirt in pursuit of a gopher.
"You're shittin' me," Duke scoffed.
"That would be incredibly uncomfortable for us both, and no, I'm not. Put him in coach, he's ready to play," I insisted.
And he did. And after half an hour of practice, Duke shifted 'im over to right field and demoted Bambi to left.
Because Mark's team comprised four (including himself) of the original players from that 1987 squad we were pretty evenly matched after a week of practicin' two hours a night, so by the time game day finally came it wasn't until the bottom of the 6th inning that either team got so much as a man on base. Or rather, a ma'am, as it were.
"I guess now we know why Fannie dropped you like 4th period Algebra - haven't got a clue where to put your balls!" B.J. spat, rubbin' 'er shoulder where Mark's errant pitch'd nailed 'er.
"Bitch, if you weren't a woman I'd--" Mark started to say until B.J. took a step toward the mount and he bolted to the security of Deputy Dahl who'd been assigned 2nd base.
Unfortunately it didn't lead anywhere, as I struck out and Billy popped up to center to close out the inning.
Both pitchers were able to hold it together until the top of the 8th when Scooter Schatz scored a double with one away after beltin' one into left field while Bambi was over in center shakin' 'er equipment at Duke, after which Deputy Dahl was able to send 'im home with a triple of his own that got stuck in the center field fence on the very next pitch.
Then things got real dicey when Tetnis's sinker on a 3-1 pitch never did, and Cy Skogerboe durn near blasted it clean outta the park. Matter of fact, Dahl was certain it was a goner, and if it'd been a person out in right it woulda been, but Apollo was on that ball like ugly on Mark's mama, and he leapt almost six feet up against the right field fence to keep it in play. By the time Dahl realized what'd happened I'd sic'd Apollo on 'im, but instead of tryna tag up the stupid asshole froze in his tracks and started frantically searchin' for his gun until it was too late and Apollo jumped into his arms and tagged 'im out before layin' a disgustin', frothy smooch right up the guy's nose to complete the double play.
In the bottom of the 8th Tetnis and Bambi both knocked singles by an increasingly haggard Mark Skidman before he was able to regain his composure and force a foul out offa B.J. and strike me out lookin' to put two away. I'm pretty sure Mark pissed 'imself just a little bit when Billy smashed his next offering to deep center field, but Wily Krantz barely managed to haul it in while tearin' the livin' shit outta the back of his wrist on the top of the chain-link fence.
By the top of the 9th things were lookin' pretty grim, but Tetnis impressed the hell outta me by walkin' up to B.J. and droppin' the ball 'into 'er mitt when it came time to retake the field.
"I'm outta gas, kid. It's your show now. You nail that son of a bitch or we'll never hear the end of it," he instructed, clappin' 'er on the shoulder and takin' her place at shortstop.
"Hey! No substitutions!" Mark screamed from the dugout.
"Wassamatter? Scared of a girl?" Bambi taunted.
"I'd be more worried about your boys figurin' out that stain on your drawers ain't Mello Yello," Roxanne giggled.
"Fuck you both!" Mark howled, concealing his crotch with his mitt.
"Not if you had Chris Hemsworth's dick!" Roxanne called back, generating muffled titters from Mark's infielders.
It took B.J. a few pitches to get into a rhythm, but after a 3-0 start against Cliff Kraid she blew three 70mph fastballs by 'im and got Russell Lankford to foul-tip into Sadie's glove, leavin' Mark as their last hope to pad their one-run lead and I gotta say - Mark had the look of a substitute teacher tryna psych 'imself up for a Remedial English class fulla 250lb football players whose eligibility to play hinged on the results of the exam he'd be administering. It was clear that the man's pride'd grabbed ahold of 'im by the gondolas, and when he stepped up to bat he started swingin' at everything that crossed the plate, gettin' just enough of each pitch to maintain a 0-2 count after 11 pitches until finally, somethin' had to give.
"You know she's gonna smoke you, right?" Sadie snickered.
"The hell she is. Maybe if you ask real nice I'll let you catch for me after..." he rambled nervously just as an 83mph heater screamed by like he'd never even seen it.
I'm not gonna tell ya the specifics of the language that escaped Mark's mouth as the realization dawned on 'im, but it rhymed with "brotherpucking pizza spit," and from there it was on to the bottom of the 9th.
Mark was so rattled by gettin' caught lookin' (but not seein') that he walked Roxanne on four consecutive pitches and gave up a double to Sadie (who was somehow able to moon him without losing her footing on her way to 2nd), which finally brought Duke up to bat in the cleanup position.
"Ya know, a smart man'd take notice of the way his arm's twitchin' like a frog in Biology class and pass the ball off to someone else. Seems only fair to extend the same courtesy we were given," Duke smiled.
Mark wordlessly spit a glob of Redman onto his left cleat, fired a line of daggers into Duke's face, and hurled a perfect strike that still had a surprising amount of velocity on it.
"Is thatcha final anseh?" Duke called in his best Regis Philbin voice.
Mark wound up and fired another bullet that threw 'im off balance so badly he nearly fell, but which also passed through the strike zone and drew a grunt of pain from Wily Krantz, whose catcher's mitt seemed to be wearin' a bit thin by that time.
"Welcome to shutout city, sasquatch," Mark snarled before plantin' his feet and puttin' everything he had left into that one pitch and lettin' loose.
Nobody really knows for sure since we never could find the ball, but I think Duke knocked it into another zip code. And after those of us not on base'd hoisted Duke and carried 'im around the diamond he went over to his equipment bag, fished out the game ball he'd held onto all those years, and wordlessly dropped it Mark's feet. I'm not sure why he did it, other'n to prove he was the bigger person I guess, but I know that the gesture lost a lot of its impact when Apollo ran up, snatched it, and went tearin' off toward the river while Mark gave chase beggin' 'im to drop it.
Like I was sayin' though - that livin' in the past thing - it'll ruin ya if you're not careful. You'd never catch me doin' that. Now how's about we get back on track and indulge in the latest from across the pond? That is, if you're done pumpin' me for information about the Chickawalka County social calendar.
It was purt'near dusk by the time the game ended, and since I knew there was no way I was gonna complete my spiritual duty and get this Easter flick up in time I decided "the heck with it" and invited everyone back to the house to pound Italian zombie flicks and Pole Cats until the sun came up, and although this may not have followed the teachings of the church to a tee, I'm happy to report that our religious experience was fulfilling just the same.
Matter of fact, Zombie Holocaust may be the ultimate celebration of Catholicism when you consider it's got both resurrections and *several* "Take this, all of you and eat it, for this is my Body" sequences that pay tribute and offer a dignified shout out to The Last Supper.
It works alright as a religious allegory, but I dunno that I approve of these filmmakers combinin' the zombie and cannibal subgenres as it kinda seems like they're tryna have their steak and eat it too. But in reverence of the holiday, I'm gonna preach tolerance and offer unto you three doctrines that'll bring meaning to your lives and enrich your spiritual existence. Probably.
First, if you're a vegetarian who occasionally "treats yourself" to a slab of beef - no, you're not. Second, if captured by a mad scientist prepping for experimental brain surgery, politely wait to be recognized before raising any issues you may have with the procedure, lest you find yourself being prepped for unsolicited laryngeal surgery instead. And third, puttin' women on a pedestal is one thing, but declarin' the first one who can squeeze 'er tuchus into a sacred stone altar "queen of the universe" all but guarantees you're gonna get steamrolled in the divorce proceedings.
The movie begins with somebody sneakin' into the morgue of a New York City medical school lookin' for a date before eventually gettin' cold feet and decidin' to just saw the hand off a cadaver to take home until he's ready to make a serious commitment. The next mornin', the anatomy professor orders these same remains wheeled into the gallery for dissection, only while he's rootin' around in its gutbucket, one of the students starts speculatin' on the whereabouts of Thing until the teacher (Dr. Drydock) gets P.O.'d and cancels the class due to a lack of respect bein' shown for the corpse of a man who hadda sell his body to science to pay off his bar tab. The medical staff thought they'd licked their cadaverous cold cut heisting epidemic after firin' the weird Egyptian gimp janitor the temp agency sent over, and so now Drydock and his nurse (Lori) hafta set up a sting operation that catches one of the orderlies in the act of cardiovasculus chompus until the guy gets so embarrassed that he dives out a third story window and spills his guts all over the ambulance lane. At this point, the college has no choice but to get the cops involved even though they're right in the middle of grant harvest season, but it turns out that Detective Ian McCulloch is on toppa the Cannibalistic Humanoid UpperEastSide Dweller situation, and this most recent body bears the same tattoo as one brought in a week earlier following an altercation with police officers who discovered the creep tryna bum a hot dog bun off a street vendor to sandwich a chunk of large intestine.
Then Lori drops some deep-cut Asian cannibal cult wisdom on Ian before goin' home and findin' her collection of Aztec artifacts strewn around her apartment like it's dusting day at the British Museum, and so rather than clean up the place she decides to tag along with Ian (and his associates George and Susan) as he heads down to the island of Kito to investigate this cannibal business since things at the NYPD're kinda slow. But first they hafta stop off at The Island of Dr. Morose and listen to this crotchety old missionary who looks like Buck Henry's abusive, alcoholic father (Dr. Obrero) complain about how all the backwards savages refuse to take his malaria treatments after watchin' some guy on Youtube talk about how it'll make their peckers fall off. Obrero tells 'em not to go to Kito 'cause he hasn't had much luck puttin' Christianity over or convincin' anybody to give up ham hocks for Lent, but when they insist he goes ahead and sends his right-hand man (Molotto) along as a white man's courtesy to make sure they don't get lost and end up bunkin' with Ricardo Montalban and Herve Villechaize. Unfortunately, they end up havin' to stop on an adjacent island when their boat's motor gets hot and starts makin' the ocean boil like Godzilla's about to surface and chow down on all the popcorn wimps on board, only when they make camp one of their baggage handlers wanders off to mark a tree and by the time they find 'im the next mornin' he looks like a slab of truck stop meatloaf that got doggie bagged and reheated on High for 20 minutes.
Turns out all them Asian islands look alike and that they're actually on Kito 'cause Molotto was tryna take 'em to some other island where they could have their picture taken with Tina Louise and leave with the same number of extremities they arrived with, but it's too late now 'cause they've already rung the metaphorical dinner bell, and next thing ya know one of the two remaining porters gets his rice pattied when he remembers he accidentally left the curlin' iron plugged in back in Da Nang and tries to split. Ian and George break up the cannibals' broken fast with their boomsticks and Molotto's able to get Obrero on the horn with an old Army field phone that one of our boys musta lost after forgettin' he set it on the roof of his Jeep, and Obrero tells 'em to make for the old mission building at the center of the island and to politely refuse any Kool-Aid they might be offered by a rowdy conman with tinted sunglasses. They can't make it before nightfall and end up spreadin' out a delicious buffet of white meat turkey until Lori hasta use 'er machete to part the hair of this little GoreDash driver who sneaks into 'er tent to kidnap and deliver 'er to the guys back home who sent out for Italian, and with all the commotion nobody notices the second group of anthropophaguys comin' in from the rear to slurpa the last Sherpa after rammin' a telephone pole through his stomach.
The next day the group commits a slight blunder in paradise as they stumble directly into an ambush that leads to Susan gettin' kidnapped and George's innards gettin' their first taste of life on the outside, and it's startin' to look like Dinty Moore time until some zombies show up and force all the cannibals to haul their canniballs outta there when the head hunters become the head hunted. Ian, Lori, and Molotto're able to make it to the spiritual conversion therapy center where Obrero's waitin' and he tells 'em there's a boat on the beach that'll get 'em back to the mainland, 'cept by this point Ian knows somethin's rotten in the state of skidmark, and when he tries pull startin' his dinghy they get jumped by the ungrateful dead and Ian hasta hoist his Evinrude and impeller the necrotic feller. Then they find a Locks for Love zombie wearin' Susan's scalp, but she don't really need it anymore because Dr. Obrero's got 'er strapped to a table where he's plannin' to open up 'er skull and move 'er brain into the body of a dead native in a misguided attempt to explain transgenderism to the local government. Ian and Lori eventually make it back to the decommissioned mission where Ian's able to fight off Obrera's rotting stenchmen long enough for Lori to escape, get wedged buck nekkid into a molded stone altar, and be crowned queen of the cannibals, while Ian gets prepped for brain transplant surgery despite concerns that he'll hafta buy a brand new wardrobe and be denied entry to his country club. Decency forbids me from going any farther, but I would encourage you to take all necessary actions to secure a copy and bear witness to the big cannibal/zombie showdown, as well as the coronation ceremony where the camera gets so nosy that it becomes possible for qualified medical personnel to perform a gynecological examination from the comfort of their living rooms.
Alrighty, well, far be it from me to discourage newcomers from takin' a crack at the Horror genre, but this's what happens when you get some hotshot Spaghetti Western/Slapstick Comedy director divin' into uncharted waters without a pool noodle. See, all the great Italian masters of the genre - they understood the rules of engagement and followed proper protocol as it concerned the production of a horror flick in the 1980s. I don't wanna get too deep into the details because it gets pretty technical, but basically - ya take an American blockbuster, winnow the plot down to nothin', crank the gore up to eleven, and shoot four minutes of footage in New York City so we'll all think it's a domestic feature. And if I may say so, there was a fine selection of flicks available for cloning in those days too; you had your Exorcist, Alien, Mad Max, and Night of the Living Dead (just to name a few), and then, in 1979, along comes this renegade who spits on years of tradition by combining the zombie and cannibal subgenres into one film and all of a sudden we dunno WHAT we're dealin' with anymore.
Now, to be clear, I consider the cannibal flick in its purest form to be the creation of the Italians even though there had been flicks that touched on the subject in the years before Umberto Lenzi made The Man from Deep River in 1972 and created an entirely new subgenre of film that'd make your date throw up in the floorboard of your '61 Corvair before you were even able to flag down the hot dog vendor. Nonetheless, these are two distinct (if equally disgusting) subgenres that have no business crossin' paths in the same way you don't want your baked beans gettin' mixed up in your mashed potatoes. I mean, sure, they're great on their own, but when you take a bite of intermingled brown sugar and sour cream the result is deeply confusing and upsetting. And I now realize that I sound like an 87-year-old Sambo's restaurant patron from Biloxi, Mississippi tryna make an argument against interracial marriage in 1959 and so I'm gonna stop doin' that immediately and try organizin' my thoughts a little better.
Zombie Holocaust was filmed simultaneously alongside Zombi 2 and even included some of the same actors and sets, but Zombi 2 made it to the box office first and as a result Zombie Holocaust kinda comes across as a clone of a clone even though the flicks had different premises and crews working on them. For the most part I'm just givin' the picture a gentle ribbing, as it is vastly superior to just about every Italian genre offering that would be released near the end of the decade. But in all honesty, the movie does genuinely lose some of the simplicity for which these titles are so beloved by combining the two otherwise individually successful subgenres, and the result is less satisfying than the majority of the cannibal flicks filmed between the '70s and early '80s, and some of the zombie flicks made during the same period (with the exception of everything Bruno Mattei directed - no offense to Bruno, may he rest in peace). I suppose it's just disappointment when you get right down to it, because looking at the cult classic Zombi 2 has become, and knowing we may have gotten a kindred spirit of comparable quality had things gone differently kinda makes me irrationally bitter about the situation even though Zombie Holocaust is perfectly decent. Maybe I just need a nap.
The plot, as mentioned, is a little busy because of the competing elements vying for supremacy, but there're a few other things that don't pass the smell test once you get a whiff of them either. I suppose it's not of critical importance, but did we ever find out who sacked Lori's apartment and stole the sacrificial dagger? And concerning as that might be, is it really so alarming that jetting off to Southeast Asia to observe cannibals (within blow dart range) becomes a preferable alternative? I mean, can't she just buy a handgun, or a security system, or maybe just a big ole Rottweiler named Attila? Something else I never could figure out was how or why these cannibals were gaining passage to America and gettin' jobs at prestigious medical schools just for the benefit of havin' a conveniently located delicatessen in the hospital's basement. Was it all supposed to be some 4-D chess game meant to attract their future cannibal queen back to the old country? And did the vegetarian "treat" herself to a big ole slab of beef during the first reel? Isn't that like a priest treating himself to... okay, bad example. Seriously though, this is precisely why you just bring the dead back to life to devour the living without tryna reinvent the wheel, 'cause sometimes when you complicate things people who might otherwise just nod along with the bloodletting end up havin' a coupla neurons fire off and the next thing you know they start pickin' your plot apart and raisin' a ruckus.
The acting (and dubbing) is above average when compared to its peers of the same time period, and the presence of Ian McCulloch and Dakar earn the flick a little subconscious goodwill and gives us all a warm fuzzy as we reminisce over their work in Zombi 2. Alexandra Delli Colli is also decent as the nurse turned cannibal royalty, and transitions well from bitchy to vulnerable to eventually, self-assured; all while being a good sport about that whole full-frontal nudity thing. The best performance, however, is that of Donald O'Brien as the cantankerous missionary with a dark secret who strives to protect himself and his work from the prying eyes of the investigators before eventually throwing up his hands and tryna salvage an omelet from all the broken eggs. My only objection is that the script is written in such a way as to cast every single character in a bad light at least briefly throughout the film, and the result is a cast that you can never quite get emotionally invested in. The villain and his late-term heel turning henchman not withstanding - McCulloch's character is pretty callous and short-tempered where it concerns the deaths of his hired hands, Delli Colli is kind of a snitty bitch in the early going (though some of this is justified), and Buchanan straight-up barges into Delli Colli's apartment and starts interrogating her outta nowhere in a bid to further her career. It's not that they're all horrible loathsome people or anything, but they're all mild to moderately flawed in ways that make it hard to root for them, and it does hurt the film a bit.
Here's who matters and why: Ian McCulloch (Zombi 2, Contamination, The Ghoul 1975, I Monster, It! 1967), Alexandra Delli Colli (The New York Ripper), Sherry Buchanan (Crawlspace 1986, Escape from Galaxy 3, Tentacles, Eyes Behind the Stars), Donald O'Brien (I guerrieri dell'anno 2072, Frankenstein 2000, The Sect, Quest for the Mighty Sword, Ghosthouse, Hands of Steel, 2020: Texas Gladiators), Giant of the 20th Century, Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, Sex of the Witch), Dakar (Ator the Fighting Eagle, Zombi 2, Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals, Spirits of the Dead), Walter Patriarca (Cannibals in the Streets), Franco Ukmar (Endgame - Bronx lotta finale, The Blade Master, 2020: Texas Gladiators, Battle of the Amazons, The Cat o' Nine Tails, Messalina vs. The Son of Hercules), Sergio Ukmar (2019: After the Fall of New York, Massolina vs. the Son of Hercules, Samson and the 7 Miracles of the World, 2020: Texas Gladiators), Angelo Ragusa (The Barbarians, Thor the Conqueror, 1990: The Bronx Warriors, Contamination, 2019: After the Fall of New York), Alba Maiolini (The Other Hell, The Antichrist 1974, An Angel for Satan, The Long Hair of Death), Romano Scandariato (The Devil's Wedding Night).
The special effects, or raison d'etre of the Italian horror movie, are inconsistent in terms of craftsmanship, if always entertaining in one way or another. The flick immediately gets off on the wrong foot with a weightless hand that rocks violently back and forth as it's carved from the arm of a cadaver (with the arm to which it had been attached being revealed to have a width roughly half the size of the average human male in a subsequent sequence). From there, we get a pitiful shot of an autopsy incision that looks as though the scalpel is passing through a piece of carpet padding before transitioning to a respectable heap of innards that probably found their way to the set by way of a butcher shop. We then progress to some thin, clearish blood on the floor of the morgue, an excellent stunt that transitions from a stuntman diving through a window to a stiff but reasonably weighted dummy, two good lookin' throat slittings, gruesome eyeball gouging (though they head in which they're housed has an oddly soft composition akin to modeling clay), some fair zombie face makeup that doesn't quite work due to the lack of rotting flesh on any other part of the bodies, a pretty bad face mangling at the hands of a boat impeller (though credit for the idea), a near fissure free plastic brain, and a bloody bald cap that needed to be a lot meatier. I'm going to assume that Zombi 2 had a bigger effects budget given that Maurizio Trani did the effects for both films (and that his work has historically been a bit better when working with Fulci), but there is some good stuff here, and even the effects that don't hold up are generally amusing and enjoyable.
The shooting locations are, for the most part, excellent, from the opening sequences in New York City (it seems like Zombie Holocaust shot a little more footage in the States than its counterparts often do, despite doing little of substance with it) to the tropical locales of Italy standing in beautifully (if maybe not authentically) for Southeast Asia. Many of the sets from Zombi 2 were recycled for Zombie Holocaust, giving it something of an unfair advantage as these backgrounds remind us its favored sibling. The one notable exception is a scene filmed after principal photography had wrapped to satisfy the demands of American distributors concerning the film's length, and not only does nothing notable happen within the scene, but the geography is so inconsistent with everything else in the flick that it's very distracting and genuinely pulls the viewer out of the movie as Ian McCulloch and Alexandra Delli Colli stumble upon a tiger trap in the middle of a deciduous forest that has lost all its foliage and looks to have been shot in either fall or spring. This decision was nothing short of a brutal unforced error, but one that cannot reasonably be attributed to the production crew as they will have had no way to get back to their original locations to film the requested padding in a more congruent environment. The New York streets aren't as disgusting as most of its peers (Italian or otherwise), and that five-minute sequence in a nekkid forest north of Rome is pretty absurd, but the shooting locations are still excellent by and large and do a great service for the film's technical score.
The soundtrack is largely recycled from composer Nico Fidenco's score from Emanuelle and The Last Cannibals (filmed in 1977) and doesn't compare favorably to Fabio Frizzi's score from Zombi 2, nor to most of the better cannibal offerings of the time, such as Roberto Donati and Fiamma Maglione's music from Cannibal Ferox, Riz Ortolani's work from Cannibal Holocaust, or literally anything Claudio Simonetti has ever done. Some of the combinations of sound effects and synthesizer music clash, such as the droning opening synth and its pairing with the "drawing of swords" sound effects out of a Fantasy film, the combination of synthesizer and distorted swirling wind noises, and the bizarre mixture of piccolo and bongo drums as the characters make landfall on Kito. There's also some extremely cheesy Asian-themed elevator music that features heavy use of the flute, and some charming, if tonally absurd Italian Disco music that makes more sense once you realize the score was originally composed in 1977 rather than 1980 (although to be fair, Disco persisted in Italy for several years after it had died out in the U.S.). It's not an abysmal score by any means, but there's nothing catchy about it and it accidentally offers something of an impromptu lecture regarding how different two subgenres of films set in jungles on opposite sides of the world actually are when you try imposing the soundtrack from one upon the other.
Overall, Zombie Holocaust narrowly fails upon examination of its production values but picks up enough extra credit in terms of its entertainment score to make up the difference. In truth, it straddles the line so closely that anyone capable of decoupling it from Zombi 2 might fail it due to the loss of that historical and geographical connection, but it's still a fun zombie flick that would have done better had it not strayed into cannibal country and diluted its undead purity. Better than Burial Ground; not as good as City of the Living Dead. At least in my estimation. Regardless, every Italian zombie flick made in the wake of Dawn of the Dead is worth watching at least once - that is to say, the *immediate* wake of Dawn of the Dead, because the movies bein' pumped out in 1988 when the Italian film industry was dying a slow, lingering death are worlds apart from the stuff released at the beginning of the decade when it was still thriving. So when in doubt, check that copyright date before proceeding.
Rating: 61%