aka Doctor Butcher M.D., Zombi 3
I'm a gorehound and proud of it. ZOMBI HOLOCAUST may not be the best Italian zombie/cannibal movie, but it certainly isn't the worst. Anybody who liked VIRUS aka HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD is sure to enjoy the cheesetastic splatterfest that is ZOMBI HOLOCAUST.
The first thing that needs to be addressed is that ZOMBI HOLOCAUST is in many ways a knock off of Fulci's ZOMBI 2 aka ZOMBIE. Same set, same lead actor and even some footage from Fulci's classic are here. Reading reviews of film, I got the feeling that ZH was a just scenes from ZOMBI 2 made into a different movie—that is a complete fabrication. Yes, the old white missionary building from ZOMBI 2 is there and Ian McCulloch plays the lead role (as does Dakkar) and the shots of the building burning from ZOMBI 2 are used in ZH—so what? This isn't RAGING BULL using scenes from ROCKY, these are two cheap zombie horror movies we're talking about. Horror fanboys need to lighten the fuck up.
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Just as in Fulci's movie, ZOMBI HOLOCAUST takes place on a tropical island and in New York City. We get to see some cool autopsy scenes, a hand gets cut off, a guy munches on a human heart and that's all in the first 30 minutes (yay!). Seems a man from a cannibal tribe is in the hospital and hitting up the morgue for midnight snacks, but he's not the only one, other members of the tribe have been caught chomping on corpses in the New York area (if you can make there, you can make it any where). So McCulloch and 3 other dumb honkies, head to the island to see why members of the tribe are craving the other, other white meat (why? well fuck if I know).
What they find is a doctor (Donald O'Brien) playing god and bringing the dead to life. Kind of a Dr. Moreau character, but instead of fusing animal and human DNA, he's making zombies. McCulloch's party drop one by one (George Harper's eyes get plucked out like olives and gobbled) including 3 slav—err, I mean helpers. All 3 men are killed in gruesome ways and many entrails are displayed. Lori Ridgeway plays the lead actress and she gets captured by the cannibals and turned into a white goddess (Cannibals love curvy blonde chicks, but who doesn't?). Meanwhile, McCulloch's character gets captured by the mad doc', who wants to put Ian's brain into a tribal dudes head. Cool!
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At this point you might be saying, where are the zombies? Well they don't show up until 3 quarters in and there are about 3 of them. They are really bad looking zombies—but I've seen way worse. This all builds up to a showdown at the white missionary building (from ZOMBI 2) and it too catches on fire (like in ZOMBI 2) and we get burning zombie corpses (like in…well ya know).
The film was called DR. BUTCHER in the states, which is great because, the 'doctor' in the film gets about as much screen time as the zombies. The trailer makes it look like the film is all about the doctor's experiments, which we don't even know about until the last quarter of the film. You can the tell the whole film was a rushed mess and a mishmash of ideas—mostly bad ideas, or worse—unoriginal ideas.
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All in all, the movie is pointless and an excuse to cash in on the zombie and cannibal craze of the late 70's early 80's. I do give the makers of the film props for combing the two and the gratuitous gore was great (motor boat engine to the face! Whoo-hoo!). This is a movie for fans of those genres that have already seen CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and ZOMBI 2 a thousand times and want a change of pace. Watching the film with some friends and a case of beer is advised. Otherwise, just watch the two other films I mentioned and stay away from this one.
ZOMBI HOLOCAUST trailer