REVIEWED
“Patient screamed disturbingly, until removal of vocal chords” - Verbal notes of Dr. Obrero/Dr. Butcher (Donald O'Brien)
..:: The Trashy Trio Podcast - Featured Film #05 ::..
Zombie Holocaust aka Dr. Butcher M.D. (for Medical Deviant) is the notoriously trashy Italian horror, that became infamous here in the UK for being one of the more gory BBFC banned video nasties. The plots total gibberish, instead of choosing to be a zombie, jungle or cannibal exploitationer, it throws everything together into a big whole b-movie shitpot. Story (...haha!) Kicks off as an American medical espionage, someones stealing cadaver body parts. When the culprits eventually caught, turns out hes originally from a cannibal tribe known as Kitos who stem from an island in the Moluccas named Kito Island. Suave anthropologist Dr. Chandler decides to form an expedition to the island. On arriving Chandler's party find out that a crazed Josef Mengel like doctor Dr. Obreo/Butcher (depending on version view) is carrying out insane Dr. Moreau/Frankenstein styled experiments on the locals.
I know its a favorite among gore fans, but I'll be honest Zombie Holocaust has never been my favorite of the nasties list, and it certainly never cut it as a zombie movie. I only re-watched it to strike from the Trashy Trio podcast checklist.
*boring Video Nasties memory: Like so many of the nasties, I originally watched it as a kid on a 2nd generation vhs copy (oddly my mum never minded what movies I'd watch, and I was lucky my mates dad had a massive pirate video collection, sometimes we'd got double lucky and we'd lend an horror that had been taped over porn so we got that when the main film finished). A few years later when I become old enough to buy 18's vhs, I used to collect the original X-Cert versions when they surfaced at markets. This was one of more frequent to surface X rated tapes, I still own a few of it.
...Anyway as for the film itself, 3 times I've fallen asleep trying to re-watch it. Age hasn't helped it any, if anything its even clearer to see director Marino Girolami was far from the elite league of Italian horror masters of that era, like say Fulci, Deodato & D'Amato. All I can say is that I'm so glad I kept awake long enough to finally finish it.
[Personal Reasons For Remembering]
Ian McCulloch as Doc Chandler giving a zombie a shave with a boats outboard motor. Sherry Buchanan as insipid news hack Sharon getting her cranium removed <insert reporters having no brain gag here>. And Italian hottie Alexandra Delli Colli getting her naked body painted to be made Miss Kito Islands.
Originally taken from Letterboxd
No comments:
Post a Comment