A guilty pleasure from start to finish, Marino Girolami's (billed here under his Anglo-Saxon pseudonym Frank Martin) ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST hearkens back to a simpler, more distilled age of horror. One of cannibals, zombies, hilariously awful dubbed dialogue and of course generous helpings of gore and bloody mayhem. Just the way we like it. And that is why this seemingly lazy and routine film is so often revered in many a Euro horror fan's heart. Not once does the film present itself a façade of trying to be original, intelligent, or a landmark. For many fans and insatiable gorehounds, that's just fine. After all, it seems all the more scarce for dedicated horror fans to find a film that so rigorously adopts such a charmingly simple and pure premise as this.

That premise concerns a group of adventurers and anthropologists (including Euro-horror standby Ian McCullough playing Peter Chandler) in their search for a cannibal tribe that may be responsible for the grisly murders occurring in their end of the globe (New York). As the group is drawn deeper into the foreboding jungle, there is cannibalism, zombie attacks, and the mandatory nudity and awkward dialogue. But, in a major (well, not really) twist, the surviving members of the expedition happen upon Dr. Abrero (aka "Dr. Butcher M.D.") played by yet another faithful European horror player, Donald O'Brien. A typically mad scientist, Abrero is determined to find the secret to eternal life, even if his means of success are a little less than humane. In order to secure his admittedly humane goal, he must operate on the unwilling locals, resulting in a virtual army of zombies! O'Brien alone provides many of the film's unintentional howlers ("I would kill you-but I need your brain!", "Patient disturbed me, performed removal of vocal cords") and adds some much needed color to the film.

Also adding to the color of the film is a consistently screwy logic in the plot, often resulting in baffling motivations in our heroes (in one scene our survivors discard a sure escape for the possibility of satisfying their curiosities of just what may be happening on the island). It all adds up to a wonderfully hokey, sometimes bizarre but always fun time. Half of the fun is actually relegated to the first quarter of the film, where an unknown madman is removing various organs from cadavers at a hospital. Upon apprehending the organ snatching goon, he inexplicably defenestrates himself (in uproarious REEFER MADNESS fashion) out of the high-rise building, where an obvious dummy messily falls to the pavement below (notice that in the overhead shot an arm seems to have snapped off, but in the subsequent close-up, his arm is intact!). Ticklish stuff, indeed.

But the splashy gore causes one to sit up and take notice of the film, too. It is a laborious effort indeed to catalogue the bulk of the gore scenes, as they are robust and plentiful. Being in the unique situation of featuring both zombies and cannibals and being filmed at the height of gory zombie films (the late 70's-early 80's), it is no wonder that the inevitable arterial spray, limb tearing and organ yanking are in full force here. In fact, seemingly all cannibal film and zombie film clichés are giddily reproduced here. A poor local guide is ensnared in a spiked bamboo trap (allowing the cannibalistic natives to messily munch on his innards), people are scalped (McCullough meets an especially moist death), eyes ripped out, skulls cruelly lobotomized, throats are slit, heads crushed by heavy machinery, and more. If the film succeeds at anything, it's certainly at keeping one's attention with the steady flow of blood. The gore effects fare quite well given the film's age and budget. Gino (not Gianetto) DeRossi should be applauded for making the most of the budget and pulling out all the stops with the visceral effects. Only during McCullough's demise (the prop head is a dead giveaway) do the effects work and the viewer's suspension of disbelief sag.

Speaking of budget, there is a wealth of charming corners being cut that betrays the film's production values. The "score" by Nico Fidenco is supplemented rather heavily by samples from the soundtrack of D'Amato's 1976 cannibal film EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS. Speaking of that film, it is interesting to note that many of HOLOCAUST's elements seem almost carbon copies from that film. McCullough in particular seems to be waltzing through the film in the same role he played just three years ago. But of course, HOLOCAUST is about sensationalistic blood and gore, not sex (although there is some welcome nudity), unlike D'Amato's film. And, like many low-rent Italian horror potboilers, ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST was picked up by an American distributor (Aquarius releasing) and showed up in a fairly different form on the "Thriller Video" label under the exploitative title DR. BUTCHER MD. Complete with the cheeky tagline "He's a depraved, homicidal killer, and he makes house calls!" the Thriller release was packaged with equally overdone artwork featuring a mad DR. BUTCHER brandishing a typically maniacal syringe the size of a slide rule. But the changes were not just limited to outside the box. The film itself was supplemented with segments from Roy Frumke's student film TALES TO RIP YOUR HEART OUT. These segments add some gore but are mostly ineffectual and appear in the first half-hour of the film. Some scenes were also deleted while the music score was also modified with some electronic cues. Whichever version one chooses, the experience is the same: a likeably zany, illogical, and totally enjoyable gore and horror romp the likes of which we just don't see that often anymore these days.