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Zombie Holocaust More at IMDbPro »Zombi Holocaust (original title)

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88 reviews in total

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16 out of 23 people found the following review useful:
Doctor Butcher, Monkey Dung, 5 January 2005
Author: Jonny_Numb from Hellfudge, Pennsylvania

Being an obsessive-compulsive fan of old-fashioned Euro-gore for several years now, I've come to expect the absurd (and usually nonsensical) plots, the constant 'borrowing' from other films, and the over-the-top gore, all mixed together to form what is usually an enjoyably trashy cocktail. I picked up "Zombie Holocaust" with some optimism and a little knowledge of its reputation, and after watching it, could only help but wonder what had just happened. No, it wasn't the incoherently surreal thrill of watching "City of the Living Dead," but a general, head-scratching confusion that raised questions such as: "How was this awful waste of time ever released?" As Tom Servo would say: "Meanwhile, in YET ANOTHER MOVIE..." "Zombie Holocaust" doesn't have a brain in its head (even though the title Doctor is a deranged neurosurgeon)--it's a low-budget splatter flick without even the slightest hint of innovation. It borrows settings and characters from Fulci's "Zombie" (not to mention a few actual snippets from that film), jungle savages from "Make Them Die Slowly," and a couple bronze-faced zombies that look an awful lot like the wooden-toothed wonders in "Burial Ground." Sounds like a swinging good time, but the movie is downright distracting in its own indecisiveness, flipping back and forth between these awkwardly, incompetently blended genres without a hint of wit or style. Perhaps this is attributable to Fabrizio de Angelis, who is known less for his screen writing capabilities than as a producer on Lucio Fulci's most notable works. It is conceivable that the producers wanted to churn out a genre-bending smörgåsbord knowing they would get some return on it, but the utter ridiculousness of the finished product is an endurance test for the viewer's patience.

Ian McCulloch (his usual stuffy self) and Alexandra Delli Colli ("New York Ripper") venture off to some faraway island to investigate a doctor's odd practices. Along the way, they encounter hostile natives, zombies, and an climax that looks suspiciously like another, better zombie flick. Eyeballs are gouged out, entrails are eaten, and Delli Colli is painted in the nude for a "Laugh-In" audition.

There's ultimately nothing in "Zombie Holocaust" that hasn't been done before, and better. Pass.

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13 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
Death by propeller!, 22 January 2001
Author: Robert P. Beveridge (xterminalx@yahoo.com) from Parma, OH

Another film known by many names (eight, to be precise, that IMDB has been able to track down), Zombi Holocaust is probably best known by American cult-film devotees as Dr. Butcher, MD. I ended up picking this one up because there are a rather large number of crossovers with Lucio Fulci's brilliant splatterfest Zombie-- writer Fabrizio DeAngelis was one of the producers of Fulci's film, male lead Ian McCulloch was the lead in Zombie, character actor Dakkar plays a native guide in both, etc. (Most interesting, one of the film's actors, Walter Patriarca, was Zombie's costume designer. Go figger.)

Simple plot, which should sound familiar to anyone who's seen Fulci's film; a number of deaths occur in New York City, and Ian McCollouch, a beautiful sidekick, and two of their pals end up going to a remote Caribbean island where there's an English-speaking doctor who treats the natives. Sound familiar?

For about the first forty-five minutes of this film, I was too busy thinking that it was exactly like Zombie to be impressed. (No one, these days, is sure which film came out first, and most people also draw parallels to another classic of the genre that came out the same year, Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust.) Then Ian McCollouch disposes of a zombie with a motorboat motor, and suddenly things started getting a whole lot more fun. Rather like The Evil Dead, this is a film where there's a whole lot of setup (though Raimi pulled it off miles better), but when the gore starts, the director lays it on thick, fast, and ugly. And while death-by-propeller is probably the funniest and nastiest scene in the film, there's certainly more than enough blood flowing/spraying/dripping/being drunk/etc. to please most fans of hardcore horror. Pound for pound, though, in comparison to Zombie, the latter stands up as the better film. As one reviewer put it, "Fulci... might have had the sauce, but [he] passed on the cheese." Fulci's obsessive attention to detail, better scriptwriting, and stunning score give Fulci the edge over Girolami. But man, it's fun to be the judge. ***

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9 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Too much monkey business, 14 November 2005

Author: Scott_from_Modesto (danofthedead80@yahoo.com) from Bear, Delaware

Zombie Holocaust is an entertaining diversion. If you regularly comb the drecks of Italian horror garbage, you've seen much worse. This is a spliced-together film, like Mattei's Hell of The Living Dead, only this one cobbles two dumb gory b-movies together. There's a heavy dip in the fondue pot in store for this stink-ridden pile of sleazy excrement, and by that I mean I like it. Not only does this s hit sizzle but its got recognizable faces in it: Ian McCulloch from Zombie; Alexandra Delli Colli from The New York Ripper; Donald O'Brien from Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, and a black guy who was in Zombie. I'm not racist, I just don't remember his name.

Like I said, there's two movies here (at least!)-- one involving a psychotic doctor and the other being a cannibal/zombie film. So you'd think there would be a lot going on here. But there isn't. It's just an onslaught of cheap gore scenes. One scene has Ian McCulloch defending himself with an outboard motor to an attacking zombie's face. HIS FACE. And if that ain't enough, Delli Colli has the camera pointed at her bush for the last fifteen minutes of the movie. Based on that alone, you should be scrambling to get to the video store. But seriously, there's dozens more treats in this movie including disembowelings, throat gashings, and skull-sawing autopsies.

If you love films like Hell of The Living Dead, Virus, or City of The Walking Dead, you'll probably enjoy this one so give it a shot. It's brain taffy.

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8 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Misleading title., 9 September 2002

Author: Aaron1375 from Alabama

The title of this flick leads me to picture thousands of zombies rampaging the countryside. That is not what you get. In fact I don't think anyone was even killed by a zombie, though one zombie got killed in a cool way. The main killers are cannibals in this one. Zombies play an extremely small part. It is kinda liked zombi, because two of the actors in that one are in here, and they appear to be on the exact same island, but it just isn't much of a zombie flick. If you like cannibal flicks it might be worth checking just be aware about the lack of zombies. Thought of note is that you get to see a very attractive blonde nude.

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Surprisingly decent, gory zombie film, 16 September 2007
Author: slayrrr666 (slayrrr666@yahoo.com) from Los Angeles, Ca

"Zombi Holocaust" is a rather fun cheesy zombie film.

**SPOILERS**

During a routine autopsy, medical student Lori Ridgeway, (Alexandra Delli Colli) notices that the cadaver is incomplete, despite being in excellent condition the night before. As this trend continues, she finally goes to her boss, Dr. Dreylock, (Walter Patriarca) who refers her to Dr. Peter Chandler, (Ian McCulloch) a member of an investigating board for similar such incidents. As they continue, she notices a sign on one that resembles a sign from a small Southeast Asian island and convinces him to put together a team to investigate. Gathering his assistant George Harper, (Peter O'Neal) and girlfriend Susan Kelly, (Sherry Buchanan) to go along, and head to the island. There, they find the place is full of cannibals from a long-lost tribe, and a strange doctor performing strange operations on the locals. When they become the next targets for the experiment, they try to get off the island alive.

The Good News: This was a pretty pleasant surprise. It's big plus is that it feels like a great mixture of two big genres, namely the cannibal and zombie sub-genres. That it uses the tale-tell signs of the two, and convincingly, makes this one a really entertaining and clever entry. The cannibals, surprisingly, get the majority of the screen-time spent, as it's going to their home-place based on speculation of their existence, and that in turn reveals the truth about the zombies in a not-exactly-new twist revealed towards the end. There's also plenty of gore in the film, as this one has some pretty nice kills in it. There's a really impressive one where a victim is impaled from a trap that shoots up from behind to impale through the body rather than the other way around, with a severe series of dismemberments and skin devouring to follow, some really great impalements, surgical amputations and a rather shocking scene where one gets their face torn up by a rotating motorboat engine. That's not to include all the really wicked surgeries done in the film, which are also quite impressive and really bloody. That there's also some really juicy skin-devouring really helps to make this one bloody and gory. The fact that it remains watchable all the way through to the end is another big plus, as this one doesn't really get boring and features enough action spots to stay interesting, and only without a big taste for cheese will this one fail. These all make it quite entertaining.

The Bad News: There isn't a whole lot wrong with this one. One of the big ones is it's incredibly high cheese factor. There's a lot of that in the film, which can be evidenced by the general plot description. This also has marks for it in that category for it's gore and general atmosphere, which is a mark as it's not all that well received by most. That this one revels so heavily in it makes it something to be avoided by those who aren't that into that style. This one also has the problem in that it doesn't really do the big points from it's meshed styles. For a zombie film, these don't really feel like zombies most of the time, as they rarely do anything more than stand around and take orders, and aren't in the film very long to begin with. They're involved in the last twenty minutes of the film, and it doesn't really feature them a whole lot in that time-span. As well, there isn't a lot of time spent on the cannibal tribe getting to know them. All that's known about them is the name and island where they live, which is basically it. This here needed more information on them. Otherwise, the cheesiness is the main problem with this one.

The Final Verdict: While not the greatest entry in either the Italian cannibal or zombie genres, this one does have enough to like about it that fans of both will be happy. See this one if you're a fan of either of those two genres, or are just in the mood for a quick, cheesy time, while those not in the mood for such a film or aren't fans altogether should seek caution.

Rated UR/R: Graphic Violence, Full Nudity and Language

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3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Cannibles Vs Zombies, 24 April 2007

Author: Rautus from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Zombi Holocaust is a Cannible film, Zombie film and Mad scientist film thrown together to make one really gory movie. Some scenes are similar to Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 such as it starts in New York and then they go into the tropical island, the Zombies in the island's church. Even two of the actors from Zombi 2 are in Zombi Holocaust.

The scenes with the Cannibles killing and eating the people are nice and gory, the Zombie make up is good and kind of similar to Zombi 2's Zombie make up. One problem is that we don't see much of the Zombies at first but halfway through the film they do show up.

The Mad Scientist elements are something new since Zombi 2 didn't have a man trying to create Zombies for his research and uses the Cannibles for his experiments. Zombi Holocaust is a great Zombie flick with some good gore effects. Check this out.

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3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Island Gorefest Extravaganza, 28 October 2006

Author: Benjamin Gauss from Salzburg, Austria

A splatter classic, Marino Girolami's "Zombi Holocaust" of 1980 doesn't scant with blood and gore. A true B-movie and pure exploitation, this movie is probably not high art, however, I don't suppose that anybody who is about to watch a movie entitled "Zombie Holocaust" is gonna expect Citizen Kane.

After several mutilations of corpses in the morgue of a New York hospital, and the appearance of a mysterious cannibal sign, a group of people, amongst them a beautiful female doctor and a bitchy journalist, decide to go on an expedition to a tropical island, where they expect to find out about the sign's origin. This is, of course, not a very good idea. Not only is the island inhabited by cannibals, but it is also haunted by the living dead.

One of the classic Italian splatter flicks, "Zombi Holocaust", is a fun and entertaining, although not very thrilling movie, that mainly concentrates on the enormous amounts of blood and gore and on constant very graphical violence. The acting in this movie differs. As a huge fan of Spaghetti Westerns, I found it cool to see Donal O'Brien, who delivers a great performance as a mad scientist in this, in a non-western role. The Italian and English title is maybe not the best to describe the movie, since its the Cannibals, and not the Zombies who kill the most people. The German title "Zombies Unter Kannibalen" ("Zombies Amongst Cannibals") is probably better to describe the film's content.

All things considered, "Zombie Holocaust" is a highly entertaining and very bloody Gorefest that fans of the Cannibal subgenre should not miss. Entertainment guaranteed!

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Jungle Gore: Cannibal Zombies(?), 8 June 2011

Author: Tromafreak from Tallahassee, Florida

One thing I always point out about these Cannibal flicks is that, besides the disturbing subject matter and ferocious gore, these films are also usually have really interesting, dare I say fascinating stories. That's right. Quality B-movies do exist, after all. However, Zombi Holocaust is not one of them. It looks like your stuck with just the gore. I think it'll be fine. I mean, just because this one doesn't hold up against the almighty Cannibal Ferox and Cannibal Holocaust, doesn't necessarily mean it's not worth your time. And really. Who wouldn't want a film called Zombi Holocaust in their Horror collection? Not I.

Besides what I've already told you, the one thing you might want to consider, going in to this film, is that it's a Zombie movie. I suppose you already had that figured out. But still, Zombi Holocaust does include cannibals, as well as a jungle. Best of both worlds? More like a touch of both worlds. Nothing groundbreaking from either side of the fence. And on top of all that, Zombi Holocaust is also a mad scientist flick. We start out at a hospital, where corpses are being mutilated. Eventually, a cannibal is caught in the act. I guess it was shame that drove the poor guy to unconvincingly jumping out the window. Obviously, tomfoolery like this is not something you'd want going on at your local hospital. Curiosity gets the best of Ian McCullough and some hot chick. For some reason, this hospital mystery lies somewhere in the Carribbean. A mad doctor is slowly turning a tribe of cannibals into zombies. Zombies who don't really do much of anything, as the cannibals are the only ones willing to start trouble. Whatever. It's a movie. So, this guy must be stopped, right? And in case you're wondering, all that doesn't turn out nearly as entertaining as it sounds. Ultimately, if you're a fan of such classics as Burial Ground and Jungle Holocaust, I see no reason why you shouldn't get a kick out of Zombi Holocaust, at least out of sheer principle. Well, unless you're not too big on stupid movies with ridiculous dialogue, and awful acting. In that case, you may want to stay clear of this one. 7/10

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Zombie Holocaust (1980), 13 April 2007
Author: Steve Van Kooten from Manchester, Iowa

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

(Dr. Butcher MD) Contains a lot of blood, some skin. A group of people investigate the source of strange cannibalistic happenings on a tropical island. It turns out that a mad doctor has reanimated the dead, which has lead to the jungle being infested with zombies and flesh hungry cannibals. - - - The implications of combining two of Italy's most reviled genres was staggering and, unsurprisingly, "Zombie Holocaust" fails to live up to the bloody wet dream that most gorehounds are going to think up. Nevertheless, there's some good stuff in this one- at least at times- including some atmosphere being built from the island location, the first appearance of the zombies, and dirty brain surgery. Sadly, the movie is also full of dead spots, unconvincing exposition, and is easily overshadowed by more graphic, stylish spaghetti horror.

*1/2 out of 4

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
NOT a classic, 11 June 2005

Author: sledrew from Canada

Had to write in response to the many posts here claiming that this film is "great fun", and should be seen by anybody who liked Fulci's "Zombie". First of all, Zombie Holocaust is in no way on a par with Fulci's film, it's not even close. Fulci's Zombie had some cheese, but it also had some pretty decent production values, generally good effects, great make-up, convincing zombies, and was always entertaining. This film is slow and boring, misleading (there's actually very little zombie action, it's mostly about cannibals), and just generally stupid and amateurish. As far as the gore goes, this doesn't offer nearly the same outlandish gruesomeness as Fulci's film, the gore effects are quite fake-looking and silly, and there is never a moment of real tension, whereas Fulci does manage to achieve some suspense. Disappointing in a major way, not even really fun on the so-bad-it's-good level. Don't be taken in by the references to Fulci's zombie films, real horror fans will only laugh at this film (and not in the good way) and be bored.

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