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Zombie Holocaust (AKA Dr. Butcher M.D.)

Zombie Holocaust (AKA Dr. Butcher M.D.)

List Price: $24.95
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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Possibly the best Italian zombie film ever!
Review: 'Zombie Holocaust' is a true must for any horror, gore or exploitation fan out there. It has zombies, cannibals, a mad scientist, cheesy acting, great gore and a naked chick! What more could you want? There's even a drinking game that's easy as pie: As soon as you see the symbol (and believe me you don't need to look for it. It's given a huge close-up and a 'bing' noise for 'dramatic effect') - take a shot. It happens so many times it's hilarious.

The barmy plot for this has a group sent off to an island to investigate cannibalism from a tribe that have been stealing organs. After being attacked by the cannibals, the cannibals then get scared off by zombies. Then our heroes find out that the zombies are products of a mad scientists Frankenstein-like attempts at creating a supreme race. Zombies and cannibals then fight it out in a battle at the end...

Some footage used is from Fulci's 'Zombi 2' film, which is shameless, but it's only some location footage so it's not too important. And any film that has the line "I could kill you now... But I'm determined to have your brain!" said seriously, has got to be good. Don't take my word for it, just click 'Add to Cart' and you won't regret it!!!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: DO NOT vacation with Ian McCulloch!
Review: Ah, italian zombie movies, you gotta love `em! But italian zombie/cannibal/mad-scientist/slasher movies? What the hell?!

All of that is rolled into ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST aka DOCTOR BUTCHER M.D. (Medical Deviate). If you're already looking here, chances are you're already a fan of the italian horror genre. This ain't CITIZEN KANE, kids. Sure, there's bad dialogue, a few cheesy special effects (A suicidal manequin jumps from a window?), and plot holes big enough swallow a Fiat... But that's all part of the B-movie charm that you love in italian zombie films. It's a zombie flick, yes, but they're only a fraction of the whole cannoli here. In fact, you've got a whole lotta cannibals and, might I add, for an italian cannibal film there is NO ANIMAL SLAUGHTER to be found, very nice for a change! But where there's cannibals and zombies, there's usually buckets of gore. Whole lotta gore. Eye gouging, throat slashing, rib cracking, disemboweling, bloody, gooey gore. The film stars Ian McCulloch, who also starred in Lucio Fulci's classic ZOMBIE, and the gorgeous Alexandra Delli Colli, who is just a stunning nude. Yes, you gotta love italian zombie movies!

Anyway, Shriek Show did a great job with this DVD with an anamorphic widescreen transfer and a great selection of extras. Clearly these are people who love the genre as much as their fans and produce a superior product to show as much.

If you're new to the italian zombie genre, I'd recommend picking this one up, along with Fulci's ZOMBIE. And just a word of advice: If Ian McCulloch calls up and invites you to vacation with him in the tropics, RUN, DON'T WALK, as fast as you can!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Oh yeah
Review: As I almost invariably point out in my reviews of this sorta thing, I prefer good horror films, but I'll take a campy one too, and 'Zombie Holocaust' is about as good as bad horror gets. With reams of gore and stunning dialogue this film is a delight from beginning to end. Highly recommended.

As many have mentioned, there aren't actually very many zombies in this movie, and they don't actually kill anyone. The film was initially released in the US under the much more delicious and appropriate name, 'Dr. Butcher M.D.', so I suggest you think of it as that. Still, title confusion aside, this is a fine gorefest, with cannibals doing the ripping and eating and whatnot, and they prove to be just as good at it as zombies generally are. The gore actually holds up better than I woulda imagined, better than you'd see in a Fulci film. Partially, this is because the gore is rarely anything to fancy, mostly just severed limbs and spilled guts, and lots of it is only seen in the aftermath. But, those are the essentials of your gore film, so you don't ever want stray to far from them. There are some fun, more elaborate effects, such as a surprisingly nasty and effective eye-gouging scene, and an head mangling via outboard motor so awesome and hilarious that it could be in 'Riki-Oh'. Sadly, much of the gore is too badly lumped together, with one main cannibal assault in middle part of the film, but there's enough good stuff at other points that it doesn't matter too much.

The plot is staggeringly convoluted. Alright, there are some corpse desecrations at a hospital in New York, and they wanna find the culprit, which turn out to be done by natives from some pacific archipelago with a name I can't recall, and some of the hospital workers and reporters and so forth decide to go there, for no apparent reason. They get their, and meet a humanitarian doctor who turns out to be a mad scientist whose making zombies, and they're attacked by the fickle natives, and eventually there's a fire, and they're gonna sacrifice the blonde chick but don't for some reasons and there are zombies and he gonna operate on the dude from 'Zombie'(Peter, in both films) and so on. The wacky plot is good, as films of this sort can get a bit boring while your waiting for the killing to start. Not so here.

The acting tends to be quite humorous as well. Special kudos go to the mad doctor himself, who is played with a startling, intense vigor. Humorous dialogue abounds. A few examples, quoted approximately, but you'll get the gist of it. After discovering the corpse desecration two hospital employees talk to one another. Old doctor guy: 'I could understand this happening in a primitive, superstitious society, but here, in New York city?' Chick: 'But doctor, do you really think we are all that different from primitives?' Old doctor guy: 'I just don't know....' Now that, my friends, is called social commentary. Course, it turns out that it was primitives doing it all along, so his doubting of modern man proved to be foolish. Alright next, upon arriving at the island, the blonde chick finds a severed, maggot covered head in her bed. They go and tell Dr. Butcher, and he responds, saying, 'Don't worry, if the natives wanted to kill you they could already have done so very easily'. How reassuring. And of course, there is the absolutely immortal line towards the very end of the film. Peter nearly escapes, but Dr. Butcher has his zombie slaves catch him, and he pulls a gun on him. Dr Butcher says, 'I could easily kill you now, BUT I'M DETERMINED TO HAVE YOUR BRAIN!!!!!'

Oh man, this movies great. Check it out.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Navet
Review: Bon les gens sur ce site on l'air d'avoir aimer ce pseudo film de zombie/cannibal mais hélas ce n'est pas mon cas. Bon le scénario au début m'avais l'air pas si mal et les effets gore sont quand meme bien, mais le film sombre de plus en plus au ridicule apres les 20 premieres minutes. Bon on ne le se cachera pas Z.H a de forte influence sur le film de Fulci 'Zombie' une scene a meme été emprunter sous forme d'hommage (inutile a mes yeux) les acteurs sont lamentable à en mourrir de rire (une chance que j'ai pas écouter la version francaise) mais le pire se sont les Zombies, pathétique quand j'ai vue les cannibals avoir peur de ces zombie j'ai bien rit. bref l'idé de départ était bonne avec un bon potentiel mais hélas ce film est à classer parmie les navets. Préféré 'Burial Ground' qui est beaucoup mieux.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great zombie flick! Buy it!
Review: DR. BUTCHER M.D. has always been one of my all time favorite zombie movies. I couldn't wait to get this movie on DVD! It's just as entertaining as it was when watching my...bootleg tape, but now with great picture quality! FANTASTIC extras! Good, gory horror. Love it. Buy it. Watch it over and over!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Island of Carnage
Review: Dr. Lori Ridgeway, a staff member at a New York City hospital, learns that body parts have been stolen from several corpses in the hospital morgue. Hospital investigators set up a watch of the morgue area and discover an aide named Toran eating a human heart that he has torn from one of the cadavers. The investigators attempt to subdue Toran, but he breaks free and then commits suicide by leaping through a window and falling to his death, several stories below.

Later, Lori confers with Dr. Peter Chandler, a government official connected with the Health Department. Peter reveals that incidents similar to those at Lori's hospital have been occurring in several American cities. A cannibal cult, with linkages to the island of Keto in the South Pacific, is suspected of complicity in the atrocities. Toran was a native of Keto.

With government approval, Peter organizes an expedition to Keto. Accompanying him are Lori; George Hubbard, Peter's assistant; and Susan Kelly, a reporter. Traveling to the Molucca islands, they meet Dr. Obrero, a famous surgeon providing philanthropic assistance to the natives. Peter and Obrero have met before, and Obrero agrees to help them find men to take them on to Keto.

Obrero engages a man named Milatu, who owns a small ship, and three bearers for this purpose. The party sets out and reaches Keto without incident. Once on the island, though, things begin going badly. One by one, the native bearers are captured and killed by the cannibal tribesmen who infest the jungles. Finally, the cannibals sweep over the remainder of the party. George is killed and then consumed by the raiders, while Susan is captured and taken away. Peter, Lori, and Milatu are saved only by the appearance of strange, zombie-like creatures, who frighten the natives before disappearing back into the forest.

The trio of survivors contacts Obrero by radio. He agrees to lead a rescue party to Keto, establishing a rendezvous point at an old mission. Once there, though, Peter and Lori learn that Obrero is using the mission as a secret laboratory for conducting bizarre medical experiments. It was Obrero who created the zombies by transplanting the brains of living humans into the bodies of corpses. He also revived the cult of cannibalism among the natives.

Obrero plans to use Peter as the subject of his next experiment, converting Peter into another zombie servitor. But before Obrero can complete this vile design, the cannibals, suddenly (and inexplicably) revolt against Obrero's rule and attack the mission. In a bloody confrontation, with zombies fighting cannibals and the mission going up in flames, Peter breaks free and manages to escape with Lori. Obrero, however, falls victim to the ghoulish appetites of the cannibals. . . .

Zombie Holocaust combines elements of Lucio Fulci's Zombie (strange occurrences in New York City, that point back to a mysterious tropical island) with aspects of the various Italian cannibal movies. Curiously enough, for an Italian horror film of the period, while the natives frequently indulge their cannibalistic urges, the zombies are depicted more like the classical zombies of Haitian lore, acting as grim servitors to Dr. Obrero, but never eating flesh themselves.

Zombie Holocaust is no great classic, but it is a reasonably entertaining venture into the "tasty treats" school of horror filmmaking.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not really a zombie flick
Review: Even though its called Zombie Holocaust, its really more of a cannibal flick. It looks like they started making a cannibal flick that centered on this blonde woman who grew up on a cannibal island. Even though she is known to her friends as a vegetarian/macrobioticist, there are two scenes where she's developed a craving for meat. Then suddenly, the zombie craze hits Europe and that plot line is dropped.

She goes back to the island of her birth with Ian Mcculloch to get to the bottom of this cannibal mystery in New York, where corpses are being mutilated and fed upon by people who come from the same island.

Then they meet this doctor who tries to misdirect them as to the proper cannibal island, and so far, the movie has been going nearly an hour with nary a zombie in sight.

Eventually, the small party accidentally finds the cannibal island even though the doctor gave them a guide to keep them lost. After a rough night's sleep, they are beset by cannibals and finally when all but three of our party are eaten alive by the cannibals, the zombies show up and scare the cannibals away.

Then Ian Mcculloch uses an outboard motor to kill a zombie on the beach. But then we find out the zombies aren't even really zombies, but cannibals who've been operated on by the afore mentioned doctor.

Later the blonde is captured by the cannibals while Ian Mcculloch is captured by the doctor. The blonde is strapped naked to a sacrificial alter which tilts back, proving her to be the queen of the cannibals while Ian Mcculloch is strapped to an operating table where he's destined to have his brains transplanted into one of the doctor's many corpses in the morning.

Then the blonde brings the cannibals to rescue Ian Mcculloch and the movie ends with the doctor's rather unsanitary operating theater burning to the end credits.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: So bad it's good.
Review: Have always loved this one, since only having it in a murky, laser-disc-transfered edition. Not much to recommend this if you want quality, but if you're like me, enjoy the atrocious acting, extreme violence (love that motor-kill), and the cool 80's synth score (had a time finding that on c.d.!). Sort of a must for us Zombie-thriller lovers.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: mediocre italian gore...
Review: Have we ended world hunger? Do our schools
and libraries possess the necessary elements
to ensure the education of our young? And
what about the elderly? Do they live in
the security of accessible medical care?
No?...No?...No? What about you?
Do you own all of Fulci's films? all of
Argento's films? all of Bava's films?
Until the hungry are fed, the schools are
rich, the elderly are safe, and you possess
a library of horror DVD's equivalent to
a Smithsonian collection, you should
not make an effort to own this film.

This movie is so blah.
But the soundtrack kicks.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: I did read the word "holocaust", right?
Review: Huh? Okay, when I hear holocaust I'm thinking thousands or millions. There's maybe five of six zombies in the whole movie, but they're not even really that, they're more like the supposed "astro"zombies from Astro Zombies. This movie has the reporter guy from Zombie, and it also has that chick from the New York Ripper. And I think maybe it starts in New York, or something, where a huge epidemic of like one cannibal has taken hold. It's this basket case lab assistant running around like a maniac eating rubber hands. Somehow, this leads the guy from Zombie (he's a cop this time) and the N.Y.R. chick to a jungle, along with a girl reporter.

From here the movie takes on shades of Bride of the Monster. There's this screwball scientist conducting experiements where he transplants living brains into corpses. He's kind of like a poorly adapted mad scientist Bella Legosi without a Tor Johnson. What is the ultimate objective behind these experiments? I don't really know, and I'm not sure he could tell you either. He takes the girl reporter, and "puts the zombie on her", and gets the cop too, planning to do the same thing. The N.Y.R. chick gets nabbed by a wacky tribe of cannibals and they want to make her some kind of naked voodoo cannibal goddess. At the end of the movie, the cannibals, who are just good people underneath their rotting Ed Gein exterior, storm the mad scientist's lair and save the day.

I gotta say, if you want to see a really really bad zombie film, I'd have to recommend Burial Ground "The Nights of Terror" over this one. (In that one you have more zombies, a much goofier plot, and a malingering little creature, much creepier than any zombie, that looooooves his mommy!)This one was just kind of boring. I bought it and I only watched it that one time.


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