zombie holocaust aka Dr butcher md

Directed by Frank Martin

1980

95min

This Italian made zombie's meet cannibals cash in try's to take advantage of two of the horror genre's most notorious subjects. Cannibalism by other living or dead humans is often associated with the goriest video nasties ever made, and rightly so, "Cannibal holocaust" and "Zombie flesheaters" are two films regarded as pushing the limits of taste in their uncut forms. This one, while not reaching those heights of all out action or multiple scenes of mutilation, can boast that the scenes it does contain are pretty gross out stuff and not for the weak hearted.

The story revolves around a hospital where corpses body parts are going missing, namely a hand and a heart .When the culprit is finally caught chomping on a heart he throws himself out of a window and splats on the ground. When it is discovered that he came from a small pacific island and bears strange tribal markings on his body a group set out to find out what strange rites are going on there.

This is one film where the bare storyline comes second to the scenes of extreme gore which are the films main selling point. This could have been a real classic gore film, and while its still right up there on the gore stakes i cant help but feel that it falls at the last hurdle because of the very poor last section of the film where hardly anything happens, and in a huge anti-climax at the end of the film where, just as your expecting the shit to hit the fan with one last gore blowout, it just sort of dies and then the credits appear. Don't get me wrong its still a must have zombie film, just don't hold your breath in the last part.

Gore highlights

The opening scene sees a corpse having its hand hacksawed off, although its pretty dark and hard to make out.

The examination of a corpse by a doctor sees him cut deep into the chest and poking around in the organs.

A nurse discovers a corpse with its heart ripped out.

The first victim of the cannibals is found ripped to bits.

The first real attack by the cannibals results in a poor bloke getting impaled in a bamboo spike trap. When the cannibals get hold of him they slit his throat ,gut him and eat his entrails.

The next attack is worse with one guy being held down, gutted and having both his eyes gouged out.

A zombie about to attack is taken out with a boats outboard motor to the head making a gory mess.

A woman is scalped.

There you have it, if that doesn't get you reaching for the sick bag then you must be hard core.

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