(also known as Doctor Butcher M.D.)
A hospital in New York is plagued by a series of body part thefts (that's a sentence I always wanted to write). One of the hospital's male nurses (in the film's language a "native from the Moloccos") turns out to be the member of a cannibal cult. And he is not the only cannibal active in New York - the authorities are hiding a series of gruesome murders and icky cooking practices in connection with the cult.
What could be a better way to solve New York's problems than to send a small expedition consisting of Lori, a doctor working at the cannibal plagued hospital who is also an anthropologist (Alexandra Delli Colli) and highly qualified in dropping her clothes, Peter, another anthropologist (Ian McCulloch, zombie expert), some guy named George (Peter O'Neal, excellent at getting his eyes eaten) and journalist Susan (Sherry Buchanan) to the cannibals' island to investigate? Not that the film will ever mention New York again...
The island our "heroes" are bound to visit is called Kito and it is also one of the places the famed doctor Obrero (Donald O'Brien) graces with his medical talents. Obrero seems like the best man to get information and borrow some henchpeople from, but doesn't in fact have much of interest to say (gosh, looking at the American title one could think he has something to hide). At least the quartet can borrow a handful of his men as guides.
As it turns out, guides who would very much have liked to guide them to a different island, but whose plans are disturbed by some problems with the group's boat, leaving them (in one of those grand moments of totally superfluous plot flourishes which make Italian movies of this era so endearing) stranded exactly on the island they were looking for.
Also on the menu of the cannibal cult they were looking for, but that's what they wanted, right? Be that as it may, Kito is not only populated by cannibals - there is also a merry bunch of zombies in need of some guts to munch. Who will eat whom first? Will there be a White Goddess?
You can say what you will about Zombi Holocaust, but you can't say it is not trying. You can of course blame it for trying to fasten the progress of entropy by combining the Romero off-ripping Italian zombie movie with the cannibal film (which is arguably just a nastification of the jungle adventure genre) while adding some mad scientist tropes. Personally, I am a little in awe of this film, if probably not for the reasons anyone taking part in the production would have expected.
ZH really does its best to be as nasty as possible - the characters are as unlikable racist bastards as you'll find in Italian genre cinema, there's no gore effect too crude or just plain dumb not to be shown in detail, etc. - but I can't help but get the impression that it's all made with some misguided idea of the film being good fun in mind. It's all presented in so unspectacular a manner, giving the impression of a film being made by people who are trying their best to make a downright evil film, but can only settle on a pulp adventure with added rubbery gore in which they forgot to include the adventure, that I can't help but find this film full of gut munching, eye poking and head-with-boat-motor-crushing kind of endearing and (dare I say it?) rather cute.
I know that everything about the film sounds as if it should be squirm-inducing, censor-baiting (not that the real-world censor wasn't baited), and morally disturbing like, well like a combination of Fulci's Zombie and Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust without the animal torture (and I think in leaving this out the film shows its true colours as coming from a more innocent place)- it just doesn't impress me that way at all.
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2 comments:
I had the pleasure of seeing this, under the Doctor Butcher title, in a bona fide grindhouse (I believe it was San Francisco's St. Francis Theater) when it came out. I have to admit, in all honesty, that the only thing that seems to have left an impression on my young mind was Alexandra Delli Colli doffing her clothes. Otherwise it's like I'm reading a description of a completely unfamiliar film. Of course, that may have also been the case only 24 hours after watching it, so I can't feel too bad.
Ah, real grindhouses. Nothing like that around here.
I agree with your mind's priority settings, "memorable" this isn't. Well, I'll always have this write-up to remind me of its intricacies.
(Note to future self: Directed by Enzo G. Castellari's father!)
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