{"id":3961,"date":"2024-09-13T01:34:23","date_gmt":"2024-09-13T01:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3961"},"modified":"2024-10-14T14:49:58","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T18:49:58","slug":"zombie-holocaust-aka-doctor-butcher-m-d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/13\/zombie-holocaust-aka-doctor-butcher-m-d\/","title":{"rendered":"Zombie Holocaust [aka Doctor Butcher M.D.]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Zombie Holocaust <\/strong>(1980)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Aquarius Releasing\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (strong graphic violence and gore, some language, nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Marino Girolami (as Frank Martin)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Romano Scandariato\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Nico Fidenco\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Fausto Zuccoli\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 7, 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Ian McCulloch, Alexandra Delli Colli, Donald O\u2019Brien, Peter O\u2019Neal, Sherry Buchanan, Dakar, Walter Patriarca, Linda Fumis.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0You may have already seen Zombie Holocaust<\/strong> and not even realize it. It\u2019s also known as Doctor Butcher M.D.; it was retitled and recut for its American release back in the early 80s. That\u2019s the version I saw. I like both titles but Doctor Butcher M.D. (Medical Deviant) sounds cooler even if it is a little misleading. Yes, there\u2019s a mad doctor in the movie but he doesn\u2019t go on a murderous rampage in a city hospital as implied by the poster art. Like the title Zombie Holocaust<\/strong> indicates, it\u2019s a zombie movie. The storyline is similar to Lucio Fulci\u2019s Zombie (1979) in all but one respect. The zombies are NOT the ones who feed on human flesh. The cannibals are members of a primitive tribe on a remote Moluccan island. Let\u2019s recap; Zombie Holocaust<\/strong> has zombies, cannibals and a mad doctor performing human experiments. So far, so good!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Zombie Holocaust<\/strong> is one those Italian-made horror flicks with generous amounts of gore and gross scenes. It\u2019s the kind of movie where the ushers should hand out barf bags to audience members. It\u2019s gained a reputation over the years as a grindhouse classic. Sure, I can see it playing on triple bills at some crappy theater on 42nd<\/sup> Street back in the day. Directed by Marino Girolami (father of director Enzo G. Castellari), it\u2019s great cheesy fun! It has all the essential components: terrible acting, bad English dubbing, ridiculous dialogue, choppy narrative and cheap effects. It\u2019s freaking great!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Zombie Holocaust<\/strong> opens as a thriller in which Dr. Peter Chandler (McCulloch, Zombie) and anthropology expert Lori (Colli, The New York Ripper) investigate a series of bizarre corpse mutilations in the hospital morgue. It turns out to be an attendant who\u2019s originally from the Moluccan islands. Yes, he\u2019s a cannibal. He\u2019s about to eat some guy\u2019s heart when he\u2019s caught red-handed (blood red, that is). He jumps to his death from a window but before dying, he utters a single word, \u201cKeto\u201d (one of the Moluccan islands). There have been similar incidents in other hospitals around the country so Peter and Lori go the islands to investigate. They are joined by his assistant George (O\u2019Neal) and his journalist girlfriend Susan (Buchanan, Tentacles).<\/p>\n

\u00a0They\u2019re greeted by Dr. Obrero (O\u2019Brien, Hands of Steel), an accommodating host who sets them up with a boatsman, Molotto (Dakar, Ator), to take them to Keto. It takes a while to get there so they set up camp on another island where they encounter cannibals who start killing off members of the party starting with the three guides. They are also being hunted by zombies. They radio Obrero for help which turns out to be a colossal mistake. You see, he\u2019s the one creating the zombies. He set up his lab on that island in order to use the cannibal tribe as protection. After all, who\u2019s going to snoop around on an island occupied by cannibals? Oh, that\u2019s right. EVERYBODY!<\/p>\n

\u00a0It goes without saying that I love Zombie Holocaust<\/strong>. It\u2019s not great filmmaking, not by any stretch of the imagination. It\u2019s good then that nobody looks to movies like Zombie Holocaust<\/strong> for that kind of thing. I\u2019ll never understand the mentality of people who automatically dismiss any movie that isn\u2019t on the level of Fellini or Bergman. It always drove me nuts as a kid when critics routinely gave negative reviews to slasher flicks and horny teenager movies. They didn\u2019t seem to get that the normal rules of cinema don\u2019t apply to grindhouse movies. Forget all that, the important thing here is the splatter! Is there a lot? YES! Is it gross? YES! In Zombie Holocaust<\/strong>, besides the usual consumption of human flesh and organs, we get some cool kill scenes: a zombie\u2019s face is torn apart by an outboard motor, a man\u2019s throat is cut, a woman is scalped in preparation for surgery and a man is impaled on bamboo spikes. There\u2019s plenty of blood flow as well. Gorehounds will definitely be pleased.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Dubbing is such a key component of Italian-made horror films that I\u2019d be put off by subtitles. I can\u2019t imagine watching a Fulci flick without the voices that don\u2019t even match the characters. Besides, the audiences for movies like Zombie Holocaust<\/strong> don\u2019t go the movies to read. The dialogue, which is a real hoot, is better heard than seen. Obrero drops some real howlers; my favorite is \u201cI could easily kill you now but I\u2019m determined to have your brain.\u201d There are a few plot holes like the tribal knife stolen from Lori\u2019s apartment in the early scenes. It\u2019s never explained how it ends up in the hands of the tribe on Keto. Somebody broke into her place and brought it to Keto but who? As for the gore effects, they look more convincing than today\u2019s CGI. Truly gross-out!<\/p>\n

\u00a0One of the things I admire most about Zombie Holocaust<\/strong> is Girolami\u2019s vision of zombies. Whereas George A. Romero redefined zombies by turning them into flesh-eating ghouls, the zombies in Zombie Holocaust<\/strong> are more like ones from Haitian folklore. They\u2019re pre-Romero zombies. They\u2019re pretty scary looking too. I really like this movie a lot. It\u2019s a lot of fun for the strong of stomach. Think Zombie meets Cannibal Holocaust. It has a shabby, dirty quality and a strong sense of doom. I wish they still made horror movies like this.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zombie Holocaust (1980)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Aquarius Releasing\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (strong graphic violence and gore, some language, nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Marino Girolami (as Frank Martin)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Romano Scandariato\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Nico Fidenco\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Fausto Zuccoli\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 7, 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Ian McCulloch, Alexandra Delli Colli, Donald O\u2019Brien, Peter O\u2019Neal, Sherry Buchanan, Dakar, Walter Patriarca, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scary-gory-wild-i-love-it"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Zombie-Holocaust-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3961"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5707,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3961\/revisions\/5707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}