Porno Holocaust (1981)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Warning: This review contains graphic descriptions of sex

 

 

 

AKA: Sex Killer: Mutant Overgrown Man-Child, Orgasmo Nero II - Insel der Zombies

 

 

Dir: Joe D'Amato

 

 

Starring: Mark Shannon, George Eastman, Dirce Funari, Annj Goren

 

 



The early 1980s was certainly a unique time for film; one we’re unlikely to experience anything of it’s like again. I mean, when else could a movie like Porno Holocaust possibly be made?

The second instalment in my Joe D’Amato season is a sleazy cocktail of gore-filled horror and hardcore pornography that only signor Massaccesi could dream up. It’s a film I simply find fascinating in a rather bizarre way. Probably because this is a movie very much of its time; something that one could not possibly comprehend existing in today’s world.

Italian porn star Mark Shannon heads up a team of scientists (George Eastman, Dirce Funari and Annj Goren) who take a trip to a remote Caribbean island to investigate suspected effects of radiation pollution. Once there however, they are stalked by a vicious mutated zombie who begins picking off members of their expedition one-by-one.

 



Of course, this synopsis of the movie’s plot doesn’t account for the many scenes of hardcore sex that occur throughout. It’s this unique cross-over of pornography and horror that’s the films major attraction for me.  Modern day porn is so formulaic; its producers wouldn’t dare propose an idea like this. This would all be academic if the horror elements didn’t deliver, but, though not perfect, it works. The gore set pieces and the monster’s make-up effects aren’t phoned in as you might expect. It seems there was a genuine effort made to make the horror elements convincing. 

 

The flip side to the porn/horror crossover is that this is probably not an ideal movie for porn lovers. The jump from the erotic to the grotesque would be quite off-putting if you were simply watching this movie for arousal. But then again that’s the great thing about Porno Holocaust: it can’t be pigeon holed. 

 

Another bone of contention with critics of this film – one that I’m inclined to agree with – is the length of its running time. Porno Holocaust clocks in at just short of two hours. That’s an awful lot of time to spend on a story that involves people fucking on an island and being bumped off by a zombie! Though I personally didn’t find the film boring, I did have to stop myself checking the clock at times.

 

Many of these Italian exploitation films can be for the most part forgettable, but they often contain a scene(s) that will stick in your mind after the film has finished. This might be a nice gory special effect, a really gross moment or just something downright bizarre. In Porno Holocaust such a scene arrives around the half-way point, and it involves the monster sticking it’s erect zombified penis into the mouth of a woman and killing her with it’s toxic semen! Wow.

Porno Holocaust will probably bore a lot of people with its bare-bones story, plodding pace and over-long running time but it’s interesting if you’re looking for something a bit more ‘out there’ from the usual sexploitation stuff.

 

 

 

Nightmare City



By chance, this week I viewed two movies back-to-back: Nightmare City (1980) and David Cronenberg’s Shivers (1975). These two films made for a fantastic and appropriate double-bill because they both provide an interesting spin on the Zombie flick.

 



Umberto Lenzi is credited with establishing the Italian Cannibal genre with 1972’s Deep River Savages (aka The Man from Deep River) but, in-between two other Cannibal romps – Eaten Alive! (1980) and the notorious Cannibal Ferox (1981) – he tried his hand at the Zombie film. The plot goes like this: after an unidentified plane exposed to radiation lands at the airport of an unnamed city, a horde of zombies emerge and go on a rampage, attacking anything in their way.

 



This film is different from a lot of the other Walking Dead movies from around the time. The creatures in Nightmare City are not the same as George Romero’s undead or of other Italian gore films like Zombie Flesh Eaters or Zombie Holocaust. Lenzi’s ‘Zombies’ are not the dead rising from the grave, but living people who have mutated after being exposed to radiation which has enhanced their strength but also given them an insatiable thirst for blood. These, as Lenzi puts it, ‘infected people’ are not living corpses, shuffling about, relying on impulse; no, they can run and retain the mental capacity to use weapons and even communicate with each other. They do, however, retain some of the hallmarks of Romero’s flesh eaters: they can infect a victim with a bite and can only be stopped by a gunshot to the head.

 

The movie plays on a common theme in 1980s horror flicks: fear of the dangers of nuclear power. The people on the plane were exposed to high levels of radiation and thus became mutated and developed a taste for human flesh. The film also briefly explores themes such as freedom of the press, the military industrial complex and human-kind’s tendency to play God.

 

  Nightmare City is a fun film to watch and is (ahem) a feast for the gore-hounds out there. It’s an orgy of over-the-top violence as the Zombies, sorry ‘infected people’, rampage through the city. Necks are bitten, guts are chewed, eyes are gouged and there’s even a scene of a woman’s breast being ripped off! It’s a spectacularly awesome Italian exploitation flick; with loads of action and thrills. People who love this sort of movie will have a blast.