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ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST Starring Ian McCulloch, Alexandra Delli Colli, Dakkar and Donald Obrien
Zombies and cannibals were at the height of their popularity with European film directors and audience members in the late 1970s. Fulci's Zombie and films such as Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust earned much notoriety for their gore content and exotic locations. In fact, many movies of this type had plots that begin in New York City and end up on a remote island. The film, Zombie Holocaust (aka Dr. Butcher, Medical Deviate) combines the elements of these films not only in title, but also in concept. The beginning of the film deals with a number of cannibal murders in a Manhattan hospital. The offender is caught (it was the nurse, a Pacific Islander) who has a tattoo on his chest belonging to a cannibal tribe in the South Pacific; he commits suicide. This prompts an investigation that leads to the archipelago where a Dr. Obrero operates. The people investigating know Dr. Obrero as a benevolent doctor who tries to cure the natives of various illnesses. As it turns out, the good doctor actually does destructive surgery on the natives, creating an army of mangled zombies. He also prompts the natives to practice cannibalism.
The investigators fall prey to the cannibals, leaving a couple of survivors to unravel the mystery of Dr. Obrero….. When Zombie Holocaust was released in 1982 by Aquarius Releasing, it was given the title Dr. Butcher, MD. The expositional scenes were cut, and the film was re-scored with synthesized music to suit the tastes of audiences enjoying the New Wave/Electronica music that was popular in the early 1980s. A prologue was added, taken from an unfinished 16mm film by Roy Frumkes. The result was an entirely different-feeling film from Director Marino Girolami's version. This is a good example of the movies that were popular with drive-in and grindhouse audiences when those venues were on the wane.
The picture quality on this particular DVD (which was also released in the US on the Media Blasters label) is decent. At a non-anamorphic aspect ratio of 1.66:1, the picture reveals some graininess. However, the picture looks better than any previous VHS or laserdisc presentation (except for Dragon Entertainment’s laserdisc presentation of this movie, which is the same). The colors are a little washed out. However, the reds seen in this print are some of the most vibrant reds I’ve ever seen onscreen. There are two audio tracks to this movie: a Dolby Digital 2.0 mono mix in the English language and a Dolby Digital 2.1 German track. The .1 is obviously the subwoofer channel. The German soundtrack is much bassier (understandably), and is actually quite different from the English track; some of the music is a bit different and the track utilizes more ambient sound effects. Although the packaging (all in German) implies that there are three theatrical trailers on this disc, there are only two. The Dr. Butcher trailer for the North American release and the Zombies under Cannibalen trailer for the German release are included. The Dr. Butcher trailer is the same trailer found on the Japanese laserdisc release. The German trailer was something to behold. “Dr. Obrien” and “zombiemonster” are wonderfully hilarious terms to hear when heard among other words in a language that one would not understand. There is a filmography (all in German) with text way too small to read. There was also a deleted scene (cut from the main movie in this release, but intact in the Dr. Butcher print) of an encounter with cannibals outside the jungle included as an extra. The cover art is pretty standard, capturing pics of some of the main zombies. The insert folds out to a wonderful collage of scenes from the movie. Although Media Blasters has come out with a far superior DVD release of this film, this gem of a DVD would be worth owning if one could track it down. The presence of the German trailer is a wonderful bonus. |
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