Zombie Holocaust (1979) Reviews

A team of scientists and explorers follow a trail of pilfered corpses to the Pacific-island domain of a hand-wringing mad doctor (Donald O'Brien) who performs bizarre, tortuous experiments on living and dead specimens in his jungle laboratory. After a drastic reduction in the size of the team thanks to the Doc and his zombie hordes, the survivors try for a desperate getaway -- but not before the cannibals capture, strip and body-paint the team's requisite buxom blonde (Alexandra Della Colli). A suitable "B"-side to Lucio Fulci's own island-themed gore epic Zombie, Francesco Martino's Dr. Butcher, M.D. (an abbreviation for "Medical Deviate" according to the lurid promotional materials) is actually a composite of two separate films. The pre-credits prologue is cobbled together from bits of an unreleased film entitled Tales That Tear Your Heart Out which were tacked on to Martino's cut, originally titled Queen of the Cannibals, by American distributor Aquarius Films. The end result is completely senseless, but fun for gore-hounds, who are treated to impromptu surgical tortures, zombie gut-munching and death-by-outboard-motor. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi