1980 (Italy)
Contains spoilers.
Let's address the
obvious. Notorious Italian Director Joe D'Amato's Erotic Nights of the Living
Dead is a hard-core pornographic feature, with full penetration, oral, girl on
girl and pop-shots, and we're not just talking about the original and now infamous
scene with a bottle of champagne, and this factor alone is going to dictate to
most whether this is a film for them. Well it is and perhaps it shouldn't. You
see there are two versions. There's the 'uncut' one with all the aforementioned
explicit squelching and twelve minutes of extra rudity,
and there's a 'general' release without, and now having, ahem, educated myself
with what one would be missing I can make the case that one would actually not
only be not missing that much, but they'd perhaps actually be watching
something that benefited directly because of it. Getting right to it, which is
coincidentally, exactly what eighties Italians seem to do; unless you just have
to watch pretty tame, lethargic and drawn out amateur vintage euro porn then
the film benefits immensely with faster pacing, stronger cohesion and identity
and a more consistent narrative for not being interrupted with it every five
minutes. Don't get me wrong it's still wall to wall tits and arse but it's not
quite so distracting.
It's a film about a
zombie island and the trip to it, and we'll start with this. Larry (George
Eastman) owns a boat. John (Mark Shannon), who made me think of Ron
Burgandy, wants to hire the boat so he can scope Cat Island for a potential holiday resort, and
Fiona (Dirce Funari) wants to take her clothes off. Larry, Mark and Fiona also
like sex; a lot, and let's say they're all quite unreserved with who they have
it with. It's your usual Zombie Flesh Eaters (Zombi 2) inspired, Italian styled
drawn out zombie nonsense with dire legends and warnings, except here with a
lot, and I mean a lot more nudity. There is a small zombie cameo, which acts as
a small amuse-bouche for the action that will arrive a lot later; but it's a
bit leveraged and never taken anywhere.
What we really have is a good hour of badly acted, terribly dubbed,
nothingness, that's somehow entirely watchable and absorbing, perhaps both for
its awfulness and a terrible voyeuristic perversion just to see what, and you
just know it'll be next to little, reason Fiona will find to strip down to the
altogether.
Arriving at the
island they're met with more warnings, this time in person from mystic and
teller of sooths Luna (Laura Gemser - Black Emanuelle) who by remarkable
coincidence is also more than happy to get down and jiggly with it, and her
grandfather, but instead of listening to tales of an evil zombie master cat,
and certain death, choose instead to sunbathe, smoke, drink and frolic in the
sun. And honestly, when the zombies start emerging and the weird monkey totems
have been summarily cast aside, I had no sympathy for all the screaming,
chasing and dying that occurred.
The best way of
describing the zombies is 'mixed bag'. There's an attempt at the full fetid,
maggot crusted Fulci undead; and they get close on occasion with elaborate
make-up and prosthetics, but all too often it's just some fella with some rags
and a vacant expression (all the zombies are male). For every confident, dark
and uncomfortable, and some of them truly were, zombie sequence with raggedy
soulless denizens crawling out from their shallow grave or the ocean forcing
our now slightly less sex-obsessed survivors back like an endless surge; there
was some guy with a night-shirt jumping out with his arms outstretched like a
pathetic slightly uncertain panther. Overall though, and taking into account
again that this film was one part zombie to two parts tits-out, the thirty or
so minutes when the zombies do matter were surprisingly entertaining and
bafflingly strong. Again though, for all the wrong reasons; as if the
script and narrative were to be dissected in any way it would be found severely
wanting in coherence, competence and substance.
Joe D'Amato's Erotic
Nights of the Living Dead is truly wanting, even when put up against other early
eighties European horror, and that in itself is quite telling. And yet as a
film and feature it's not as bad as it could have been; somehow providing enough
intrigue to see things through. For as much as I can, and will, criticise it
from top to bottom, from premise to production, I can honestly say I was never
truly bored; enjoying the ride like a spellbound slightly uncomfortable voyeur
watching a horrific multi-car pile-up, except where everyone was naked. I also
found myself strangely forgiving of the obvious sexploitation as the women were
not only always in control, but more often the ones with the perceived power,
dictating the terms and timing of each sexual encounter, as if the men were
just randy little teens always on standby to perform to command. And yes, it's
a zombie movie; a real one, and not some half-hearted pornographic satirical
swipe at the genre, with an earnest and revered attempt at getting things right.
I'm neither going to recommend or reject this odd little Italian sleaze; more
suggest it's not totally and summarily dismissed out of hand for, as I stated, the obvious reason - 4/10.
Steven@WTD.
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