Zombie Holocaust | 1980 | Italy | Marino Girolami
As the name suggests, this exploitation schlock epic was marketed as a combination of the zombie and cannibal subgenres, a particularly ripe avenue for exploitative filmmakers, though the end result arguably takes more of the cannibal format than anything else. After a series of corpse mutilations in a New York morgue, assistant Lori and Dr. Chandler track the culprit to the secretive Kito tribe in the depths of the Indonesian jungles. The pair lead an expedition to the region, only to encounter the primitive tribe who attack them as well as ‘zombies’ who appear to drive fear into the natives. The ultimate truth lies in the laboratory of Dr. Obrero, whose cruel experiments have created a new type of lifeform for nefarious purposes. Featuring the usual Italian excesses like extreme gore, it thankfully leaves the animal cruelty out but this wasn’t far enough for the UK authorities, who seized the video from the shelves for the title alone, despite the VTC version already being significantly trimmed of violence.