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Teeth, Anchor, Bare Hands, Wooden Post, Machete, Rifle, Torch
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Reviewed by: Pontifex Aureus
From one of horror’s more bizarre subgenres, porno horror, comes Joe D’Amato’s Erotic Nights of the Living Dead. Never heard of porno horror? Then congratulations—you’re a well-rounded person who doesn’t waste time on rubbish. Anyway, porno horror is exactly what it sounds like; an unholy combination of horror and hardcore pornography, but instead of bringing these two elements together in any uniquely startling or disturbing way, Erotic Nights of the Living Dead simply takes a lackluster horror plot and haphazardly slaps in porno scenes whenever the story drags (which is constantly).
A boat captain takes a wealthy foreign investor and his female escort to the mysterious Cat Island, so named for its reputation of being haunted by a black cat who controls a horde of zombies. Upon arriving on the island, the three visitors are met by a mysterious woman and her grandfather and strange things begin to happen, yet this doesn’t stop anyone from periodically engaging in graphic sex, at least not until the zombies show up.
The main problem with Erotic Nights of the Living Dead is typical of the porno horror subgenre as a whole—the pacing is absolutely horrible. It is impossible for the movie’s plot to gain any momentum whatsoever when it keeps getting interrupted by sex scenes; the movie comes to a grinding halt every time. None of the sex scenes advance the plot or character development; they are absolutely unconnected to the rest of the film and truly serve no purpose other than to pad out the running time of what is essentially 60 minutes worth of actual movie.
Because the movie can’t keep a sense of pace, it can’t develop any atmosphere either, and without atmosphere, there can be no real horror. Erotic Nights absolutely fails as a horror movie and isn’t a particularly good porno either. Not only is the pornography prosaic and by-the-numbers, it also lacks any sense of true eroticism; there is no titillation, only exploitation. Moreover, the main male sex actor is fairly gross-looking and appears to have genital warts…gag! The only really amusing porn moment was of a woman who opens a bottle of champagne with her hoo-ha. That, at least, was outrageous enough to achieve novelty value.
Overall, the film is very boring, with scarcely any zombie mayhem at all; I would estimate that about 95% of the zombie action occurs within the last 10% of the movie. And even when the action finally comes, we’re met with a pretty lame zombie horde that apparently bleeds chocolate milk. And for being erotic “nights” of the living dead, the film is pretty damn bright, with all of the night scenes having clearly been filmed in the day and then tinted a nasty ultra-blue. Adding to this laundry list of problems is bad special effects, bad makeup, and a bad English dub replacing the original Italian audio (which, I’m sure, is probably not any better). Avoid this movie like Joe D’Amato avoids good production values, because for all its gross sex, the only one who’s truly fucked is the viewer.
splatterjunkie 