Well, it has a great title.
Like its companion piece Erotic Nights of the Living Dead – the two films were shot in the same Dominican Republic locations with only minor variations in cast and crew – Porno Holocaust attempts, largely unsuccessfully, to hybridise trash auteur Joe D'Amato's two favoured (because profitable) genres, horror and pornography.
This time round Mark Shannon gets to play the nominal heroic lead as the ship captain chartered to take a party of scientists to investigate strange things afoot on a remote island, with George Eastman relegated to a secondary role as the scientific team's resident nuclear physicist.
Also present again are Dirce Funari, playing a bisexual biologist dissatisfied with her husband's (non-) performances and (uncredited) Lucia Ramirez, who played Eastman's girlfriend in Erotic Nights, the female trio rounded out by the addition of Annj Goren – herself no stranger to D'Amato's cinema through appearances in the likes of Porno Shop on Seventh Avenue and Black Sex – as the decadent, sexually adventurous Countess.
The big absence, of course, is Laura Gemser, though the spirit of Emanuelle Nera is nevertheless apparent in Nico Fidenco's nice and sleazy porn groove score, which does give a slightly different feel to the proceedings than the eerie proto-electronica supplied by Pluto Kennedy for Erotic Nights.
But, repeating its companion's languid pacing, there are 40 odd minutes of sex scenes – a brief simulated fumble between Funari and her husband; a longer simulated 'lesbian' sequence between Funari and Goren; actual hardcore Goren being serviced by two men etc. – before the group gets to the island – whereupon the suck and fuck action continues with another Funari/Goren softcore pairing and the first of what prove to be several hardcore encounters between Shannon and Ramirez…
Finally – and mercifully for the horror contingent – D'Amato acknowledges the other side of his audience as, after a bit of exposition about radioactive mutations, the island's monster makes its appearance. The sexual element is still strong, however, with the dynamics those of a stalk and slash film (the subjective camera shots from the monster's POV, augmented by an effective soundtrack of heavy breathing and heartbeat/Geiger counter style noises one of the few plus points) as the characters wander off to have sex, act dumb and die, the men being quickly killed off and the women suffering a more protracted and distasteful fate as they are, yes, screwed to death.
Unfortunately the shock of this MO is diluted by the perfunctory nature of the monster make up – not quite as poor as, say, Umberto Lenzi's Nightmare City zombies but close – and the laughable way in which D'Amato handles the scenes.
The only one not subjected to the monster's ravages is Ramirez, whom he kidnaps and takes to his cave lair. There she finds a backpack and diary, somehow unaffected by all these years of exposure to the elements, and learns that he was an islander who, with his wife and child did not have time to evacuate the island before the nuclear tests two decades back. (Oddly, while the backpack contains a child's clothing, the two skulls supposedly of the man's family both seem adult sized.)
Then, after another bit of stalking, slashing (Eastman) and screwing (Goren) – the former, who also gets a credit for the *cough* script, has little to do throughout on account of being an actor rather than a porno performer – Shannon shoots the monster and saves Ramirez.
Out to sea, they have sex once more before being rescued by a passing boat.
Finally, "Fine"
Released on Region 0 DVD by Alfa Digital, Porno Holocaust looks and sounds fine, the 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer and 2.0 mono providing a decent showcase for D'Amato's work as cinematographer and Fidenco's score, even if some of the visual detail thereby brought out – not least the warts on Shannon's scrotum – maybe isn't what you really want to see.
Unlike previous releases of the film this one has English subs, though of course much of the action is of a dialogue free nature – as is, indeed, the only extra on the disc, a long trailer loaded with sex and splatter 'highlights'.
One for the D'Amato sex/horror completist.
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
Rating:
4.7 / 5
(6 votes)
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