ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST The video for Marino Girolami�s Zombie Holocaust (1979) begins with a minute or so of blackness followed by a title sequence for the insignificant video production studio. Then comes the fun. The preview for Nights of Terror is a medley of moving pictures showing excruciatingly ugly zombies walking around slowly (oh so typical) yet still able to attack screaming live people. They play with guts, chew on neck skin, and are easily prodded with long sticks. With no voice over, dialogue or discernible plot, perhaps the preview is a perfect portrayal of the picture. In the next preview we get dialogue but my television screen cut off the first letter of the title, and since internet research didn�t help I therefore christen this movie Xast in Zombie World. When an airplane full of hapless white people becomes stranded in the middle of cannibal country somewhere in the tropics, guess what happens next? The cannibals are quite cruel: they break open rib cages, feed newborns to alligators, and eat fresh human flesh and live snakes. Boasting "authentic acts of cannibalism," my favorite shot in the preview is of an unshaven white guy holding a bloody piece of meat and biting into it with a look of defiance. Beyond the Darkness seems to go for broke in its intensity beginning the preview by showing a guy using pliers to forcibly remove a screaming woman�s fingernails. Following his girlfriend�s death, the guy and a brunette accomplice team up to assault and kill various women for nefarious purposes. But the guy can�t live without the girlfriend so he keeps her body on a separate bed in his bedroom where he has sex with women who don�t seem to notice the body�s there until getting in the groove. The best shot here is of a woman tripping over a pile of guts. Finally, introducing Dr. Butcher, MD (Medical Deviate), a man who looks strikingly similar to a young Noam Chomsky. Instead of dissecting corporate media propaganda, however, this doctor vivisects the savage cannibals from two movie previews ago. First he kills the cannibals then transplants brains from one cannibal to another and in the process makes them look hideous. He brings them back to life but they still require live flesh so perhaps he�s doing something right after all. If you can make it this far on the tape and begin watching the feature presentation, you will quickly realize that Zombie Holocaust is exactly the same movie previewed as Dr. Butcher. Choose your preferred title at will but if you stick with the preview version you will save valuable time.

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