DVD: Le notti erotiche dei morti viventi (Erotic Nights Of The Living Dead) (1980)
Okay, this one wasn’t my choice, honest. Le notti erotiche dei morti viventi (Erotic Nights Of The Living Dead) (Joe D’Amato) was viewed as part of an ongoing series of “odd” or cultish films that my friend Ryan and I are going through. (Our previous film was Pasolini’s Sal?ɬ? (1976), which you will probably never hear me speak of.) Anyway, this sexploitation film was… I don’t know. I don’t think that either of us were expecting it to be good - we just wanted to see it for the sake of seeing a genre piece with such a cult following.
We both know a lot about tons of different films and directors, with a little bit of crossover; granted, Ryan is way more into the B-movie obscurities than I am. I do enjoy zombie movies and was interested in seeing an extreme example of the classic sex-and-violence combo.
So here’s the story: A rich guy bought an island on which he wants to build a resort. Nobody will take him to it, because the supposedly deserted island is believed by locals to be populated by zombies that are controlled by a cat. Yes, a cat. (We do see the cat, and it makes some very funny noises. Spielberg definitely took notes from this movie for his Jurassic Park noises.) The only person who will take him to the island is George (Larry O’Hara aka Louis Montefiori, a frightening beast of a man), but his crew is too scared to come along. This may be because a zombie just attacked somebody right next to his docked boat. Anyway, one thing lead to another (many times, and in more than one way, if you know what I mean) and then FINALLY the zombies appear. They move so slowly that I was surprised that they were violent. Our hero boat-driver, George, is the only survivor, thanks to the small idol given to him by the beautiful Luna (Laura Gemser). She is special because she seduces each of the film’s main characters, and doesn’t appear in photos taken of her.
The dubbed audio track was hilarious. The sex scenes were explicit, and there were more of them than zombie scenes. They were also really bad. Well, the zombie scenes were bad, too. I guess the whole movie was bad, but it was still fairly entertaining to watch.
Apparently D’Amato is known as “Italy’s worst director”, and he admitted to being a bad director, with interest only in making money. He made films in almost every genre, taking whatever was popular at the moment and completely exploiting it in with as low a budget as possible. IMDB lists 189 directing credits, and I’m going to see them all!
Not really.
