Zombie Holocaust
Zombie Holocaust is a 1980 film from Italy, directed by Marino Girolami, running 84 minutes. reelscum files it under cannibal boom and zombie.
- Year
- 1980 · 1980s films
- Country
- Italy
- Runtime
- 84 min
- Director
- Marino Girolami
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- cult (44/100)
- Also known as
- Island of the Last Zombies · Medical Deviate · Zombie Holocaust
- Banned in
- UK
Defined in the glossary: Cannibal boom, Zombie
On the UK Section 3 list of titles liable to police seizure, released here as Zombie Holocaust and in the US as Doctor Butcher M.D.
Cannibals and zombies at once, reusing the Zombi 2 sets and cast.
Cannibals and zombies in one film, reusing the sets, cast and even footage of Fulci's Zombi 2 to save money. A doctor and a reporter travel to an island where a mad surgeon is at work among flesh-eating natives and the walking dead, and the film cheerfully throws both genres at the wall.
Ian McCulloch anchors it, and the gore is enthusiastic, but the main pleasure is watching a production strip-mine another film for parts in real time. It was also recut into an American version with new footage.
A Frankenstein of a film, stitched from whatever was lying around.
Trailer
The numbers
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Where to watch
Legal options in USA
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Written about
- Cult films and the audiences that make them
Cult status arrives after release, through late-night television, midnight bookings and VHS trade, as The Brainiac, Walking Tall and Patrick each show.
- Banned, cut and confiscated
A Fulci print flown out of the country, an Australian rating that just means no, and a German court that filed The Evil Dead under criminal violence. Three states, three machines for making a film disappear.
- Gut-munchers: the Italian zombie boom, 1979 to 1983
There was no first one. Argento recut Romero, Fulci forged the sequel, and Italy spent four years feeding the British censors.
The cycle in depth
- The Italian cannibal cycle, 1977 to 1985
Eight years, a dozen films, one arrest, and a court appearance to prove the cast were still alive.
Filed alongside
Cannibal Apocalypse
Vietnam veterans as cannibals. Sillier and kinder than the jungle cycle.
Return of the Evil Dead
Blind Dead again, this time besieging a whole village. The best of the four.
Burial Ground
Incoherent even by the standards of the cycle. The Peter subplot is unforgivable.
Man from Deep River
The one that started it, by remaking A Man Called Horse in Thailand.
Nightmare City
Zombies that run and use guns, decades early. Incompetent in enjoyable ways.
Night of the Seagulls
The Blind Dead ride out one last time. A quiet, sad closer to Spain's best monster series.
The Living Dead Girl
Rollin's best late film. Melancholy where the Italians were loud.
The Ghost Galleon
The Blind Dead put to sea on a model boat in a visible fish tank. The runt of the four.
A Virgin Among the Living Dead
Franco at his dreamiest. Distributors added zombies later without telling him.
Shock Waves
Underwater Nazi zombies rise off a tropical island. Peter Cushing, John Carradine, and real dread.
The Grapes of Death
Rollin does an outbreak. A pesticide turns wine-country villagers into oozing killers.
Hell of the Living Dead
Bruno Mattei rips off Dawn of the Dead with a Goblin score he also stole. Gloriously shameless.