Porno Holocaust (1981)
By: Devon Bertsch on July 31, 2006. 
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| Exploitation Digital (USA). Region 1, NTSC. 1.77:1 (16:9 enhanced). Italian DD 2.0 Mono. English Subtitles. 113 minutes |
| The Movie |
| Cover Art |
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| Credits |
Director: Joe D'Amato
Starring: George Eastman,
Mark Shannon, Dirce Funari, Annj Goren
Screenplay: George Eastman
Music: Nico Fidenco
Country: Italy |
The first thing I discovered when putting on Porno
Holocaust is that it is one hour and fifty-three
minutes long. That's too long for crappy horror,
too long for crappy porn, and way too long for a
crap of a film like this. The opening credits felt
like they should make up half of the total run time,
but no, they didn't. There was so much more to come…
A group of scientists are going
to a desert island to inspect genetic mutations
that have occurred due to radiation. Some of the
scientists are women, and there is some trepidation
about taking the bikini babe scientists along.
Well founded trepidation it turns out, because
one of the island's natives has mutated
into a guy with some cloth wrapped around his
head and a sexual yearning for female flesh. It
sounds like it has SO much potential, doesn't
it?
I'd not seen Porno Holocaust before, having been scared off by Erotic
Nights of the Living Dead. Back then,
the only way to see these Joe D'amato horror
porns was via bootleg, and Erotic Nights was still only available in a print missing all
the hardcore footage except the vaginal uncorking
of a bottle. Porno Holocaust's
premise always sounded like it had more going
for it, so I doubted it would be as bad as it
has been made out to be. I was wrong. Oh, so wrong.
There are two reasons to watch this film. Porn
and horror. It's nearly 15 minutes before
the first hardcore scene, and that's just
a boring lesbian scene with not much happening
and not much that is visible. This set the pace
for the rest of the hardcore, which is mostly
unspectacular, often unerotic, and mostly made
up by one couple's repeated parings. Much
of the hardcore footage is too dark or poorly
shot, making it hard to see much detail, let alone
to find erotic. Even cum shots gets lost in blackness
or bad angles, which shows some REALLY poor planning.
The only real amusement I got from the porn scenes
was a bit that used typically asinine porn logic.
A woman pays to have sex with two guys, but then
immediately proceeds to blow them (she doesn't
do a good job of it either, I might add) while
they caress her head and back. Who would pay for
that? When things progress, one of the guys has
trouble getting his dick in. This is a professional?
The other still seems to be intent to provide
the pleasure he's been paid to deliver by
rubbing his hands over non-erogenous zones. It
looks like amateur, fumbly hour. In fact, a lot
of the porn was fumbly.
The horror elements are even less of a draw.
Sure, we got George Eastman, but he does very
little and doesn't get to eat anyone. The
gore is even less spectacular than the porn, which
is REALLY saying something. I know not a lot of
effort went into this movie, but this is ridiculous.
Not only that, but the hardcore footage often
completely interrupts the horror 'story,'
making everything seem to go on forever, when
really it's just going on for one hour and
fifty-three minutes. |
| Video |
| Porno Holocaust is presented
at 1.85:1 in a 16x9 enhanced print. The film has
grain, specks, is a little hazy at times, and sometimes
also looks a little washed out, but the movie looks
surprising good. I was amazed by how good it looked,
actually. I know my comparison was a third generation
boot of Erotic Nights, but even
so, I wasn't expecting this low budget obscurity
to scrub up so well. |
| Audio |
| Audio is a two channel Italian track with optional
English subs. While I didn't have a problem
with most of the audio, the score will drive you
mad. It's like muzak remixes of favourite
Italian scores of the past. |
| Extra Features |
Extras include Porno Holocaust's
trailer, as well as those for Yellow Emanuelle, SS Hell Camp, Emanuelle
and the Last Cannibals, and Erotic
Nights of the Living Dead. Erotic
Night's trailer features way more
of the porn than was in the print I saw years
ago. I wouldn't revisit it to see the full
thing, but the trailer confirms there was footage
missing from the print making the bootleg circuit
back then. This was a great highlight of how much
better, and economical, it is to be a horror fan
these days. I could get the completely uncut film
with a good transfer on DVD for less money than
the shitty boot of yesteryear.
Anyway, there's also a small photo gallery,
which has some artwork for Porno Holocaust,
and an eleven-minute interview with Eastman. It's
a general conversation about his career, but he
does speak about Porno Holocaust specifically, and admits if they'd known
how many people were going to see the films they
were making back then, some more care may have
gone into them. Oddly, it sounds like someone
is cleaning house in the background during the
interview. |
| The Verdict |
| This DVD creates a dilemma for me. I want to give
it a good score because of the quality of the presentation,
but the film itself doesn't even warrant a
score of one. However, given Porno Holocaust's
prior obscurity and the level of work that Exploitation
Digital must've done, I'm giving this
a three. This is not in any way meant to imply that
I recommend the film to anyone, even desperate raincoaters. |
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