Porno Holocaust (1981)

Best movie of this year hands down!

You won't be disappointed!

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Many criticize this film on the basis of pornography, poor acting & script, and the lack of a "holocaust" plot, but there is another way to approach this film. In light of the other "holocaust" films, such as Cannibal, etc., it seems that D'Amato was fully aware of what was happening in the genre with Franco, Deodato, Lenzi, etc. at the time and decided to create a satire with those other movies in mind. Yes, this film is almost entirely porno, but that is the satire in the film. Instead of cannibals it is sex. So, picture Cannibal Holocaust with its unforgiving and repeated scenes of cannibalism and animal cruelty and apply those to porno. What is the end result? A Porno Holocaust. It is an exploitation of porno in general and if any one could do it successfully, it's D'Amato.It seems the last scene of the film gives all the intent of the film away. D'Amato was certainly a skilled enough film maker to notice the huge mistakes in the final scene. It's almost as if he's saying "I Gotcha!" at the end. The couple immediately having sex once they escape the island, then waving toward the shore while a camera man's head comes out the canoe, all of this portrays the genius of D'Amato.So, what's the point he's making? I feel he is simultaneously taking a slap at the exploitative industry while at the same time participating in its excessive characteristics, almost like saying here it is, good or bad, this is what we do in this field, enjoy! Other D'Amato films display his skill in film making, this isn't necessarily one of them, but what it does do is make you think about why you are watching the film and if it should be titillating or not.

Sleaze-maestro Joe D'Amato serves up another exploit ho-hummer with PORNO HOLOCAUST. Shot with much of the same cast as EROTIC NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD (with the exception of a noticeably missing Laura Gemser), on the same island, with the same type of "zombies" strolling around. My copy is Italian language only, so here's what I got from it.A group of people go to the aforementioned island, bone a lot, and then get attacked by pug-nosed zombies. Said zombies must be horny too, cuz the highlight of the film is a zombie-rape scene. Most of the group of non-zombies is killed off, but two survive, and start boning as soon as their little canoe gets off the island...No real idea what was going on in PORNO HOLOCAUST other than what was mentioned above. There's quite a bit more hardcore sex in this film than in EROTIC NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD, and the films end differently, but other than that (and the exclusion of Gemser...), I doubt I'd be able to tell the two films apart if I hadn't seen either in a while. Worth a look to fans of D'Amato's sleazy romps, but not one of his more notable films either...6/10

This is exactly what I'd expect from trying to cross a hardcore sex movie and a horror film--a crappy horror film but a better-than-average sex flick. The plot, as it were, is heavily borrowed from D'Amato's own notorious cannibal film "Anthrophagus". A group of idiotic European tourists land on an idyllic island and are stalked a shambling monster. But D'Amato breaks up the tedium here with a lot of hardcore sex scenes. And when THAT gets tedious (which it quickly does) the monster shows up and kills off most of the cast. But, of course, a D'Amato film simply CANNOT be tedium-free so he makes the whole thing a frickin' ridiculous 110 minutes long! Some people objected to the fact that the ridiculously well-endowed "monster" is dark-skinned, but then so is half the cast. Others were offended that the giant monster dispatches most of the women with his, uh, giant monster, but frankly these scenes are pretty hard to take seriously and I doubt the biggest perverts in the world will be turned on by them. The female cast is only marginally more attractive than the monster, but I found it interesting that the prettiest girl (relatively speaking) didn't participate in any of the hardcore scenes but was willing to do the most controversial scene where she is choked to death during fellatio by the monster's obviously fake appendage (Laura Gemser did a similar thing in the companion piece to this "Erotic Nights of the Living Dead" although she was the aggressor there ). This raises the interesting question of what is more "degrading"--dark but obviously simulated fantasies like this or the exploitation of real-life private sex acts? Well, you can't stop men (or women) from fantasizing whether you ban movies or not, and fantasies, however warped, don't give real-life people real-life AIDS.I also liked that this movie was shot on film on and on island location, which regardless of its incompetence, makes it preferable to today's hardcore "product" shot on video in some producer's condo in the Valley. And as homely as some of the cast are, there's not a silicone breast in sight. In short, this movie is no more offensive, and slightly less boring, than any hardcore porno movie.

Wow. I felt like I needed to shower off after watching this one, but maybe there were other reasons that I will leave to your imagination. I felt used and abused after wacking, I mean watching this film. Hairy chests, thick mustaches, and well, hairy everything describes this porn/horror movie, but hey, it was 1981, you can't call it "porn" in the 70s and 80s without the hair.As a horror flick, this bites. But as a piece of exploitation/porn from Italy's rich cinematic history- it definitely has a place in my library. The copy I have is in Italian with English subtitles. I wish it had the really poorly dubbed English, I think it would have added to the sleaziness factor that already existed. The only white guy who gets laid in the movie is "Mark Shannon"- he is the moustache wearing, hairy chested piece of machismo who really does try and give a performance every time he "steps up to bat". This was at the end of an era where porn producers were actually trying to make something artistic. Nothing like panning the camera from a tropical backdrop to a hairy man having "doggie-style" sex with a woman. I can't help but laugh.This is one of those movies that I pray my future wife and kids never find.