La nuit fantastique des morts-vivants

An American businessman wants to build a hotel on a remote island, so he has someone sail him and his girlfriend there to check it out. The zombie scenes seem tacked on as an afterthought, so as a horror film this doesn't really work that well. However due to the ridiculous dialog and the hardcore sex scenes the film MIGHT be worth it for drunken party type viewing, but even that is stretching it (pardon the pun) Feel free to skip this one, as it's only remote interesting as a curiosity. That being said the way champagne is uncorked in the film is ingenious.

Eye Candy: more than you can shake a decaying limb at

My Grade: D

DVD Extras: 27 minutes of Alternate footage; Production stills & Laura Gemser stills gallery; X-rated Trailer; and trailers for "Zombi 2", "Emanuelle And The Last Cannibals", "Nightmares Come at Night", & "Slaughter Hotel"

Easter Egg: In the main menu, highlight scene access and press down to get to a hidden skull, click on it for the French opening credits

its been quite a while i watched the movie. i rented it because i thaught it would be some funny trash like "zombie holocaust", but i was wrong. theres nearly no gore, no story, 3 zombies (or something), no FX, JUST PLAIN NOTHING! just stupid disgusting hairy (!!!) 70-ish porn. (i watched the full uncut version by astro). that was no fun.

i think a lot of people where let down by this flick, as most catalogs and genre books describe it as a gore soaked zombie porno. honestly, this film isn't that graphic. the sex is what i would call "hard soft-core" and there isn't much gore (though what gore there is is pretty cool.)

anywho, the story, from what i can tell concerns some kind of scientist/archetect/developer who travels to a strange island to do something or other, most likely something bad. once there, he angers the natives and a voodoo priest raises the dead which leads to a really creepy zombie attack-no really, it's right up there with fulci's zombie. as i said, there isn't much gore, but there is a neat scene where a doctor is examining a cadaver that was found floating in the bay, it sits up and takes a big bite out of the guys throat. then at the end there's a few bullet hits, some zombie carnage and star marks shannon gets his johnson bit of by laura gemser. the sex is fairly tame but there's a hilariously sleazy scene of a woman un-corking a champange bottle with her naughty bits. this film also has a great atmosphere and some excellent photography (also by Joe D'Amato) look out for some cool trick shots like when mark shannon throws a voddo idle on the ground and it changes instantly into a black cat that jumps up and attacks him. i had to watch that one again in slow motion i was so impressed! i would highly recommend this film for fans of bizarre cinema, and despite the lack of english, i think most will enjoy.

In case you always wondered (or worried) whether or not you would get aroused by the sight of zombies having sexual intercourse...you still won't find out by watching this weirdo-flick. In spite of what the title suggests, "Erotic Nights of the Living Dead" does not feature copulating undead or strip-dancing corpses. This merely is a routine Italian zombie film, like "Zombi 2" or "Zombie Holocaust", with a handful of hardcore sex sequences thrown in during the first half hour. And as crazy as it may sound, it actually is a pretty decent zombie movie if you just ignore these totally redundant porno moments and focus on the beautiful island location and rather stylish gory make-up effects. There's the typically obnoxious businessman who buys a tropical island with a vicious reputation and intends to build a tourist resort there. Along with a macho sailer and a whore he picked up in some hotel, he goes to scout the place but stumbles upon an uncanny old man and his ghostly granddaughter that rule over the island. Laura Gemser, ravishing cult siren and regular D'Amato nymph, stars as the mysterious island girl but her role is rather limited and she doesn't really show much of her enchanting body. George Eastman clearly is in great shape again as the stud, but he still doesn't manage to script down one reasonably good dialogue. There are a couple of atmospheric zombie-attacks and explicit gore. You can't possibly expect more from a Joe D'Amato film, apart from sleazy oddities in the script maybe, like the girl who ingeniously uncorks a bottle of champagne by using her vagina only (!).

Erotic Nights of the Living Dead (1980)

** (out of 4)

XXX version

Infamous Joe D'Amato film that mixes Italian gore with Italian sex. Three people head for a deserted island to have a lot of sex and to see if a hotel could be built on the island. They should have listened to all the rumors because zombies are there waiting. This is an extremely weird and bizarre film because the producer's wanted two films made. One a porno and another a horror film so the director just combined the two elements. Running at nearly two hours this thing goes on for way too long, which is why I wish the hardcore sex scenes would have been removed. There's a "soft" version out there that I keep meaning to see because I'm sure I'd like the film better minus the sex scenes. The zombie footage on the other hand is wonderfully done with a lot of great atmosphere and gore. D'Amato was a master behind the camera and the cinematography here is terrific as is the music score. Laura Gemser, George Eastman and Mark "Wart Nuts" Shannon star. This here is a lot better than the director's first horror/sex film Porno Holocaust, which was filmed at the same time with the same cast of this one.

Sexy Nights of the Living Dead (1980)

** (out of 4)

The version under this title is the pure horror version, which is missing all of the XXX scenes. For years I had been wanting to check this version out because I felt that the hardcore scenes in the uncut version were all rather ugly and did nothing erotic and instead they just dragged the film down. It was interesting watching the film without the porn scenes because you realize that the Joe D'Amato film has more problems than just the porn stuff. For starters, even without the hardcore sex there's way too many softcore scenes that are also not erotic. I was really surprised to see how silly the majority of the scenes are because it's clear that the main intent was just to show sex. Another major problem with the picture is that it just takes them way too long to finally get to the island where the zombie stuff happens. The zombies, as great as they are, are pretty much wasted because outside a couple scenes early on, the majority of their screen time happens at the very end of the movie. It's really a shame that they weren't given more screen time because I felt the horror elements were quite strong and they keep the movie interesting. Even though he was unable to make anything erotic, D'Amato did do a good job building up a rather bizarre atmosphere. This version clocks in at 100-minutes, which means it is missing twelve minutes worth of hardcore scenes. So, is this version better? I would say that it is simply because it's shorter and as I said, the hardcore scenes were rather ugly and added nothing to the picture.