PORNO HOLOCAUST

Directed by Joe D'Amato. 1981. Italy.

Aristide Massaccesi was a fine cinematographer. Joe D’Amato was not a very good director. The two made countless movies together. Sometimes, though rarely, something great would come of it. The lurid early 70s giallo DEATH SMILES ON A MURDERER comes to mind. The early adventures of Emanuelle stand out too, as does D’Amato’s BEYOND THE DARKNESS, a grotesque remake of Mino Guerrini’s 1966 giallo THE THIRD EYE. After going solo for a bit, during which time D’Amato made the Video Nasty entry ANTROPOPHAGUS, the two would reunite for a long, long string of monotonous, largely terrible, titles. D’Amato was trapped in the gravity of the burgeoning adult market and unfortunately Massaccesi was dragged in with him. D’Amato, workmanlike and ultimately forgettable, would thrive in his new home. The skill and creativity Massaccesi showed in his promising early career would wither and die.

Of course, I’m talking about a single person here. I’m sure many, if not most, of you are aware of that. Joe D’Amato was just one of the many names Massaccesi used throughout his career. It just so happens to be the one he used the most. But I’m not being flippant here. D’Amato (I'll just stick with that name) was a damn fine cinematographer who increased the quality of many of the productions he played a part in. He was damn good at his job and even in the later films of his career, the really terrible stuff, there are moments that are well framed and expertly filmed. But I imagine there was far more money in making a half dozen cheap and quick sex flicks in a year than there was in making only a few more respectable films every four or five.

The quality of D’Amato’s adult career is perhaps best exemplified by a quintet of films he directed in 1980. Those films are HARD SENSATION, EROTIC NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD, ORGASMO NERO, SESSO NERO, and the subject of today’s review, PORNO HOLOCAUST. There’s a lot of things connecting these films together. For example, they were all written by actor George Eastman. They were all (mostly) filmed on the same island, utilizing many of the same sets and geographical backdrops. The casts are virtually the same across all films, with only a few unique appearances from actresses like Nieves Navarro and Laura Gemser. At least three of these films, PORNO HOLOCAUST, SESSO NERO and HARD SENSATION, were filmed concurrently.

Of the five movies mentioned above, only PORNO HOLOCAUST has attained any kind of cult following, probably because of its ridiculous name and asinine set up. The absurd plot of PORNO HOLOCAUST concerns a scientific expedition to an unnamed island, an endeavor made in an attempt to study the effects of a decades old nuclear bomb test on the island’s animal life. The expedition team is comprised of a sexy nuclear physicist, a nymphomaniac biologist, a nosy reporter, a sailor with a wart riddled ball sack, and a few other people who do fuck all but sit around and/or screw on camera. After an hour and some odd minutes of lazily acted sex scenes (two of which just so happen to take place on the same log, the least romantic and comfortable setting ever for a prolonged bout of fucking), the film gets down to business. Turns out that there was a family on the island during the bomb testing and the sole surviving, now horribly mutated, son is roaming the island, killing off everyone he comes across. His method for dispatching women? Rape, the perfect way to give them a lethal dose of radioactive semen. I’m not even joking.

All of the negative criticisms I could give about PORNO HOLOCAUST can be attributed to the other four films as well. It’s horribly dull, terribly acted, and padded with unnecessary exposition. The sex is lazy, often uncomfortable, and without variety. D’Amato clearly has his sexual preferences and you can tell exactly what they are by the way he stages virtually every sex scene in the exact same way. One gets the impression that D’Amato was a boring lay, the kind of guy who liked his sex one way and one way only. All five films are sexist, which should come as no surprise, with varying degrees of racism, PORNO HOLOCAUST being the most explicit.

For example, the monster of this film is a black man, albeit one with radioactive sperm, who goes out of his way to rape and kill white women. The only non-white woman in the cast is simply taken prisoner, if only so she can be rescued by our white hero later in the film. It’s the subtle kind of racism you would expect from an Italian film of this sort. It ain’t GOODBYE UNCLE TOM, but it still leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth.

The whole damn thing does actually. It’s yet another sex film with boring sex. It’s yet another horror movie incapable of producing effective horror moments. There’s some unintentional humor to be found in the film, that’s for sure. The monster rapist takes a woman prisoner and ties her hands together so she can’t run away. Again, no joke. The grand finale sex scene is capped off by Mark Shannon ejaculating all over Lucia Ramirez’s back. Shannon then leans down and licks her ass crack. Kinda comes out of nowhere, really. Eagle eyed viewers will notice production assistants popping up in the background a few times as the film goes on. So yeah, it’s a damn mess and did I mention that it runs for just under two hours? That's a lethal dose of radioactive shit for sure.

PORNO HOLOCAUST was never meant to be a good film. It certainly was never meant to be a serious film. It was meant to be cheap exploitation that could be sold quickly and easily to overseas sleaze merchants. But it’s not erotic or sexy. It difficult to masturbate when you’re trying to not fall asleep as you’re doing it. And it doesn’t operate well as a horror film either as it’s simply incompetent at creating mood, atmosphere or shocks. That’s the thing that really ties these five D’Amato films together. They feel like five different flavors of the same failure. They’re all boring. None of the films are erotic in any way. They fail as porn and they fail as entertainment. Just stay away.