Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

The only positive about Laura Gemser being long retired and Joe D’Amato having passed away ten years ago is that eventually I will run out of movies to watch in which this unholy pair have teamed up to make. Still… while Joe was alive he was nothing if not prolific so I will probably expire before I see all of his movies, including his pure porn masterpieces, and I estimate I still got at least fifty or so years left on this rock. Today’s Joe / Laura compendium is a little ditty known by many names, as those of us who watch these wacky Italian sex /gore movies are fully aware of, but the name I know this movie by is ‘Erotic Nights of the Living Dead’. Even though I’m convinced that somewhere on the planet earth someone is selling this movie under the title ‘Emanuelle meets the Zombies’.

The first thirty or so minutes of this movie are about as worthless as any opening for any movie ever made. Even for a Joe D’Amato joint. At least in relation to the movie itself because it has almost nothing to do with the actual movie. We meet some characters with none of these characters being Laura Gemser, and these characters don’t do much except have lots and lots of sex. There’s Wilson (Mark Shannon) who has just brought a sweet plot of land on an island somewhere that nobody in the area wants to go to. Before he goes to the island he samples the local whores who tell my man ‘he should be arrested for carrying a concealed weapon’. Graphic sex shall ensue. He invites the whores to Cat Island, the island he has just brought, and the whores run out in terror leaving their money behind. Fortunately for Wilson, as he chases these whores to give them their money, the lovely Fiona (Dirce Funari) is standing outside her hotel room observing this madness. Wilson invites her over and they get down. Note that mere minutes earlier Wilson just got through satisfying two whores. Wilson is the man. Also note that you will see much more of Dirce Funari in this movie than Laura Gemser. This is not a bad thing because Dirce Funari is so… damn… fine… Where Laura is so… damn… skinny.

Then you will meet super playa Larry (George Eastman) the ship captain who will take Wilson and Fiona to Cat Island. Larry sexes up quite a few women, all while still wearing his jeans, before going on this fateful trip. His conquests also includes a woman who does some rather amazing things with a corked bottle champagne. Outstanding. Larry also stumbles upon a swimming corpse that just came from Cat Island. He seems cool with this and the trip goes as planned. This corpse eats the Medical Examiner but that was just something to do because it is not mentioned ever again in this movie.

An hour in we finally see Laura Gemser who is the granddaughter of some old dude on the island with a big knot on his dome, with these two being the only inhabitants of this island. They tell these idiots to leave but Wilson has already found a nice graveyard which he says will make a perfect heliport for his luxury resort. That’s what the man said. He’s going to die. Eventually the dead come to life and chase our three island visitors. Zombies erupt from the ground, swim from sea and zombies even drop from trees. Zombies are freaking everywhere. How in the world are the cat who has sex in his jeans and the woman who wears nothing are ever going to survive this night. Well… they need to find the monkey. It’s complicated.

Some of these D’Amato movies I’ve seen are just a stone trip and this would be one of those movies. It is terrible, and there’s no skirting around this because even for a D’Amato joint it makes almost no sense. There’s this precious scene in the movie where Wilson goes to the island to be with this Ghostly Laura Gemser figure only to get brutally attacked by the undead. Somehow he gets away by the skin of his teeth only to stumble upon Gemser like thirty seconds later. Apparently Wilson completely forgot about being attacked by the walking dead thirty seconds ago and just wants to get that ass. Personally my priorities would’ve been slightly altered at this time, but not my man Wilson who pulls down his pants for some oral love and gets his dick bitten off. Simply outstanding.

The first hour of the movie nothing of note really happens, outside of a touch of hardcore sex by the guy with the concealed weapon, a weapon I’m afraid to say he was having all kinds of trouble getting to function, and more horrible fake sex from the sea captain with his clothes on. The second half of the movie is the zombie part and this really wasn’t much better since the zombies took the ‘slow zombie walk’ to the next level and Joe forced us to watch these zombies slow walk. You’re killing me over here Joe.

Good thing there’s Dirce Funari and her little slice of slightly flat-chested perfection wearing almost nothing through this entire movie. Never got tired of watching her walk around naked. Movie is sucking… there goes Dirce walking around naked. Movie is sucking hard… there goes Dirce getting a suntan. Movie is on the verge of getting shut off… there goes Dirce bent over being serviced by Mr. Concealed Weapon.

It is movies such as this one that make me wish I could go back in time and sit in on a Joe D’Amato planning session and observe first hand how my man comes up with these movies of his. Then I would love to follow him around from production to post just to witness this master auteur in action. ‘Erotic Nights of the Living Dead’ is a terrible movie, make no mistake about this, but if you are making it a point to watch all these Gemser / D’Amato gems like I seem to be attempting to do then naturally it has to go on your ‘to view’ list. Just put as far down on the list as possible.