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Oasis of the Zombies | Year: 1982 Classification: Horror Directed: - Jesus Franco - Marius Lesoeur Franco should have stuck with his Killer Barbies. Oasis of the Zombies (Jess Franco, 1983) First, let me emphasize the good thing about this movie: the incredible score. Were it released now, I'd call it an interesting mix of trance and pseudo-ethnic music (rather like Muslimgauze, but with not as deft a touch), with undertones of death ambient and noise. But since those genres didn't really exist at the time, Franco was well out on the bleeding edge. If you must see this film, see it for the soundtrack. As for the rest... Jess Franco has directed almost two hundred films in his long and completely undistinguished career (which, I might add, is still going strong, with two films released in 2002 and one slated for release in 2003 it doesn't look like we'll see until 2004). A large number of them have been softcore films. There's far more of Tinto Brass than Lucio Fulci around Jess Franco, which makes me wonder why on earth I'd have been expecting Oasis of the Zombies to be a decent flick. Oh, well, it's a Nazi zombie movie, and I got it cheap. Yes, a Nazi zombie movie. I had always thought Shock Waves to be the only one of its kind, but it seems there's a whole subgenre of them (all inspired by Louis Pauwels' supposedly-nonfiction book The Morning of the Magicians). And of those I've seen, Shock Waves still remains far and away the best of them. But I digress. In this one, the Nazi zombies are guarding a treasure in gold bars they'd taken from the Afrika Korps during World War II. The gold, however, never made it out of the desert; in fact, it never made it out of the oasis where the ambush was staged. After fierce fighting on both sides ('what? no one told me this was a war movie!"), the only survivor is the commander of the Afrika Korps. You know he leaves a son, because said son gets a telegram upon his father's death, revealing all this to him. So he and his friends head off to find the fortune. While they're gathering everything up, two other groups try to get it and meet the expected ends, along with a pair of coeds who stumble in by accident in the movie's opening scene. (One wonders why Franco has the zombies attack them before getting in a little gratuitous all-girl sex, but unfortunately, they die with their boots, and everything else, on.) And with this mishmash of a plot comes one of the most boring zombie films ever made. Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals is a masterpiece in comparison. (At least Joe D'Amato remembered he was a softcore director while filming that one.) Don't bother, unless, like me, you have a thing for Nazi zombie movies. And even then, you're better off just watching Shock Waves again. * ½ This movie blows! I've never seen this movie before so one day I seen this movie in the store.So I say hey zombie film lets try this movie out, and I went out and bought it.I went home and wacth it and wachting half way in the movie I got really bored really fast! All they do in the movie is talk about some BS storey. About his dad dead and some gold he has hidden! So though the hole movie I was fast forwarding tryin to get to the goods parts! this movie sould have been never made! DONT BUY IT AND DON'T RENT THIS MOVIE! Oasis of the Zombies Two sexy, nubile half naked young girls on a trip to the desert wander off into a grave of supposed long dead Nazi's<BR>(obviously awakened by the wiggling of bum's in tight sports shorts!) for whom they quickly become lunch. Then in a rather lengthy flashback the story of lost gold and Nazi's is explained and a greedy young pup through his<BR>connection with his father, is now on the trail of the lost gold. Eventually he and his amigos arrive in northern Africa, to find the German Captain from the convoy of Nazi's, on the brink<BR>of death, after he and his entourage were attacked by the gooey zombies after trying to recover the lost gold. Despite warnings from the superstitious locals about the "walking dead", and the death of the German officer, the greedy<BR>young uns are still intent on going to the oasis to find the gold. Finally they arrive at the oasis and find some of their recent acquaintances slaughtered by the zombies. The night is upon<BR>the young scallywags and soon too is the living dead. But, they pluckily fight them off with Molotov cocktails (which they<BR>learnt to make at college!!) and torches (flames not batteries!). At which the zombies graciously shuffle off their immortal<BR>coil. There are not many zombies in here, maybe a dozen or so, so it aint exactly "Dawn of The Dead 1978". But what we do have<BR>is a pretty dry and flaky bunch, with the occasional gory, gooey, worm ridden phisog. Oasis isn't exactly fast paced, it takes a hell of a long time for the young gold hunters do actually get to the desert, and even<BR>longer to get to the oasis. These Nazi zombies must have rotten wooden limbs as a creaking always precedes their appearance, like 2 tree branches<BR>rubbing together in the wind. And talking of wind! Though there is a lot of desert wind sound effects on the soundtrack, I<BR>can't remember seeing a single grain of sand being blown about! There is really only one gory death in there, where a woman is stripped (of course! It is Jesus Franco movie after all!) and<BR>has herself promptly disembowelled. The rest of the zombie munchings are quick and nowhere near as gory as this one<BR>scene. The print of the film looked quite good for such an obscure piece. The lighting looked a bit screwed, though maybe this was<BR>the fault of the dodgy "Saturn Productions", extended play video version I saw. All of the night-time scenes were either<BR>filmed during the day in dark surroundings, big trees and all that, or were shot when it was time for the sun to be going<BR>down. So there are a lot of shots of dark images of people in the foreground with lots of light in the sky in the background, I<BR>guess this is "day for night" shooting. Whether it is genuine day for night shooting, or just Franco shooting against the sun<BR>I'm not so sure. Not Franco's best but seemingly not the worst zombie movie of which "Zo Buy Oasis Of The Zombies at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on Oasis Of The Zombies Search with the Priority Search Engine on Oasis Of The Zombies This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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