Oasis of the Zombies

 (1982)

Oasis of the Zombies Blu-ray offers decent video and mediocre audio in this mediocre Blu-ray release
An expedition searching for treasure supposedly buried by the German army in the African desert during WW II comes up against an army of Nazi zombies guarding the fortune.

For more about Oasis of the Zombies and the Oasis of the Zombies Blu-ray release, see the Oasis of the Zombies Blu-ray Review

Director: Jesús Franco

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Oasis of the Zombies Blu-ray Review

Franco phones it in.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater, February 11, 2013

On February 26th, Kino-Lorber and Redemption Films—as part of their ongoing distribution partnership—are releasing two of the shabbiest low-budget zombie films to have ever shambled into the cinema, 1981's Zombie Lake and 1982's Oasis of the Zombies. Besides a few minor differences in plot and setting, they're essentially the same movie, both involving cursed locales, flashbacks to World War II, illegitimate children fathered by soldiers, and Nazi zombies that rise from their mass graves to feast on sexy ladies. The similarities are no accident. Eurocine Productions initially hired cult horror/skin-flick filmmaker Jesús "Jess" Franco (Exorcism, Female Vampire) to helm Zombie Lake, but when he dropped out due to time-commitment issues, the directorial reins were passed to fellow euro-sleaze artiste Jean Rollin, the oddball sub-surrealist known for his many, many, many lesbian vampire movies. The following year, Franco would return to the premise and make his own version, Oasis of the Zombies. Both films are utter garbage—boring, poorly made, and prime examples of the kind of low- budget zombie knockoffs trailing in the wake of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead—but they're somehow guileless and almost charming in their awfulness. I wouldn't say so bad they're good, but so bad I'm glad, in some perverse way, that they exist at all.

When Muppets go bad...

Shlockmeister Jess Franco has his cult of fans, but even they'd be hard-pressed to find much of interest in Oasis of the Zombies. For one, besides two or three errant pairs of briefly uncovered breasts, the director's characteristic sleaziness is nowhere on display. No stockings? No naked women writhing uncontrollably on a bed? No lingering closeup shots of T&A? This isn't your usual Jess Franco film, which may explain why he used the pseudonym "A.M. Frank" in the credits. Here's the thing—low-budget sleaze is pretty much the only thing Franco does semi-capably, and to be honest, he's not even good at that. Inept but wildly prolific, he's been semi-celebrated for his inscrutably awful softcore sequences, which are usually more awkwardly funny than genuinely erotic. Oasis of the Zombies could use a few of these, because—as it stands—it's dreadfully un-fun.

For example, you know you're not watching a typical Jess Franco movie when the two lesbians in the opening scene—who leave their Jeep to stretch their legs in the titular oasis—do not end up nude and moaning in the sand under a palm tree. Instead, they wander through this scrubby parcel of desert brush—littered with human bones and Nazi paraphernalia—and are promptly attacked by the watering hole's undead denizens. If this were primo Franco, they'd've been offed only after making sweet Saharan love, flopping and gasping and pawing one another in some ridiculously grotesque parody of real human sexuality. It's a shame.

From here, the film moves into expository mode, dribbling out a story that's far more perfunctory than compelling. The specifics are unimportant, but the plot hinges on a flashback to the Second World War, as a battalion of Rommel's Afrika Korps travels through the Libyan (?) desert, carrying $6 million in Nazi gold. The British army intercepts this convoy at the oasis, and in a battle sequence that seems to be mostly stock footage, everyone dies but a single English soldier, Blabert (Javier Maiza), who takes refuge with a local sheik, impregnates his gracious host's daughter—later sending his bastard son, Robert (Manuel Gélin), to live in England—and then goes all Lawrence of Arabia on us, donning a billowy white dishdasha and gazing out across the endless sand dunes. Back in the present, a former German commander eager to find the gold poisons Blabert and steals a map to the treasure; when the now-college-aged Robert finds out about his father's death, he decides to skip out on his exams and go looking for the $6 million himself, along with a half-dozen money-hungry university friends. Needless to say, it goes badly for nearly all of them.

It goes badly for us too. Oasis of the Zombies is terribly slow, and there are long stretches where next to nothing of import happens. This is before you factor in the hokey performances, the laughable dubbing, the poor day-for-night photography, and Franco's amateurish, herky-jerky camera movements. If the film has one saving grace, it's that the make-up work on the zombies is so lo-fi and absurdly practical—one of the featured ghouls, I'm pretty sure, is just a head on a stick—that there are a precious few moments when Franco's shots are legitimately eerie. (Look out for the shuffler with the protruding eyeballs, both bulging in opposite directions.) Unfortunately, the zombie attacks stop far short of being scary or thrilling, and beyond a single gut-ripping, viscera-removing shot, there's very little gore. Like Zombie Lake, Oasis of the Zombies has been frequently denigrated as the worst zombie movie ever, and there's certainly a case to be made. That said, unlike some more contemporary zombie films that try too hard to be edgy or cultish, Oasis of the Zombies is hard to actively hate simply because it's completely without pretension. It doesn't care if you like it or not. It doesn't try to be more than it is. And in its own mind-numbingly stupid way, it's actually kind of mesmerizing. Bad movie connoisseurs owe it to themselves to see it once.

Oasis of the Zombies Blu-ray, Video Quality

 

Like Zombie Lake and most of the other Kino/Redemption releases, Oasis of the Zombies is essentially presented "as-is," with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer of an archival negative that hasn't been significantly touched-up or restored. I may be in the minority here, but for a movie like this, I don't necessarily mind watching a battered, scratch and fleck-heavy transfer—the damage gives a sense of the film's history and seems appropriate for a low-budget grindhouse title. Along with the usual white specks and hairs and abrasions, you'll also notice some odd warping of the picture here from time to time. Is this distracting? A bit, but it is what it is. Overall, Oasis of the Zombies is in slightly poorer condition than Zombie Lake, but Kino's transfer is certainly the best the film has ever looked on home video, simply by merit of being mastered in high definition. The clarity of the 35mm production is markably improved from DVD, with sharper lines and finer textures, and color seems accurate and sufficiently dense, with no oversaturation or contrast issues. Of course, Kino's hands-off approach also means that the film's grain structure has been preserved, and that no excess filtering or sharpening has been applied. One might say Oasis of the Zombies is loveably grimy on Blu-ray.

Oasis of the Zombies Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 

The disc features two audio options, the original French or an English dub, both presented in uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0. Usually, I'm no fan of dubs, but since all of the film's sound was added in post-production—it was filmed silently, like a lot of low-budget horror from the period—the difference between the two tracks is negligible. Even the French mix looks and feels badly dubbed. So, take your pick. Tonally, the mixes are much the same as well; both are bass-less and quite peaky in the high-end, with sometimes cringe-inducing harshness in gunshots and other loud effects. I'd recommend keeping your receiver at a lower than normal volume. Dialogue is, at the very least, understandable, and the film's vaguely North African- inspired score has a decent sense of clarity. The disc includes optional English subtitles in easy-to-read white lettering.

Oasis of the Zombies Blu-ray, Special Features and Extras

 

Trailers (HD): Includes trailers for Oasis of the Zombies, Zombie Lake, Female Vampire, and Exorcism/Demoniac.

Oasis of the Zombies Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation

 

Oasis of the Zombies is completely uncharacteristic for a Jess Franco movie—no prolonged softcore romping here, no over-gratuitous lady ogling —and it's an atypical zombie film as well, short on gore, slight of scares, and long in its let's-just-watch-these-characters-walk-around-for-a-bit tedium. It's a stretch in my opinion to call it the worst zombie move ever, but it is pretty damn unwatchable without hitting the fast-forward button. That said, it's one of those films that has permanently entered the pop culture canon of bad movies, and many cinematic masochists see it as a rite of passage. If you can make it through Oasis of the Zombies, welcome to the club.

The Salvation Group, creator of the Redemption, Sacrament, Jezebel, and Purgatory film labels, is planning to bring to Blu-ray a number of cult films in the coming months, including Martin Campbell's The Sex Thief (1974), Jean Rollin's Zombie Lake (1981), and Jess ...