Thread by @enfilmigult

So after naming my account “Zombie Island Massacre” for a few days I’ve decided to finally sit down and watch the movie of the same name. This is one of the many gems I first heard of browsing BOMB-rated reviews in Leonard Maltin

(Leonard Maltin’s movie guide would delete obscure BOMB-rated entries for more space in new editions btw; they should bring them back. This man once claimed ‘Street Trash’ was a Kurosawa remake, I’ve seen it)

Certainly never forgot how his comments on this one opened: “Ex-ABSCAM Congressional spouse (and Playboy subject) Rita Jenrette has three gratuitous nude scenes in the first twenty minutes; then they have to ruin it all by going to the stupid island.”

Or how it ended: “Rita also warbles the title tune, ‘Di Reggae Picnic.’”

Here we go.

(This is ABSCAM by the way, just so it’s clear I *really* changed my name to be a clever reference to FBI corruption investigations) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abscam

Oh no, Lloyd Kaufman Presents

Score by Harry Manfredini! Well all right then.

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Uh oh, this was edited by its director

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So after this spooky credit sequence full of fire and drums and voodoo paraphernalia and stuff, they immediately cut to Jenrette showering while cheerfully sleazy saxophone music plays

So far this movie is a lot of people in hotel beds in various stages of undress, and does not have much of a “camera eye” as they say. Rita Jenrette is a beautiful woman, but every guy in this movie looks like a larval stage in the process that leads to Gene Shalit

I seriously cannot hear this dialogue, but on the other hand the plot doesn’t seem to be much more than “they’re on vacation”

The tourists are now enjoying a live show apparently based on a native funeral ritual. It’s probably named The Live and Let Die Experience

The first moment of art: cross-cutting between a live performance and the gruesome murders of two tourists who went off somewhere to make out. Ah yes, they have zeroed in on the man playing the bongos faster and faster, as all scenes must do (see: Thunderball)

Everyone hated the show. The tourists are back at the bus; driver is missing and there’s blood.

This is pretty realistic: they shrug, say “ugh let’s GO” to their guide and file on the bus, jackass husbands tossing their lit torches over their shoulders into the brush

Bus won’t start. They’re still whining. They belatedly notice two of the people they came with are missing. Now they’re wandering the island, still bickering. I hate all of these folks

They’re still wandering the jungle roads, making their way to a house where they can spend the night. Rita Jenrette knows what’s up, every time there’s a loud noise she blames it on “the voodoo people.” So much complaining, this is like being in an actual terrible tour group

I guess their guide is the real main character? He’s the only one who gets non-showering scenes by himself or has any idea what he’s doing. It’d be nice, but I suspect we’re in for a lot of watching these white people hang around this house. Which they are STILL walking up to ffs

Damn, no less than four tourists just got picked off via garrote, zombie hands from underwater as they cross a walkway, etc. in about three minutes. This movie’s pacing is unfathomable

Hi, welcome to every scene in this movie

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE, JUST GO TO THE HOUSE. MY GOD

They have finally gone to the house. There is more complaining. Ominous ‘Friday the 13th’ music starts up whenever someone gets too far away from everyone else. Jenrette screams when she finds a gecko in the kitchen sink. Why did these people come to this island

Jenrette’s weird as a screen presence; she has this poise and a crisp voice, but she cannot act. It’s like if Lindsay Crouse had no talent

Oh thank goodness, the most obnoxious guy in the movie (Jenrette’s man, who’s at the last stage of Gene Shaliting before the moustache grows in) found a gun and was about to be a hero, and got decapitated instead. I was bracing for twenty minutes of his psychotic unraveling

She’s super sad and now we’re watching a flashback of this time they enjoyed a dinner at a seaside restaurant. No dialogue. Why not, we’ve got 84 whole minutes.

I love that they had to flash back to some other outing because on this one he’s been nothing but a horrendous prick

She’s now narrating. I...words fail me. Sound up if you dare

The murderous voodoo creature man is in the house. From what we can see he looks like @StephenKing at the end of his ‘Creepshow’ segment, recreated for $3.49. They have rigged a booby trap to electrocute him, and he’s like “OWWWW” (very deep) and jumps out a window. Scared yet

This movie now has a raspy-voiced old local who just kind of wandered up. He has a lot to say, but it’s a real struggle to pay attention to him when you mostly get insights like “political terrorists, prehistoric tribes...I dunno! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯” *scratches beard*

They have decided to leave the house. Music BLAAAAARES because the head of Jenrette’s obnoxious guy has been placed on a pike and they all have to walk past it to go. Mean!

I can’t take more of these people’s asses wandering around palm trees in the dark.

Old man twists his ankle and they leave him behind with Brunette Woman Tourist. Wait, he was faking. Now they’re walking and he’s telling her a story about drug runners. What *is* this *movie*

Oh, okay. He says a death squad has been picking off all the tourists because one of the people on it supposedly has their cash, ripped off in a drug deal. Haha, well that sucks

Guys with spears who I *sincerely* hope were originally that skin color have killed the guide (who with his dying breath reveals he’s a secret DEA agent) and injured our star. I’m on the edge of my seat

Woah, apparently she died. The effects are lousy but I could have sworn she just got grazed. No death scene? What a ripoff

Brunette Tourist, now back with the old man at his house, is the one who had the drug money. The one guy left alive out there just stomped in & he is pissed

Oh right, this was her vacation boyfriend. Ouch. Yeah, he’s angry. Old man would rather kill this guy and split the cash, but the guy has a rifle so that doesn’t go well

Now he’s forced her out of the house and says he’s turning her in. One last drug guy pops up out of the shrubbery and she meets swifter justice. ‘The Departed’ totally ripped this off

Blam, exit drug guy.

And now The Voodoo People have shown up (what a wacky island!). Ah, but they have Rita with them, and she did just get grazed, and she’s fine, and they’re friendly. (But they’re taking the cash.) Well I hope Rita learned something about xenophobia

They walk off arm in arm and now there’s an epilogue in which...another tour group heads to the island. Ooooh

But wait, who cares, it was a personal beef and everyone’s dead

Okay, false advertising from the Movie Guide. With sadness, I have to report Rita does NOT do the vocals for “Di Reggae Picnic.” It’s quite a song though. This was the shower music earlier