Movie Review: Oasis of the Zombies

Oasis of the Zombies (La tumba de los muertos vivientes a.k.a El desierto de los zombies a.k.a L'abîme des morts vivants a.k.a Le trésor des morts vivants) a.k.a Oasis of the Living Dead a.k.a Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies a.k.a Grave of the Living Dead a.k.a The Treasure of the Living Dead Eurociné, Marte Films Internacional, Diasa P.C., France, Spain, 1982.

This movie is published as a part of Chilling Classics 50 movie pack box by Mill Creek Entertainment.

Two tourist girls lost in desert find an oasis. After walking there for a while they are grabbed by arms coming from underground.

Colonel Kurt Meitzell (Henri Lambert) and his wife (Myriam Landson) are searching for Nazi gold lost in the desert. Captain Blabert (Javier Maiza) knows where the convoy was intercepted. 60 years ago Blabert's team ambushed the German convoy during the war. He was the only survivor and he was rescued by Bedouins. Sheik Mohamed Al-Kafir (Antonio Mayans) and his daughter Aisha (Doris Regina) nursed him back to health. Sheik tells that the oasis is damned and Blabert should not return there.

Kurt Meitzell

Captain Blabert

Blabert's team ambushed the German convoy

Kurt murders Blabert after he gets to know the location. Robert Blabert (Manuel Gélin) hears about his father's murder and finds out about the gold treasure. Robert travels to Africa with his student friends Ronald (Eric Viellard), Ahmed (Miguel Ángel Aristu) and Sylvie (Caroline Audret).

Sheik Mohamed Al-Kafir

Aisha

Robert Blabert

Meanwhile zombies kill Kurt's henchmen. Students meet some cameramen filming for Professor Zaniken (Albino Graziani) and Erika (France Lomay). Kurt has survived back to town but is turning into zombie, luckily the locals know how to stop the epidemic from spreading. 

Rober, Sylvie and ronald

Ahmed

Erika

The students arrive in the oasis and find out about the fate of Zaniken's expedition. Only Zaniken and Erika survived. The students and the survivors camp near the oasis and start to search for treasure. Bad idea!

Zombie

Two versions of this movie were filmed with either Spanish or French actors. This DVD seems to be based on the French print as Kurt's wife here is performed by Myriam Landson. The Spanish version has Lina Romay as Kurt's wife and also the music is different.

Ominous organ music spices up the atmosphere of the otherwise dull and slow movie. Seriously, how can a film about Nazi zombies be so boring? Acting is bad and the cinematography is quite ugly with quick zooms and repetitive scenes of palm trees. The washed out quality of the print does not help either. Some desert scenes look nice. The characters do not age and look just as young as they did 40 years ago, only the Sheik grows a moustache. The World War II flashback low budget action scenes look quite good compared to the rest of the film and not surprisingly they are taken from another movie: "I giardini del diavolo." The zombie make-up is somehow interesting with dried up corpses, maggot-faces and googly eyes. Surprising for Jesús Franco there are no sleazy scenes and almost no gore and this is more like a regular old-school zombie film. There are some okay parts but too few and too far between. With better editing this could have been more enjoyable. 

Rating: Bad

Starring: Manuel Gélin, Eduardo Fajardo, France Lomay, Jeff Montgomery, Lina Romay, Myriam Landson, Antonio Mayans, Javier Maiza, Eric Viellard (as Eric Saint-Just), Caroline Audret, Albino Graziani, Miguel Ángel Aristu, Henri Lambert, Doris Regina, Jesús Franco, Daniel Katz, Juan Soler

Director: Jesús Franco (as A.M. Frank)