Dr. Butcher, MD

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This patient has taken a turn for the worse

When what are amusingly described as “pieces of corpses” keep disappearing from the morgue, Dr. Peter Chandler proclaims: “We must have a psychopathic deviate in the hospital!” One would think, doc! Another older doctor says not very comfortingly, “It’s probably a fraternity gag. You should’ve seen the things we did in my day” (we really hate to ask).

Welcome to Dr. Butcher MD, AKA Zombie Holocaust. Staff is then shocked to find an orderly chowing down on viscera. Hospital food is bad and all but this is ridiculous. The orderly’s got a tattoo marking indicating he’s from some archipelago in Oceania and we know this, because as luck would have it, lab assistant Lori holds both a degree in medicine and one in anthropology and is just terrific at deciphering tattoos. She also has a bunch of spears and shields adorning her New York City apartment including a knife used for human sacrifice, items which if they adorned a bachelor pad would probably prompt a visit from Law & Order: SVU.

Fortuitously, for all the things Lori could’ve studied in her doctorate — marriage and family structure in ancient Mesopotamia, ritualistic rain dances among the Haida – she is intimately familiar with the cultural practises of Maluku which neither of us could fully grasp despite furiously Googling it.

Anyhow, similar mutilations at other facilities are traced to that region of the world and then a team of investigators led by Dr. Chandler head to the small island off the coast of Indonesia to investigate when a call to the Indonesian embassy might’ve arguably been just as effective (or, as one of us said at age 13 when we first saw this: “Why the hell are they all on this stupid island?”) drbutcher_md_posterThe intrepid explorers get a debrief:

The natives are the most primitive I’ve ever seen…they are cruel, superstitious and unwilling to accept any form of civilization.

The question, “Do you really think we’re that much different from savages?” is quickly answered in the affirmative when a bunch of loin-cloth wearing, Ramones hair-cutted cannibals impale a local with booby-trapped sticks and feast on his entrails.

Zombies show up later as well, all part of a diabolical scheme perpetrated by one Dr. Obrero, AKA Dr. Butcher who has (and this all sounds better read out as if exclamation points followed each word): “perverted medicine for his own maniacal means!” Dr_Butcher_MD_filmDr. Butcher MD features Zombi 2 lookalike creatures, and to make things more confusing, much of the same cast as that movie to boot. Nude sacrificial rites then put this squarely in exploitation territory if you had any lingering doubts.

Also noteworthy, the opening sequence was redone as the initial distributor lost the rights to the “Zombi” title, and really, it’s more accurate anyway as the doctor doesn’t do the bulk of the butchering. Hey, we’re sticklers for accuracy. Alternately confusing, hilarious and incredibly disgusting, it’s brisk 90-minute run time makes it worth a quick peek under the hospital gown.

*** (out of 5)

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The Executioner (1978) aka Massacre Mafia Style

massacre-mafia-style“You see these hands?  You know what they smell of? Oregano, pasinigol, beautiful herbs! These hands gave you mostaccioli, lasagna, pizza – some of the most appreciated foods in the world! But what did we give her, Chucky, eh? We gave her violence! We gave her death! We gave her dishonor!”

From the mouth of Mimi Miceli, would be Mafia Don, in 1978’s The Executioner – a film that suggests what Goodfellas would have been like had it been directed by Tommy Wiseau.

The Executioner practically defines the term Grindhouse. It’s sleazy, violent, racist, amateurish and wrong-headed. It also lacks anything remotely close to unity or coherency. But like a piece of outsider art, The Executioner rises above and approaches an inexplicable level of incomprehensible genius.

A labor of love for popular nightclub performer (and amazingly, Fred’s singing voice in The Flinstones) Duke Mitchell, (billed here as Dominico Miceli) the film was Mitchell’s attempt to educate the world on what the Mafia was really like after that hack film The Godfather steered us all so wrong. Mitchell wrote the screenplay, directed, produced and starred in the film for which he hoped his friend Frank Sinatra would play a role in. Upon seeing the script, Ol’ Blue Eyes reportedly said “Duke, I love you, but I get paid real money to do real movies.”

The Executioner 2To summarize the plot would be rather difficult as the film seems to lack any real connecting thread, but we’ll make a valiant attempt. Mitchell plays Mimi, the son of a Mafia Don who was exiled to the old country when Mimi was young. As he matures, Mimi has a burning desire to avenge the wrongs committed against his father and carve out a bit of a name for himself, so he returns to the States and hooks up with his childhood friend, the Wolfman Jack-looking Jolly.

With a motto of “Tonight we eat, tomorrow we shoot!,” Mimi and Jolly cut a swath of terror and destruction throughout the organized crime world of Los Angeles. Their rise is marked by a propensity to kill anything that moves in creative ways such as impaling rivals on meat-hooks and electrocuting one wheelchair bound foe in a urinal (!) When he’s not killing indiscriminately, Mimi has a propensity to go off on numerous lengthy tangents about the Italian’s plight in America such as the genius “hands” speech above.

The Executioner Poster
Yet Another Alternate Title

But like Prometheus, Mimi and Jolly fly too close to the sun and their rapid rise is followed by an equally precipitous (and hard to understand) fall. Soon Mimi is hitting the mattresses and making porn films. Eventually, Jolly gets whacked. When Mimi discovers Jolly’s poor, lifeless body, he takes Jolly’s own arm to make the sign of the cross.

The Executioner is filled with terribly executed ethnic accents of all stripes – and even more horrendous haircuts and fashions. Mimi stands about 5’2″ and has a proclivity for wide lapels open to his sternum and pants jacked up to his nipples. Seemingly nonsensical Italian words such as “Sazulla” and “Maro-Mamina” are bandied about faster than an antipasto tray at an Italian wedding.

The ExecutionerTo compound the lunacy, the scenes in Sicily look like they were shot in a backyard in Hoboken. Still, you almost have to admire Mitchell’s hubris. In order to get extras for a wedding scene, Mitchell sent out real invitations. The guests thought they were attending an actual wedding and brought gifts. Mitchell then sold the gifts in order to further fund the film.

The Executioner is crazed filmmaking at its finest. If the abundance of broadly drawn ethnic stereotypes and gratuitous violence doesn’t get you, the songs composed by Mitchell and featuring titles such as “Tic-a-Te” and “Rigatone, Mostacoioli and Spaget” certainly will.

****1/2 (out of five)