The Golden Age of Euro Zombie: Between Sexual Revolution and Pornographic Boom

Spanning such cult zombie classics as Amando de Ossorio’s “Blind Dead” series, Jess Franco’s hardcore zombie “horrotica”, Jean Rollin’s rare yet sublime examples of the “zombie-Rollinade” and the extremely prolific Italian zombie cycle, the article examines a “golden age” of the Euro-zombie film of the 1970s and 80s within a broader historical, as well as formal and narrative, context of European erotic horror, a heady generic fusion and exploitation market niche which flourished in a period between the sixties sexual liberation and the eighties pornographic video boom. Common to these films of a daring and extravagant bygone era is the unusual and unexpected inclusion of explicit sexuality and full frontal nudity in an otherwise largely asexual genre and figure of the zombie, creating a frenzied and curious mix of excessive eroticism and extreme doses of blood and gore.

The integral version of this article can be found in the printed KINO!