Oasis of the Zombies (1982)

Strong and Moving!

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This isn't the worst Franco movie I've ever watched (that honor goes to "Castle of Fu Manchu"), but it's pretty darned bad. Not so much incompetent or execrable, like an Ed Wood or Bill Rebane epic would be...just unpolished and lifeless (alright, maybe that's appropriate for a zombie flick) and sloppy.The screen play makes the mistake of killing off its most interesting character (and most charismatic actor) early on, and after that it's all about some stupid college students and a chubby guy with some hired assistants getting picked off by mummified Nazi corpses while the director zooms in on various objects as if he was trying to establish a patent on the technique. Aside from a couple of interesting makeup jobs, the zombies aren't scary at all. Even though the hook here is that these are Nazi soldiers guarding a gold stash in the desert, there's nothing really "Nazi-ish" about them.I saw this movie as a part of a public domain collection, so part of the problem might be a grainy print with all the color leached down into beige and tan, along a soundtrack that seems to have been recorded with a process that removed all the dynamic range out of the music and the vocals.Oddly, the movie gets an extra star because the slow, turgid rhythm of every scene seems to give the movie a hypnotic effect that might be meant to induce in its audience some of the tiring, draining effects of being stuck out in a desert for a long stretch with nothing to do. Usually, this kind of effect is a BAD thing, but here it makes the movie a bit more interesting in an abstract, expressionistic way.You don't need to avoid this, or anything, but "Oasis" is really good for nothing more than video wallpaper to a nice late night drinking session.

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.You know, there is plenty of potential when you mix zombies with Nazis, and you have a unique twist when you put the whole thing in North Africa (typically mummy territory). Such great films as "Shock Waves" and "Dead Snow" have used he Nazi zombie theme and succeeded. Heck, even the awful "Zombie Lake" is better than this one.I do not even know how to review the movie because it was just so boring. I care nothing about the characters or plot, and found it difficult to pay attention. This is not one of the better zombie films out there, and could probably be ranked among the worst ever made.

Oasis Of The Zombies is supposed to be a horror film about some undead Afrika Corps soldiers who are guarding a cache of gold even after they were all killed in a firefight at an oasis with Americans. In fact the two forces annihilate each other, but the Americans stay dead and the only survivor was one of the Americans. I guess when Hitler gives a mission you carry it out beyond life itself.Anyway the son of the last survivor is out completing a mission for his dad who was killed by treasure hunters. He and friends despite warnings from the local desert sheik go to the oasis which the Berbers forbid to their people with good reason. Hey when a desert Berber tells you don't go to an oasis in the desert because evil things are happening you best heed. These people are quarantining an oasis you know something's bad there.This is a French production with some really bad dubbing and looking in many instances like it was shot with a brownie camera. The scenes with the undead Nazi zombies are pretty laughable. Unless you're a fan of bad horror films, I'd skip Oasis Of The Zombies.

During World War II a platoon of German soldiers are transporting gold across the African desert. They're attacked by Allied troops and hide the gold in a remote desert oasis. Fifty years later the son of the only surviving Allied attacker goes to search for the gold with friends. What they don't know is that there are Nazi zombies protecting it.Just bad beyond belief. The dubbing is horrendous, there are endless scenes of people walking around and the pace is enough to put you to sleep. Everything moves so slowly it's just ridiculous. The zombies don't even show up until 36 minutes in the movie and, even then, there's only a little blood and no gore at all. This plays more like a boring drama with zombies just thrown in for the hell of it. At the end when one of the survivors admits that he discovered himself during the attack (seriously) I almost threw something at the TV. And if you're watching for nudity--forget it. It IS in there but it's brief and badly handled. The only good things about this is that some of the zombie makeup is good and the funeral like music is really creepy--but the movie is so abysmal and boring that nothing can save it. Even writer/director Jesus Franco fans hate this! A 1 all the way.