“Oasis of the Zombies” (1983) Directed by Jesus Franco and Marius Lesoeur.
Starring: Manuel Gélin, France Lomay, Jeff Montgomery, Myriam Landson, Eric Viellard and Caroline Audret.
(MF Title: “Damn greedy Nazi zombies…..”)
Zombie Film Rating:

Overview: An English university student receives word that his father has died in North Africa. While going through his fathers personal effects he discovers a journal documenting his wartime activities. It seems that his father was the sole survivor of a unit that had ambushed a German convoy in the desert in 1943, a convoy carrying gold. During a fierce battle his wounded father stumbled away from the battlefield, leaving it littered with bodies and a fortune in gold.

He discusses this with his friends and they decide to mount an expedition to recover the lost gold, and make themselves rich in the process. Travelling across the desert they discover the oasis, and the zombified soldiers that guard it to this day killing all who trespass in their domain.

It’s no longer a question of “will they be rich”, but rather “will they survive”.

Summary: The movie opens with two lightly dressed women in a jeep driving into an oasis. They wander around, and find what appears to be a pipe showed through a sheet of plywood. “Oh! Guns from the war!“. Creepy noises follow, and one of the girls flees back to the jeep but is grabbed by hands that shoot up from the ground before she gets there. Her friend, hearing the screams runs towards her and is chased by some fast moving object (the ONLY fast moving “evil thing” in this entire movie).

We jump around a bit at this point, first showing the murder of the sole survivor of the Oasis battle, and then flash to his son receiving notification of his death. The son goes through the personal effects that accompanied notification, finding a journal kept by his father. He reads about a battle between the British and German forces at a remote Oasis, with the soldiers fighting to the last man and his father stumbling away wounded.

We’re treated to a long flashback, showing his father travelling with a small group of soldiers on 3 jeeps, then ambushing a German convoy (two Armored cars, a self propelled gun and a transport truck). This sequence is the most confusing battle I have ever seen, with both sides wearing indistinguishable Khaki uniforms, and both sides carrying what look like M3 Grease Guns (although Mp40′s and K98′s are seen as static props), there is alot of running around and explosions, but melee describes this better than battle.

In any event, the British Officer escapes wounded and is nursed back to health by the daughter of a local Sheik, naturally there is a romantic connection between the officer and the Sheiks daughter, but the Officer heeds the call of duty and returns to the war. When the war ends and he returns, he finds the the Skeiks daughter has died giving birth to his son, who he promptly ships off to England for an education.

The Officers son reads on to discover that the Germans were guarding a shipment of gold, now valued at $6,000,000 and presumably still lying in the Oasis just waiting for anyone to collect and cash in. He gathers a few friends, and they all agree to drop everything and go to North Africa to find their fortune (they decide to leave their exams till later… I’m still wondering where they got the money to fund this adventure….maybe I missed that part).

On their arrival they meet up with the Sheik, and after many attempts to discourage them he finally provides them with directions to the Oasis. The find it (as did everyone else that happened to drive by) and discover the film crews abandoned landrover, nearby are the dead bodies of two of the crew, and the female member is found wounded. Despite her insitance that the undead attacked and killed her friends the group decides this would be a great place to camp for the night, they’ll just have one of the members stand an unarmed watch on his/her own (Um, yeah…good idea, what could go wrong?).

Naturally the zombies attack (by attack I mean slowly walk towards the group), and the group defends itself by pouring gasoline in a circle around the camp, and tossing molotov cocktails at the zombies. After a long, and not particularly interesting battle the Officers son and his romantic interest make their escape into the desert, to be rescued by the Sheik.

Critique: While hardly an “inspired” film, it wasn’t altogether bad. The acting was rather poor, and the footage is recycled through the film (particularly the military bits). We’re never sure why the zombies go are afraid of the daylight (and yet still somehow killed those two girls at the start in broad daylight). We’re also left in the dark as to how the soldiers became zombies, where the gold ended up and so forth.

A passable zombie film…but don’t knock yourself out finding a copy.