'Abyss of the Living Dead') is a 1982 French horror film written and directed by Jesús Franco, starring fr:Manuel Gélin and France Lomay.

[1] In it, a young man (Gélin) goes after the fortune seekers who killed his father in search of Nazi gold buried in the Libyan desert, and discovers that it is still guarded by zombified Afrika Korps soldiers.

[3]: 19:36  Jesús Franco was supposed to direct Zombie Lake but quit after the project was scaled back, reconciled with Eurociné boss Marius Lesoeur and his son Daniel, and embarked on the new film.

As a fallback option, Franco told the producer that the island of Gran Canaria possessed a desert which, while small, could suffice for the film and was easily accessible from the Spanish mainland.

[4]: 13:38  As often with Eurociné, the film makes extensive use of stock footage: the World War II combat scenes were lifted from the 1971 Italian feature Heroes Without Glory.

The Spanish cut replaces original actors Henri Lambert and Myriam Landson with Franco regulars Lina Romay and Eduardo Fajardo, and is tweaked in several parts to accommodate the new footage.

Although it has often been speculated that both versions were made concurrently, Franco biographer Stephen Thrower writes that the alternate Spanish footage was shot after completion of the French film.

[13] The film was sold as part of the Shock Around the Clock syndication package offered by Cinema Shares International, alongside two more Eurociné products, Zombie Lake and Orloff Against the Invisible Man.

[19] Wizard's big box VHS was part of the first batch in a series of limited edition reprints by Band's successor company Full Moon, which began in February 2013.

In France, Pierre Gires of L'Écran fantastique wrote that this "ultra cheap production, as poorly acted as it is photographed (and let's not even talk about the direction if you can call it that), tries to intrigue, then to scare, but only manages to bore.

"[27] Writing in Mad Movies, Jean-Pierre Putters wrote that he was not sure whether the film had indeed been directed by Franco due to Eurociné's liberal use of pseudonyms, but "some out of focus zooms definitely settled the question."

"[28] British magazine Video World noted that "[t]his boring, ineffectual Jess Franco clunker was also released as Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies, but under any title it's a real stinker.

"[29] Author Scott Aaron Stine concurred and noted that "the gore amounts to little more than smeared blood, although there is one obligatory gut-munching scene depicting desperate actors chewing on butcher shop leftovers.

"[35] Although largely devoid of graphic content, Oasis of the Zombies was put on Section 3 of the Director of Public Prosecutions's Video Nasties list, which meant that, while not considered extreme enough to warrant a conviction in the English and Welsh High Court of Justice, any copy could still be confiscated and destroyed by authorities.