Hell of the Living Dead

Hell of the Living Dead (1980)

Directed by: Bruno Mattei

2 1/2 Pentagrams out of 4

Reviewed by: Jeff Deth

This film opened me up to the world of the Italian rip-off. Apparently certain producers and directors there take successful American films and head right into the studio to start filming their own version of it. (With probably a quarter of the budget.)

Previously I had associated Italian horror with masters like Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento and Lamberto Bava. This was my first experience with director Bruno Mattei, who I’ve come to learn, made a whole career out of copying other people’s work.

Hell of the living Dead follows Dawn of the Dead and Cannibal Holocaust by only a year. Everything about this film wants to be like those two classics but instead turned out as a fringe second-rater.

Mattei specialized in exploitation films in all possible sub-genres from Nazi themes, to chicks in prison. Mattei handles this zombie treatment decently I suppose. Although his success is limited in his ability to mimic material from others. The zombies are the same mindless slow-motion moaners you’ll get from any of the early Romero films. There is really no original spin on the creatures or in the way he has put a story together based on them.

The movie soup starts with some kind of chemical plant outbreak that spreads into the jungles of New Guinea. The story follows a group of… I don’t know, mercenaries or something trying to track down the spread of the virus. These tough guys dressed in blue janitor suits bump into a chick reporter and camera dude and they all end up caravanning together, getting their flesh torn apart.

The best zombie films not made my Romero all brought something new and unique to the table. Something unexpected. I’m thinking of The Evil Dead, Dead Alive, Dance of the Dead, 28 Days Later, Re-animator, etc.

This film however wants to be nothing more than an Italian Dawn of the Dead. A straight-up cash in. They even stole the music originally scored for Dawn by the band Goblin. In watching interviews with Mattei he seems pretty shameless in all this. He even freely admits to padding his work with documentary footage from other movies.

Another thing is, I can’t be 100% sure of the quality of the acting when I watch a foreign film. Especially going the route of the overdub. If the lines delivered from the translation are accurate, we’re dealing with some rotten ham. judging from the facial expressions, the actors don’t always realize it. Or they pretend not to.

After all this being said I still say this is worth a watch. If you’ve already worked your way through all the majors of this genre, why not. Unless you want to go back and watch Dawn for the 50^th time. But I guess that’s kinda what this is after all.

They did their best at goring it up with a very minimal special effects budget. It’s not anywhere near Tom Savini, but I still give them credit for attempting it. There’s plenty of ripping flesh off the bone and exploding heads.

If there’s one thing Mattei seems to relish, it’s violence. In this category, he holds no punches.

For what it’s worth, it’s a decent little zombie flick. Just don’t expect anything other than that and you won’t be too disappointed. Ah, well, at any rate you’ll get to cross off another title from the never-ending list of zombie horror films.