HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD

Probably one of Mattei's better films, which isn't saying much. Originally, writter Claudio Fragasso had intended Hell Of The Living Dead as an epic horror/action film about an entire army battling an island full of the living dead. Unfortunately, Fragasso forgot he was working for cheapjack producer Sergio Cortona for a Spanish/Italian co-production, and things had to be scaled back quite a bit.

To be honest, i really dig this flick, it's one of those movies i could watch all the time. I know it's goofy, poorly made, it has bad dubbing and ugly photography, but somehow it's got an epic feel to it, and at time it's slightly scary and somewhat exiting.

In New Guinea, at Hope Center 1 (it looks like a dog food factory) a dangerous chemcal leak is discovered by two goons in radiation suits. The notice a dead rat in the most sterile section of the plant, and it's no ordinary rat, it's a zombie rat! The rat attacks one of the men, while the other stands there with his thumb in his ass as a cloud of toxic fumes escape (not from his ass, from the plant). The gas spreads throughout the plant killing everyone then turning them into flesh eating zombies.

Jump cut to an unknown city. A gang of "Goddamned crazy terrorists" have taken over an embassy, and a highly trained team of S.W.A.T officers, who are for some reason covered in dirt, are the only ones for the job. This is to be their last job before heading to New Guinea to investigate reports of cannibalism. They bust into the building, killing terrorists to the beat of Goblin music "borrowed" from Dawn Of The Dead, then it's off to the jungles of New Guinea where they soon meet up with a television crew who have just been attacked by zombies. This seen is fairly effective, as the crew run into zombies in different areas all at the same time.

The soldiers let the journalists tag along, 'cause all italian zombie/cannibal films have journalists. The reporter, Lea Roussau, makes peace with the local cannibals so that they can pass through. This scene is accomplished through about 2 miles of stock footage of various African and New Zealand tribes, a nasty alligator gutting, and a dead guy with a baseball bat sized penis being creamated. Lea (Margit Evelyn Newton) stands there acting like she's looking at something, intercut with the stock footage.

After several encounters with the zombies, they finally make it to the hope center. The group are all killed off in various gory ways, and in the not so shocking end, the zombie plague spreads to America.

Now, there really is a lot of flaws to be found in this film. The FX by Pino Ferranti are pretty bad as usual-yes worse than Nightmare City, and 99% of the music was stolen from other films such as Dawn Of The Dead, Contamination, and Beyond The Darkness. The acting and dubbing are really bad, and the moronic dialog doesn't help matters. But despite, and in some cases because of it's flaws it's alot of fun. Watch out for some poorly done, but cool none the less scenes like the cat jumping out of the dead lady's stomache, and a woman's eyes popped out of her head from the inside out.

This review is based on the Japanese print which is letterboxed at about 1.85:1 and is slightly brighter than the domestic print. The downside is that it's optically censored, so you miss out on the dead guy dick.