With that said, it is also important to mention that the films of Bruno Mattei are probably the funniest things this side of Monty Pythons The Holy Grail, and are almost always entertaining on SOME level.
Mattei started out working as an editor in his father's film studio in the early 50's, where he would develop the skill of padding out movies with bad stock footage. He eventually worked on a few of Joe D'Amato's early films. With this experience under his belt, he was given the chance to direct his first film(s): Woman's Camp 119 and SS Girls. It seems that the rest of Mattei's career he shot two or three films back to back, or even simultaniously.
Mattei next jumpped on the "mondo" wagon with Le Notti Porno Nel Mondo-Porno Around The World, a sex/travelogue with Laura Gemser. He went back to the double film scheduele with back-to-back historical expose's Caligula And Messalina and Nero And Poppea, nunsploitation flicks, L'Atro Inferno -The Other Hell, True Story Of The Nuns Of Monza, and what are probably his most accomplished works, Blade Violent and Caged Women. Blade Violent is undoubtedly the better of the two. Laura Gemser stars as Emanuelle (of course) who is wrongly imprisoned by a crooked governor because she wouldn't give him some booty. The prison is run by a sadistic warden Lorraine De Selle, who also played the warden in Caged women. Emanuelle is taunted by other inmates and humiliated by the warden for the first 20 or so minutes, in what seems to be your average women in prison movie. Then, suddenly things really pick up. A group of male are temporarily housed in the women's prison after the bus escorting them is attacked. The thugs, led by Gabrele Tinti, Laura Gemsers husband, soon get the upper hand. One of them slashes the gaurd's throat with a razor, and the cop who was escorting them (Carlo De Mejo) is shot with his own shotgun. Thing get real bloody real fast as the thugs overrun the prison, demanding transportation out of the country, and getting busy with the inmates while waiting their demands to be met. A classic piece of early 80's trash, full of blood, guts, boobs and bad dialog.
In 1980 Mattei directed what was originally planned to be a big budget Dawn Of The Dead ripoff. The film was to show the events folowing a nuclear leak in a mysterious plant in New Guinea. It was to show an entire army against an island ful of zombies.
Of course the budget was reduced, and what we are left with is Virus-Inferno Dei Morti Viventi or Night Of The Zombies. Definately a love it or hate it kinda film, but this is pure Mattei. Blood, guts and gore, piss poor direction, badly integrated stock footage (elephants in New Guinea?!?!), and lines so stupid it hurts. Not an epic by any stretch of the mind, but a fun flick that more than delivers the goods.
Virus is semi-notorious for swiping Goblin music from several films:Dawn Of The Dead, Beyond The Darkness, and Contamination-although I belive the opening theme is original. Say what you will, the music fits the onscreen action perfectly, and at time is quite effective. Mattei also "borrowed" Goblin music for his film L'Altro Inferno.
In the late 80's Mattei became very busy with Flora film. He directed Reb Brown in Strike Commando. With this effort, everything gels.The worst possible actor, teamed with the inept Mattei to film a movie scripted by a retarded chimp who types with his feet (Claudio Fragasso), not to mention a horrible, grating score by Luigi Ceccarelli. The result is the most hilariously stupid 90 minutes ever capured on film. It goes far beyond just a cheesy movie, it's so gutwrenchingly awful that you will be on the floor with laughter. Reb Brown screams like a bitch throughout in what seems to be a bad Sylvester Stallone impression gone terribly wrong. He seems to have an endless suppply of bullets as he sprays his machine gun into trees, plants, radio equipment, huts, etc. Filled with some of the most moronic dialog i have ever heard. In one scene, Brown tries to comfort a little VietNameese kid who has been shot. He tells him about Disneyland, where popcornand ice cream grows on trees, and all you have to do is climb the trees and eat the popcorn. He also tells the kid that a magic geanie in the lamp will grant him any wish he wants. Well, I guess the kid was dying, so he'll never know that Reb was full of shit.
Mattei continued making silly action flick in the Phillipines (where any one can blow up anything, anytime) including Cop Game, and Robowar. In 1988, he was called in to salvage Zombi 3 after Lucio Fulci pulled out do to sickness (probaby induced by reading Fragasso's script) after directing only a few scenes. The resulting film is so bad it's impossible to watch in a single setting. The zombies change from scene to scene: slow lurking "Fulci" types, to crazed mutants running around swinging machetes at ya. It's better tothink of this one as an action film that just happens to have some zombies in it,as there are some fairly well done action set pieces, and some cool explosions.
Mattei shouldn't be given full credit for the crud he puts out, no, he had a regular team of morons. Long time collaborator and script writter Claudio Fragrasso, director of photography Luigi Ciccarese, music by Luigi Ceccarelli or Al Festa, and regular actors like Frank Garfield and terrible FX men Pino Ferranti and/or Franco Di Girolamo. Together they combine to make some of the stoopidest movies ever. in fact, Fragasso claims to have directed most of Mattei more popular works such as Blade Violent, Virus, Zombi 3 and Robowar.
In 1995, Mattei directed Cruel Jaws- a shark movie which was suppressed by that rotten cocksucker Stephen Spielberg for no reason other than it involving a shark, and we all know that Spielberg invented sharks, and has a copyright on them.
Mattei now specializes in sleazy soft-core gialli.