aka Night of the Zombies; Virus; Zombie Creeping Flesh
(Virus: L’Inferno dei Morti Viventi)
Italy/Spain. 1980.
Crew
Director – Vincent Dawn [Bruno Mattei], Screenplay – J.M. Cunilles & Claudio Fragasso, Photography – John Cabrera, Music – Goblin, Production Design – Antonio Velart. Production Company – Beatrice Film S.r.l./Films Dara.
Cast
Margit Evelyn Newton (Lia Rousseau), Frank Garfield (Zantoro), Selan Karay (Vincent), Robert O’Neil (Mike London), Gaby Renom (Pierre), Luis Fonoil (Osborne), Esther Mesina (Josie), Joaquin Blanco (Professor Barrett), Pep Ballenster (Josie’s Husband)
Plot
An industrial plant has been established in Papua New Guinea to create food for the third world. However, chemicals at the plant are accidentally released, turning everyone into a flesh-eating zombie. The reporter Lia Rousseau is on a tour of the country with her cameraman, visiting the church missions set up by her father. They come under attack by zombies but are saved by a four-man team of commandos. Together the group try to evade the zombies and get across the island to safety.
Hell of the Living Dead is another of the films that came out during this Italian zombie fad. In most respects, it is crudely made. That is to say, it is not a poorly made film on any technical level – it is about average for what was coming out of Italy during the day. On the other hand, the directorial set-ups are unimaginative – technically capable but lacking any greater sophistication beyond that. Similarly, the performances in the film are crude – none of the characters have any dimensions or individuality to them beyond being given names.
You watch Hell of the Living Dead for all the things you watch Italian zombie films – lots of Splatter and Gore with numerous scenes of zombies tearing out guts, eyeballs popping and the like. This is something Bruno Mattei delivers with satisfactory effect, even if you could say that Hell of the Living Dead ends up being somewhat tamer than other abovementioned entries in the genre. As with most of these others, it end in Censorship Controversy – the British censor did cut fourteen minutes from the print and this version ended up in circulation for many years. (The 2002 restored dvd version is the one viewed here).
Margit Evelyn Newton under attack by zombies
The plot is nothing spectacular – the scenes in the middle of the film with the party at siege in a house remind of Night of the Living Dead, albeit reworked with the greater emphasis on splatter and gore effects. One of the misleading aspects of the film is the alternate title Virus, which gives the impression that it is a film about a virally spread zombie outbreak, whereas in fact it is due to a toxic chemical spill.
One interesting oddity is how the film was re-edited with a comedy rifftrack by Charles Band as Corona Zombies (2020), which became the first released film of the Corona Virus pandemic, where the zombie footage was re-edited to give the impression the outbreak was due to the Covid-19 virus.
Bruno Mattei (1931-2007) was an Italian director of this era who frequently went by the Anglicised pseudonym of Vincent Dawn. Prior to this, Mattei had made adult films, including the Nazisploitation film Private House of the SS (1977) and the Nunsploitation film The True Story of the Nun of Monza (1980). In genre material, Mattei also made the nun horror The Other Hell (1981), Rats Night of Terror (1984), The Seven Magnificent Gladiators (1985), Robowar (1988), Terminator II/Shocking Dark (1989), Death by Telephone (1994), Eyes Without a Face (1994), Cruel Jaws (1995), Snuff Killer (2003), Cannibal Holocaust 2 (2004), Land of Death/In the Land of Cannibals (2004), The Tomb (2006), Island of the Living Dead (2006) and Zombies The Beginning (2007).
The co-writer of the film is Claudio Fragasso, better known as the director of Monster Dog (1986) and the notorious Troll 2 (1990). Fragasso is listed as the assistant director and has made claim that he directed half of the film. One is not entirely sure whether to buy this claim as Fragasso has come across as someone with a swollen ego – this is the person who has refused to accept Troll 2 is a bad movie, say no more – and to claim a well-known work of the zombie cycle as his own seems like another self-aggrandizing claim.
