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Hell of the Living Dead

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Wikipedia article




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| director = Bruno Mattei

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| music = Goblin

| cinematography = John Cabrera

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'Hell of the Living Dead' is a 1980 horror film directed by Bruno Mattei. The film is set in a laboratory in Papua New Guinea that releases a dangerous chemical, turning the technicians and locals into zombies. A French news reporter (Margit Evelyn Newton) and her crew land on the island to investigate.

'Hell of the Living Dead' was a project developed by producers and given to director Bruno Mattei, who attempted to create a film similar to 'Dawn of the Dead' but lighter in tone. It was shot in five weeks in Spain with a script that was not Mattei's first choice and a score by the band Goblin, taken from other film scores that the band had performed.

The film generally received negative reviews, noting bad dialogue and its obvious derivation of 1978's 'Dawn of the Dead'.

Plot



At a top-secret chemical research facility called Hope Center #1, located on a far-west coast of Papua New Guinea, a trial run on a module called "Operation Sweet Death" is set to commence in the morning. Two technicians working below the facility exchange sexual banter about a girl, when they discover strange activity coming from their equipment followed by a "dead" rat, which begins twitching and comes back to life, violently biting one of the technicians in the throat, causing the dying man to bump a valve that releases a toxic green gas throughout the facility. Subsequently, the entire staff of the facility turn into flesh-eating zombies. The lone survivor, Professor Barrett (the head of "Operation Sweet Death") records an apology message, then removes his gas mask, exposing himself to the gas as it fills his own office. The film then cuts to the near-future, where a four-man team of INTERPOL commandos, consisting of Lt. Mike London and his men Osborne, Zantoro, and Vincent, are deployed to eliminate a group of eco-terrorists who have taken hostages inside a large building at the US Embassy in Barcelona, Spain. The terrorists demand the closing of all the Hope Centers, which both the government and the military deny exist. Under orders of the local authorities, the press does not publicize the terrorists' demands or mention the disaster at Hope Center #1. After another team pumps tear gas into the building, Lt. London and his three commandos burst in, killing the terrorists. The terrorist leader, who lays dying on the floor, informs the commandos that they are doomed to be devoured by "men like you... your brothers" before he bleeds to death.

Once the mission is completed, the team loses contact with Hope Center #1. Thinking that terrorists have infiltrated the complex, the military deploys the four commandos to Papua New Guinea. They land their plane in a native graveyard, and are unable to find any communication channels or anybody to give them further instructions for their deployment, so they steal a vehicle and drive to an abandoned religious schoolhouse. There, they meet journalist Lia Rousseau and her cameraman, Max (called Pierre in the Italian version), who are investigating a series of mysterious, violent attacks on the locals. Lia and Max travelled with their friend Josie, her husband, and a seven-year-old child. Josie is killed by a zombified priest, while her husband has his heart torn out by his son, who died in his lap inside a vehicle. Zantoro shoots the boy and the priest in the head, killing, both of them and saving Lia, but the group has to quickly flee the area, leading Vincent and Lt. London at odds over what to do with their new rescued civilians. While stopping at a native village, they encounter several flesh-eating zombies. The commandos and the journalists travel through the New Guinea jungle in the commando's jeep, trying to survive while evading the zombies. Lia attempts to connect with the natives, stripping her clothes off and wearing symbolic body paint, but while the natives are welcoming to the new visitors, Lia suspects that night that the commandos are there for nefarious reasons. While interrogating Vincent about this, a zombie attacks them both and they all have to flee again, leaving the villagers behind.

Max encounters a group of zombies the next day, and wishes to film them with his camera for news reel footage. Lia calls him back, and Vincent goes after Lia, trying to protect them, much to Lt. London's chagrin. He and Zantoro are able to rescue Max, but Zantoro, mentally unstable at this point, plays with the zombies and annoys Lt. London even further. Lia and Vincent start an awkward romance, bonding over chewing tobacco and jokes about what they would do if they had both met under different circumstances. The next day, the group takes refuge at an abandoned plantation, only to come under attack from the zombie residents. The plantation appears abandoned, but Vincent discovers an elderly lady's corpse, which reanimates and savagely attacks him. Meanwhile Osborne puts on a green ballet tutu and top hat and dances to "The Old Folks At Home", neglecting to bring his machine guns with him; this leads to him being eaten alive by the zombies. Zantoro is horrified by the loss of his friend and shoots at the zombies. Lia is nearly killed by a zombie that pulls her hair, but Vincent manages to kill his elderly attacker, rescue Lia and reunite with the rest of the group. Max holds the door shut for Zantoro, who lights a torch and then chases the zombies with it when Max steps aside. The group expect Zantoro to leave with them, but instead he remains in the building, waving his torch around at the zombies aimlessly while shouting profanities at them. Lt. London believes Zantoro is mentally ill, and orders Vincent to take his guns away from him, which Zantoro refuses to let him do. They all manage to escape together, picking up Zantoro after he lights a zombie on fire, but their vehicle stalls. Lt. London is able to get it started, but zombies nearly turn the vehicle over and yank the doors off the hinges. The group continue on their way into the morning, but Max and Lia are unable to stay awake, and Zantoro sobs at random moments of lucidity whenever he remembers the death of Osborne. They make their way to a beach, escape by raft, and finally arrive at Hope Center #1, where they find all of the workers either dead or roaming the facility as zombies. The group splits up, but Max is dragged into a horde of zombies and eaten alive, and Zantoro attempts to save him by randomly shooting into the horde, only to be dragged in my them and taken up the elevator shaft, where he is killed off-screen. A zombie leaps on Lt. London and infects him, but does not kill him, leaving him severely ill and irritable instead. Lia and Vincent learn about the experimental chemical accidentally released, which is causing the zombie infestation. Lia theorizes, while London interprets alone from from audiotaped notes and papers left behind in the lab's research offices, that the chemical, "Operation Sweet Death", had been intended to curb the Third World population by driving its people to prey on each other. London spends the last of his humanity destroying evidence of the contagion. Lia vows to tell the world, but a horde of zombies including their now zombified comrades close in and devour the last survivors of the team. They drag Vincent away to be killed off-screen, while they also pull out Lia's tongue and push their hands into her brain, causing her eyeballs to pop from the sockets.

Some time later, the zombie contagion has spread beyond the country's borders and throughout the world. While politicians and scientists dispute the matter, a young girl jokingly approaches a homeless person in the park to ask him for a cigarette, only to find out, to her terror, he is dead. More zombies join in and eat her alive. Her boyfriend is grabbed and surrounded as well. The screen freezes and credits roll over the decaying face of one of the last zombies in view.

Cast



Production



Director Bruno Mattei noted that the production began as a specific request from the producer. Mattei planned to make a film inspired by 1978's 'Dawn of the Dead', but wanted a lighter tone for the film. Mattei said that initially two screenplays were written, and that the producers rejected the screenplay that Mattei preferred. The film was Mattei's first to be made under the name Vincent Dawn, a request made specifically by the film's Spanish production side.

Claudio Fragasso stated he wrote 'Hell of the Living Dead' with Rossella Drudi, his frequent co-scripter. Fragasso felt there had been several zombie films made recently, and wanted to do something different after watching 'Dawn of the Dead' suggesting the film would be like 'Soylent Green' as well as envisioning the film as "an undead epic, a kind of 'Apocalypse Now'".

Among the cast was Margit Evelyn Newton as Lia. Newton recalled that she felt a great sense of responsibility at the time, playing the film's protagonist. Newton felt nervous in a scene involving nudity in front of the indigenous people. She asked that everyone be removed from the set, with only indispensable cast and crew remaining. The scene was shot in one day.

'Hell of the Living Dead' was shot in 5 weeks. The film includes stock footage to suggest that the film was set in New Guinea. Fragasso stated that when the crew arrived in Barcelona to shoot the film they found they had no money and had to improvise and rewrite the previous script. The production had this footage from the beginning of shooting the film and had rebuilt some of the locations from the stock footage in Spain, where the film was shot. Fragasso commented on the use of stock footage in the film as producers wanted to reuse footage they had, which led to Mattei adding footage of a documentary 'New Guinea, Island of Cannibals' into the film. Parts of the film were improvised on set, such as when a character enters a room imitating Gene Kelly in his film 'Singing in the Rain'. The score is credited to the band Goblin, but is mostly taken from other film scores Goblin performed, such as 'Dawn of the Dead' and 'Contamination'. Mattei was a fan of their music and secured rights to it for the film through Carlo Bizio. Fragasso stated that the music was from other films and from their album 'Roller' as Goblin were too expensive at the time to get for an original score.

Release



'Hell of the Living Dead' was released in Spain in November 1980 and in Italy in August 1981 and released in the United States in 1983. It was described as "moderately profitable" in Glenn Kay's book 'Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide'. It has been released under several titles, including 'Virus', 'Night of the Zombies' and 'Zombie Creeping Flesh'.

Critical reception



In a contemporary review, Steve Jenkins ('The Monthly Film Bulletin') noted that the possibility of a subversive subtext involving Third World victims corrupted by scientific research was "truly buried here in an orgy of flesh chewing and vomiting, as well as dialogue that beggars belief." The review commented positively that the film had unexpected pleasures, such as "the ludicrous attempts to dub speech on to stock footage (featuring humans) and a story, low-budget UN meeting consisting of a handful of delegates hurling pieces of paper at each other."

From retrospective reviews, Glenn Kay ('Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide') also noted the poor dialogue, as well as bad shot compositionwith scenes changing from day to night between cuts, slow pacing and overacting. AllMovie described the film as "cluelessly bad" with a script of "dreadful characterizations and dialogue," noting that it would be enjoyed by fans of cult and trash cinema. John Kenneth Muir ('Horror Films of the 1980s') stated the film was not enjoyable to watch and that it added little originality to the zombie genre in the vein of other films such as 'Return of the Living Dead' and 'Day of the Dead'. Both AllMovie and Muir noted the film's similarity to 'Dawn of the Dead', with Muir referring to it as "perhaps the most blatant rip-off of 'Dawn of the Dead' ever produced".

Mattei later expressed that he felt the film's dialogue was "pretty stupid" and that like all his films, he would reshoot it if possible. When asked how she felt about the film in 2013, actress Margit Evelyn Newton responded that "Obviously seeing it now, I would change some things. But that is okay. 'Virus' has helped me get more work." Fragasso commented on the film later saying that the film "designed with lots of love, but in the end it came out a test tube baby, a kind of abortion [...] But I'm satisfied with the end results."

See also



*List of horror films of 1980

*List of Italian films of 1980

*List of Spanish films of 1980

References



Footnotes



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