Hell of the Living Dead

When I first saw HoTLD, I was about 7 years old when my sister's boyfriend rented it on VHS, oh those good old days of the VCR era. So after watching it on a Friday night, I have to admit that it scared the living hell out of me. There was something about it that terrified me, maybe the grainy look or the ominous music or the gory zombie scenes, but whatever it was I couldn't sleep for days. Back in 1997 I found a copy on the now late Suncoast video store and without thinking it twice, I bought it. Has it ever happened to you that when you're a kid and you see a movie and you like it to the bone then you see the same movie as an adult and it's a total disappointment? Well, this is one of those cases, heck I even returned the movie. So I Haven't seen it since then until just a few weeks ago a friend of mine gave me his collection of cheap zombie flicks from the 80s and there it was "Hell of the Living Dead."

The story takes place somewhere in New Guinea where a research facility called "Hope" is developing some type of chemical that accidentally leaks out thanks to an infected rat turning most of the scientist into flesh eating zombies and the others into their happy meals. Meanwhile, somewhere else, a team of trigger happy commandos are sent to stop a group of environmental terrorist that have taken hostage an American Embassy, I think it was the American Embassy, and are demanding that all the Hope facilities be shutdown. The team storms the embassy eliminating the entire terrorists without much effort but not before the leader of the group says his last prophetic words about them being devoured or something like that. Then that same team of commandos is sent to New Guinea where they meet a group of reporters investigating, God knows what. There they find that the world has been overrun by zombies as they make their way to the Hope facility to find the answer of this Virus.

What makes this movie so memorable is not the story or the F/X nor the acting, but the amount of material they ripped-off from the much superior Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Director Bruno Mattei, who credited himself as Vincent Dawn, shamelessly used the same type of uniforms used by the SWAT team in DoTD for the team of commandos in HoTLD, and even the same gas masks. But if that wasn't enough, he used the exact same music composed by Goblin for DoTD without their permission. Also Mattei used a lot of old wildlife and news stock footage that didn't fit the scenes or the story. The script is incoherent at worst and the zombie scenes are totally illogical to idiotic. There's even a guy who dresses up in a tutu and starts dancing while a horde of zombies storms the room, but most idiotic is when the ultra slow zombies approach their victims, they just stand there screaming. Although I have to say, the beginning is gory and entertaining, but after the embassy scene, the movie pretty much goes downhill from there.

Okay, I'm not going to lie. It was a guilty pleasure to watch this retro junk again after so long and even with all its atrocities, it deserves some level of merit and it does delivers some horror value, well at least when it was released back in the 80s. Interesting note is that this movie has many different titles such as Virus, Night of the Zombies, Zombie Creeping Flesh and of course, the ultra generic title Hell of the Living Dead. So, if you haven't seen HoTLD and you don't mind the trashy story, the DoTD rip-off or the lame stock footage then you should check it out, at least for the gore.

'Zombie Creeping Flesh' (as it was originally entitled here in the UK) was one in an entire glut of zombie flicks to follow the success of Romero's endeavours into the (zombie) horror genre.

In it's entirety 'Creeping Flesh' is a decidedly 'weak' film. The acting is crass, macho and hilarious at times. And the fact that the film must consist of at least (I assume) 30% stock-footage gives the impression that director Bruno Mattei really wasn't that enthusiastic about making the film whatsoever - either that or he was severely lacking the funding that it so desperately needed.

Having said that, the film is an entertaining enough affair; in the sense that the comedy and violence is enough to keep most horror fans interested, if not glued to the screen. The idea that zombies, and cannibalism, are a sort of metaphor for Third World hunger is a somewhat unusual idea for a zombie film and I guess this is a sort of reflection surrounding the anxieties in the era in which it was made.

I personally don't believe that this film is as bad as some people have made out. It is, by no means, on par with any of Romero's or Fulci's work yet I don't feel it deserves to be totally written-off. 'Creeping Flesh' is certainly a lot more fulfilling than 'Zombie Holocaust', for example, and a great deal more 'gung-ho'. It just fails though because it is alarmingly 'corny' and very derivate of so much that stood before it. The fact that a fair portion of the soundtrack was originally used in 'Dawn of The Dead' just goes to prove this. If you thrive on gore, zombies, cannibalism, and insane violence then try and check this film out: just don't get your hopes up too high.

When someone says a movie is so-bad-it's-good, they usually mean that it's unintentionally comedic. "Virus" is so inept that it is enjoyable in a way it was not intended to be, but it doesn't fit the traditional so-bad-it's-good classification. (Actually, there was one scene in Virus that I thought was really funny. It involves breasts--you'll know it when you see it.) Here's why I liked Virus: all the ridiculousness adds together to form a fascinating and impossibly cohesive whole. The final product is sort of like a surrealist meditation on human insignificance.

The ridiculous, slow, editing; the idiotic behavior of the characters; and the meandering plot combine to make the movie like a sort of gentle nightmare. It's really like nothing else I've ever seen. There are these lazy, extended struggles with zombies where a bunch of guys just stand back and watch nervously. Most of the heroes are soldiers, and there's an officer, but they are all equally helpless and profoundly "alone." There's a laziness to everything that gives the film an appropriate sense of inevitability. The plot is ambiguous, like in a dream. You get a general sense of what's going on but it's also rather aimless, and only when the characters got to their "destination" did I realize that they had any objective at all. The simple beauty of the animal stock footage provides a startling contrast to the bleakness it surrounds.

I don't mean you have to watch it like it's T. S. Eliot and analyze everything you see for meaning. It is, of course, a meaningless mess of incompetence. But if you sit back and just soak it all in, you will find it hypnotic, bleak, and beautiful.

What to say about this movie? Where to start? I think I will begin with the title. I bought it as "Hell of the Living Dead". It is also known as "Virus", "Night of the Zombie", and "Zombie: Creeping Flesh". Out of these titles the creeping flesh one and virus fit, but the other two do not. Especially, the night one. Most of the zombie action takes place in broad daylight. Then there is the stock footage. I know many have commented on it, but man there is a lot of it. Here is a little advice to all film makers, don't set the movie in a location you can't film in. And if you must use stock footage at least use some different shots rather than just birds and monkeys in the tree tops. Then there is the music. When people say it is just like "Dawn of the Dead" they aren't kidding. It is exactly the same music and when it isn't music from Dawn it is music from a sci-fi movie called "Alien Containamation" and when it isn't music from it, it is a combination of both. Then there is the similarities between Dawn and this movie. The swat team, the reporters, the center at the end and the mall in dawn, the situation at the beginning where the swat team is first introduced, the elevator scene and so on. The zombies themselves aren't the best in the game. Well some do look rather good, but most of them have very little make up. Then there is the swat team who make it through horde after horde of zombie only losing one member, this team seems competent, then they reach the facilty and proceed to become very easily killed idiots. They aren't very distinct either, I think they are all dubbed by the same person.

A good point about this movie is the plot. It involves a leak a research facility called "Hope". Its nice to have zombies come to life for a reason and as bad as this flick is the end isn't to bad with plenty of gore effects. In fact after the "Hope" scene the movie cuts to two people attacked in the park and it is like wow this is looks like a better zombie movie about to start! But it is actually the end of this one. You can learn some lessons from this movie though 1) Zombies can only be killed if you shoot them in the head, but go ahead and shoot them in the body because it looks cool and you never run out of ammunition anyway 2) When going into an area of stock footage natives get the girl in your party to take her shirt off and dress up like a native, does it help, no! But if she's willing to do it let her (why didn't the horny soldiers not make one comment when she took off her shirt?) 3) If your friend is attacked by an apparently dead rat, don't lend a hand he deserves to die for being stupid enough to let himself get killed by a rat 4) Don't put your guns down and put on a tu-tu and top hat and pick up a cane when zombies are in the area 5) When on a beach it is possible to find boats just lying around 6) and finally, don't speculate on why everything is happening till you are out of the building where the zombies are, this just gives them a chance to gang up on you. In the end this is a bad flick with some areas that are OK. If you have a wicked sense of humor though and like making fun of films then give it a try.

OK... So your gonna make a Zombie Flick... Well first you need Zombie music to set the mood, get Goblin from Dawn of the Dead. In fact, use the same music. And while we are ripping of Dawn of the Dead, let's have a SWAT team.

Now.. set it in a remote location with some natives like Fulci's ZOMBIE

OK... so CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is a pretty famous flick and Cannibals and Zombies both eat people, so let's get some Cannibal Footage to through in and some pretty wild life stuff too... we can rip that off of that Shockumentary 'Death Faces' which features all the New Guinea cannibal tribes.

Now we have to stir in a large amount of gratuitous gore and go heavy on the eye violence...

Now sprinkle lightly with nudity...

And there ya have it...one gory zombie epic sure to please any die hard zombie gore fan. (but probably no one else will like it)