Hell of the Living Dead

I've seen quite a few zombie movies over the years and I have to say that the european ones are the best. The gore effects in these movies are very realistic and provide quite a few scares and Night of the Zombies is no exception.The gore effects and storyline are good and is what I expected from this type of movie, but what I didn't expect was the overlong use of stock footage from a National Geographic special which was not only unnecessary but very annoying and the dubbing could also have been handled better, but overall not a bad movie storywise. Just remember to keep the VCR remote close so you can fast forward the stock footage.

MY RATTING 7/10

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)

This low-budget terror motion picture deals with a group formed by a four-man commando squad who run into a pack of natives terrorizing island of Papua . After a chemical leak at the Hope Centre in New Guinea , an enterprise devoted to feeding underdeveloped countries, turns its staff into flesh-eating zombies , there a special force led by Mike London (Jose Gras 0r Robert O'Neil) are sent to investigate it . They run into a TV news crew led by celebrity journalist (Evelyn Newton) , who are after the same news . As a female reporter and her cameraman boyfriend team up with a four-man commando unit in the New Guinea jungle whom are fighting flesh-eating zombies . Then , the group discovers that the entire country has been overrun by zombies .

Gory, gruesome , pretty repellent , and ghastly cannibal feast in which the stumbling flesh-eating stiffs and can be only destroyed by fire in the head . Unrelenting shock-feast plenty of disturbing images laced with brief touches of black humor . Army of Zombies appearance roaming the countryside , village and some people besieged inside a mansion and a factory deliver the goods , enough to be interesting . Bruno Mattei's main great success is regularly directed with startling visual content and acceptable production by Jose Maria Cunilles , also producing to Mattei and Fragasso a pair of "spaghetti westerns" titled ¨Scalps¨ and ¨Apache Kid¨ ; furthermore special mention to filthy make-up by the craftsman Giuseppe Ferranti. In the first draft, Claudio Fragasso had followed the idea of an entire Third World made up of an army of zombies against whom the armed forces of the industrialized nations would have had to fight. However, the script had to be altered considerably due to budget limitations. This frightening movie is plenty of thrills , chills, body-count executed by the eerie Zombies and photographed in pallid color with lurid images and passable results . Stock footage from the film Nuova Guinea, l'Isola Dei Cannibali was used for the native scenes , it has been recently re-released on DVD as The Real Cannibal Holocaust. This is an ordinary excruciatingly Zombie film where the intrigue , tension , suspense appears threatening and lurking in the sunny outdoors and every room , and corridors from a house , a shack , a native hamlet , jungle and many other places . At the time considered the plus ultra of thoroughly disturbing movie is less stomach-churning by nowadays's standards, yet its fundamental power to thrill remains undiminished. This genuinely frightening story with correct utilization of images-shock is professionally photographed by John Cabrera on location in Barcelona , Catolonia , Spain . Using yet another alias, "Vincent Dawn", Mattei middlingly directed this "Hell of the Living Dead" or ¨Virus¨ , a low-budged zombie picture inspired by other zombie cannibal movies such as Zombi (1978) and Lucio Fulci's Zombie 2 (1979). "Virus" was filmed in Spain and used jungle footage from New Guinea and a patch soundtrack from Goblins "Dawn of the Dead" soundtrack, which was a minor hit in Italy and abroad . ClaudioFragasso, the writer of the screenplay, also directed one half of the movie, he said in an interview .

Mattei directed all kind of genres in low budget and exploitation pictures . He eventually had more pseudonyms than any working director in the world. He returned to editing before making another comeback in 1976 with two low-budget Nazi exploitation films, "Women's Camp 119" and "SS Girls"(1977) . Mattei followed these taboo-breaking films with excursions into porno films and Mondo "shockumentaries", all directed under his many pseudonyms, concentrating on "shock value" with films such as Mondo erotic (1973) and "Libiodomania" . Always on the lookout for new exploitation avenues, Mattei followed with "nunsploitation", with the soft-core sex film La Monaca di Monza (1980) and the violent sex thriller "Guardian of Hell" (1981). Both films involved a partnership with writer/director Claudio Fragasso, who helped him write and direct the back-to-back productions . After directing two women's prison films starring Laura Gemser , Mattei moved to directing sword-and-sorcery flicks , starting with I Sette Magnifici Gadiatori (1983). Both Mattei and Fragasso collaborated on the Sci-Fi/horror flick "Rats " (1984), inspired by the futuristic movies of the early 1980s . Mattei considers this his best work, despite his still having to work with a very low budget. He worked relentlessly through the 1980s, some action flicks and about half of Zombi 3 (1988) after Lucio Fulci was taken off the production, though Mattei was not credited with it.

Rating"Hell of the Living Dead" or "Night of the Zombies" : Passable , this is one more revolting , foul Zombie horror pictures in which the camera stalks in sinister style . It's just one long unrelenting cannibal feast and average budget terror movie that still packs a punch for those who like to be terrorized out their wits.

Hell Of The Living Dead is a typical rip off of Dawn Of The Dead made by Bruno Mattei who is a very cheesy director in my opinion! I know that the acting is awful, the zombies look stupid, the make up is cheap and pretty much everything about this film is very poor, but I still love it! The main characters are a beautiful lady who is very interested in primitive tribes who live in a island in which the story takes its place. The other main characters are a group of soldiers who land on that island in order to be eaten by the zombies lol. The version which I have on a DVD is the anchor bay release. This DVD release contains only English audio which is amusingly made. Anyway, Hell Of The Living Dead contains gore, nudity, zombies, cannibals and everything that a fan of b-grade horror movies needs! Just have some booze before you watch it and prepare your self for the creeping dead that devour the living flesh!