Dollar Bin Horror Spotlight:From Eric's Vault-Hell of The Living Dead(1980)

Eric here. I remember watching this film and wanting to cry. I am a huge fan of The Cinema Snob and one of his shows is The Bruno Mattei Show where he and two of his friends discuss the films of the Italian director. Sure enough, after watching the Hell of the Living Dead episode, I had to see this for myself. I wish I hadn't.

                                      [Reprinted from Eric's MySpace page, October 9th, 2009]


Four commandosare sent in to New Guinea to investigate the cause of a chemical leak at the research facility "Hope." The four commandos stumble upon reporter Lia and her cameraman. Soon they discover that the dead are walking and devouring the living due to the chemical leak - by a chemical which had been intended to curb the Third World population .

One of my favorite Internet shows is The Cinema Snob. The concept is a snobby, pretentious movie critic reviews the most god awful dreck ever printed to celluloid. Think of it as an extension of MST3K minus the wisecracking robots.

In his show and website(thecinemasnob.com), he mentions Italian film director Bruno Mattei. If Dario Argento is the master of giallo, Mattei is the master of the ripoff. His work includes rip offs of Jaws and Terminator(going so far as to call his movies Jaws 5 and Terminator 2 in the states)

With 1981's Hell of the Living Dead, Mr. Mattei takes on George Romero and FAILS!!!

As you can tell from the plot above, its very derivative of all zombie films but what makes this the gum on my sneakers is the over use of STOCK FOOTAGE. Chester Novell Turner thinks this idea is stupid. The dialogue is so inane it makes Danielle Steele look like Shakespeare. While the soundtrack and gore are decent, it's not enough to make up for this 1 hr 45 min waste of time. Unless of course, you're willing to accept it as unintentional comedy and nothing more.