Hell of the Living Dead (1980)

Dir: Bruno Mattei (as 'Vincent Dawn')

"Hell of the Living Dead" is the notorious uncut print of "Zombie Creeping Flesh", a shameless "Dawn of the Dead" cash-in from the gloriously inept Mattei. Its story involves an ill-explained government project called 'Operation: Sweet Death' (umm!) that goes catastrophically wrong and causes the dead to rise. An eco-terrorist is gunned down in the opening scenes and proclaims to the world, "you will all die! You will die and be eaten! First they will kill you! Then eat you!" which sums things up nicely. Production values are zilch, with about half an hour of wildlife-show stock footage inserted to pad out the running time and ensure we're convinced that the characters really are in Africa and not just some Italian back yard. Yet despite the nonsensical screenplay, the abundance of giant afros and some exploitative footage of starving natives eating maggots, "Hell of the Living Dead" miraculously works. There are some outrageous gore setpieces (the eyeball violence here rivals Fulci's "Zombie"), the most hilarious excuse to remove a girl's top that I've ever seen (breasts courtesy of the delightful Margrit Newman) and a lunatic mix of improv humour (a SWAT guy who likes wearing tu-tus and humming showtunes, I ask you!?) and furious zombie mayhem that you can't helped be somehow charmed. Even with all the strange and angry phrases that somehow made it into the English dub ("Shit your asses!", "Screw off!", "Anydamn, anyhow!"). Plus, there's a very sinister child zombie, one truly horrifying scene involving a cat leaping out of the womb of an old zombie cat-lady and a strangely unexpected ending, so it can't be all bad. **1/2