A conversation and appreciation of this great Italian zombie film
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Hell of the Living Dead
cryptoflovecraft — 11 months ago(April 27, 2025 12:19 PM)
The conversation between these two guys is animated. You can tell they're true fans. Maybe some of the haters or fence sitters out there can finally appreciate Hell of the Living Dead or at least admit that they like/love this film.
Check this out:
My own two cents: I first watched 'Hell of the Living Dead' on cable TV (HBO, probably) sometime in the early 80s. It was called Night of the Zombies back then. Contrary to what so many people say (i.e., parrot) about this film's "cheesiness", for a 13-year-old kid who had yet to see any of Romero's Dead films, Night of the Zombies/Hell of the Living Dead was a surreal and frightening experience. While it is a blatant rip-off of Dawn of Dead (as I would find out later), the film introduced me to the concept of zombie apocalypse at an early age and at a time when zombie films were anything but mainstream. Since then, I've probably watched this film as many times as I've watched Dawn of the Dead or Fulci's Zombie; its impact is immense (at least on yours truly). Take away the much-maligned stock footage and bad dubbing and you're left with a thrilling, edge-of-your-seat zombie epic. It's miles better than the big budget remake of Dawn.
BTW, Bruno Mattei was indeed a hack director who made plenty of "bad films" during his career. Some of his films are fun to watch, while others are just boring wastes of time. Hell of the Living Dead is the one exception and his best work by far.