"Virus - l'inferno dei morti viventi"(1980)d/Bruno Mattei

If I've said it once,I'll say it a thousand times.When we Italians set out to do something,there are simply no in-betweens.Epic victory or epic failure is all the same to us.For a brilliant Italian zombie movie,you need look no further than Lucio Fulci or Michele Soavi,and your needs are instantly sated.On the other end of the spectrum,if you're looking for a brilliantly inept Italian zombie film,then Bruno Mattei is the man you're looking for.With the same flair that the maestro Argento artistically crafts a bloody whodunit,Mattei builds a towering,repugnant-smelling mountain of shit that often defies rhyme or reason with hilarious results.Nowhere more than here,folks,has that ever been more apparent.If you were to buy yourself a copy of tonight's entry through a mailorder service,when the package arrived in your mailbox,before you could even take the dvd out of the shrinkwrap,the most diabolically foul and heinous odor would shoot directly up both your nostrils,rendering you unconscious.Some might see that as a negative,but really,this makes for a truly enjoyably humorous experience.Simple mediocrity is like the ceiling of Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory for signore Mattei,and all the fizzy-lifting drinks he could imbibe would never help him reach it.I'd like to think he's somehow cool with that(In reality,he's stated the desire to reshoot each of his over fifty films.Please don't,Bruno.),instead relishing in the fact that,he's certainly not the best,but he's arguably the worst,and that's something in itself.Italians know no middle ground.

Un roditore delle zombi all'interno di un vestito di radiazione è di questo che cosa accade.
In New Guinea(!),a rat that has been rendered the zed word due to an experimental chemical slips into some poor bastard's radiation suit at an offshore refinery called Hope(something this movie is bereaft of) and proceeds to eat the bejeezus out of his chest,causing INTERPOL to be called in,only they've come in disguise as the S.W.A.T. team from Dawn of the Dead,and they've been airdropped miles into the heart of the jungle instead of simply landing on the beach by boat.The crack team is led by Mike London(Franco Giraldi),and undermined by a mopheaded ballbag named Santoro(Franco Garofalo),and between reacting to wild animals that are neither indigenous to the island nor shot on the same stock as the movie itself(nor match the continuity of the film,for that matter),they manage to bump into a female journalist named Lea(Margit Evelyn Newton) and her cameraman who've been investigating violent attacks among the native population with their travel companions whose young son has been bitten by a zombie.The boy turns zed word and takes a chunk out of his father's neck,and Lea's cameraman who's just witnessed the patricidal chowdown,pukes out something that resembles Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup in consistency.Drums are heard,and Lea relates that she must touch base with the natives,and does so by tearing her shirt off,painting herself up like a Kindergarten art project,and jogging into the village,where she encounters stock footage of natives from entirely unrelated Mondo movies.

Questo sveglio bastarduccio pensa che sia spaventoso.
With flesh-eating ghouls decked out in polyester that'd make Tony Manero jealous shambling through the countryside,the soldiers decide that the best tactical move would be to party with the natives(!),whose tribal rhythyms strangely resemble Italian prog rock band Goblin(Mvogo plays a mean synthesizer),and who totally accept the topless fingerpainted white girl as one of their own(!!) by the way,relating to her that a strange disease plagues their village,causing them to imprison their infected numbers,instead of,you know,burning or burying them?Upon several zombie attacks,the INTERPOL team realize that the zombies can be destroyed by shooting them in the head,and naturally,pump endless rounds into every undead body part but the head,ferchrissakes.Several zombie attacks and a soldier in a tutu later(not a typo),the survivors make their way to the industrial plant,which turns out,was their main objective in the first place,not to save the day as one would believe,but to destroy the evidence of a governmental plot(all together now,throw your index fingers into the air,droogs,shouting "A-HAH!" in unison)to thin the growing third world population by driving them to...eat each other like so much M'chuzi wa kuku.You fiendish,fiendish bastards! The zombies prove too powerful for the mercenaries' bullets and embarrassing dialogue like "Up your ass, Lieutenant Mike London, Shit Creek, the year is now." ,and move to populate the civilized world in the finale.

Ha poppe come due uova fritte,no?
Released under more different titles than actress Shirley MacLaine has personalities,the film was known as "Night of the Zombies" in the United States,and "Zombie Creeping Flesh" in the UK.A large,ambitious script co-written by José María Cunillés and Claudio Fragasso with his wife Rosella Drudi proved too costly for the Spanish/Italian production by Dara/Beatrice Studios,and Mattei was called in to helm the highly-popular shitstorm that would follow,with assistance by Fragasso adding gratuitously gory violence and the aforementioned grainy stock footage of the natives from La vallée (1972),seen in its entirety in the documentary Des Morts(Of the Dead).Mattei directly rips off Goblin's actual Dawn of the Dead soundtrack,but also pieces of their work for D'Amato's Buio Omega,as well,which caused all sorts of legal headaches for the film,as the band had not authorized use of ANY of their music therein.All in all,an enjoyably laughable excursion into the low end of Italian genre cinema that entertains despite its one wop rating on the scale.For non-Italians(unlucky sons a'bitches)wanting in on the hijinks tonight,English translation of the screenshot captions appears in the comment section.

Con i suoi ponticelli bruciati,Mel Gibson è circondato dalle melanzane arrabbiate.