While the zombie films of Lucio Fulci were busy traumatizing audiences around the world, Bruno Mattei's insane Hell of the Living Dead managed to ride along on a wave of gory ultra-violence to its own ridiculous groove. Desperate to ape the success of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (right down to cribbing its Goblin score along with a handful of the band's other cues from Contamination), this zero-budget film was titled Virus in Italy but played unrated in the U.S. as Night of the Zombies (where it confused patrons thanks to another American-grown film of the same title from Joel M. Reed) and in the U.K. as Zombie Creeping Flesh. (Apparently that Virus title clashed with the apocalyptic film of the same name by Kenji Fukasaku.) Eventually on home video it reverted to its original, least-seen English export title, Hell of the Living Dead, which has stuck ever since.

A chemical lab in New Guinea is sent into an uproar when two of the coworkers accidentally unleash a contagion, thanks to interference of a pesky rat. Rampant flesh eating madness ensues as this company, designed to provide for its third world environment, instead unleashes zombies on the jungle-dwelling populace. The International Criminal Police Organization sends a four-member team into the fray, led by the intrepid Mike London (Raymond, a.k.a. Conquest's José Gras) and featuring the manic Zantoro (Garfield, a.k.a. The Other Hell's Franco Garofalo). In between trading wisecracks, the men collide with female reporter Lia (The Last Hunter's Newton), an expert on local customs who goes undercover with the natives by painting her naked body and mingling with National Geographic-style stock footage. After fighting the zombies for an eternity, the gunmen eventually figure out that the zombies must be shot in the head, but that doesn't help much as they continue to pump bullets into the shuffling undead's chests. A lively zombie kid keeps things brewing, too, until we return once again to the chemical plant for the not-too-shocking final revelation.

Apart from the aforementioned stock footage, Mattei throws just about everything against the wall here to see what might stock. A little mondo footage, some nudity, some city mayhem, jungle mayhem, and in the oddest bit during the climax, one character turned into a human puppet, years before Peter Jackson did the same bit with Brain Dead. The surreal use of Goblin music proves once and for all that even a good score can be turned to mush in the wrong context, and the hilarious dubbing never comes close to matching the actors' lip movements. God knows what language they were all speaking considering the Spanish writers and international hodgepodge of performers, but the English voice artists decided to just goof off and cram in as many off the wall lines as they could. (It doesn't sync up in the Italian version either.)

Whatever its considerable debits as respectable cinema might be, Hell of the Living Dead is exactly the kind of bizarre entertainment designed to be discovered on home video or very late at night at a repertory screening. Anchor Bay unleashed it on DVD in 2002 with a solid transfer for the time, a big improvement over the muddy, grainy theatrical prints and the borderline unwatchable Vestron VHS. Also included was a nine-minute interview, "Hell Rats of the Living Dead," in which the late Mattei discusses his status as a filmmaker at the time and points out his influences and intentions. The bio by Mark Wickum covers the many odd detours of his career which range from sci-fi to sexploitation. Add to that a very long European theatrical trailer (which blows far too many highlights), some irreverent and often funny liner notes transcribing a conversation between Shatter Dead director Scooter McCrae and Fango editor Mike Gingold, and a poster/still gallery, and you've got one of the label's strongest releases from its early days. The same presentation was later repurposed with Mattei's Rats: Night of Terror as a double feature DVD in 2003, with the rights passing over directly to Blue Underground for subsequent DVD reissues.

It was just a matter of time before Blue Underground would bring this disreputable gem to the world of HD, wisely paired up with Rats again for a 2014 Blu-ray. The fresh 1080p transfer looked nice for the time, though for some reason it comes in almost two minutes shorter due to frames missing at the heads and tails of virtually every shot. The DTS-HD mono track sounds great considering the source; that pilfered Goblin music is true to the mix, and the canned dialogue is nice and clear. Oddly, the Italian promotional material for Hell of the Living Dead touts it with a "Dolby System" logo (which is feasible if they're just talking about the noise reduction process), while the English-language marketing (including the trailer and the title card of the film itself) features a shoddy-looking "Dolby Stereo" logo that most likely wasn't true at all. American 35mm prints were definitely mono, and Italian horror films didn't really jump into bona fide Dolby Stereo until a few years later with Phenomena and Demons. The Blu-ray carries over the international trailers for both films along with the Mattei featurette and poster and still galleries, while a second international trailer for Rats and the similar but even nuttier Italian trailers for both are included as well (all in glorious HD). However, the biggest new extra and the arguable highlight of the entire disc is the new, 50-minute "Bonded by Blood," a fantastic look at the creation of both films directed by Severin Films' David Gregory (who's also seen fleetingly in the opening shots). The framing device here is Claudio Fragasso, who started off as a protege of Mattei and handled some of the actors during both productions (with Mattei focusing more on the technical side) in addition to co-writing the screenplays with uncredited input from his wife, Rossella Drudi, seen at his side. The fact that Fragasso and Drudi are first seen authoritatively overseeing the creation of pizza and pasta in an Italian kitchen and talking about the difference between native and Sardinian cuisine means you're definitely not in for your usual retrospective puff piece, and each minute is spent wisely with Fragasso (who later achieved immortality directing Troll 2 and Monster Dog) explaining his working relationship with Mattei, including a touching account of the director's dying moments. In addition to an eccentric surprise appearance via Skype from a very energetic Franco Garofalo (whom Fragasso says now belongs in a loony bin!), there's also solo interview material with Margit Evelyn Newton about her working relationship with Mattei and Fragosso, plus a visit to De Paolis Studios (which looks about the same as when they shot Rats) where Ottaviano Dell'Acqua and Massimo Vanni pop up from the rubble to join Fragasso for a walk down memory lane.

As mentioned above, Hell of the Living Dead was released as Zombie Creeping Flesh belatedly in the U.K. in 1982 after undergoing extensive cuts (some gore and a lot of material for pacing) with almost 15 minutes gone in most releases. The film still became tangled up in the video nasty craze that engulfed the horror film community there in the '80s, and it wasn't until 2002 that Vipco issued it uncut on DVD in an iffy transfer. A 2017 revisit from 88 Films as separate Blu-ray and DVD editions looked identical video-wise to the Blue Underground release, with LPCM Italian and English tracks with optional English subtitles. Newton appears for a different in-depth career overview, "Margie Among the Living Dead" (22m6s), which spans most of her films and touches on her shyness going topless here before she became bold enough to do an adult men's photo spread (which we also see in surprising detail). She's still charming and gorgeous here with a good memory for her various productions, including an interesting section on Helmut Berger. Fragasso also turns up for a new interview, "Welcome to Hell" (26m11), about his memories of Mattei, the enduring popularity of zombies, and his many functions in the film industry over the years since his teenage days. (Drudi pops up a bit as well.) The English theatrical trailer is also included.

In 2023, 88 Films revisited the film for its global UHD premiere along with a remastered Blu-ray (including as a two-pack or with the latter separately); the first pressing was marred by a faulty color space issue that desaturated the colors too much (especially reds) but it was quickly replaced and looks excellent. Again you get LPCM 2.0 mono English or Italian with subtitles, augmented here with a new audio commentary by Eugenio Ercolani and Troy Howarth that hits pretty much every significant aspect of the production including the cast, Mattei's output at the time, the imitative nature of horror films, the obvious Romero nods, and lots more. "Beauty and the Dead" (26m36s) is a revised version of the earlier Newton interview (with new credits and less jolting music), while the existing Fragasso interview gets tweaked and expanded into "Poor Zombies" (13m15s) and "Vincent and Clyde" (39m2s) talking about the collaborative process of making this film and then more generally about him and Mattei. "Writing the Dead" (22m56s) features Drudi going solo to talk about her writing contributions and ideas that didn't make the cut, while "Attack of the VHS Zombies" (27m52s) with Marc Morris and David Flint walks through this film's place in the broader video nasties absurdity. The trailer is also included.

In 2025, Mattei's film hopped over to Severin Films in the U.S. who outfitted it with a UHD and Blu-ray edition for retail consumption as well as a three-disc option with exclusive packaging and a 14-track soundtrack CD directly through their site. Incredibly, they also commissioned a new tie-in novelization by Brad Carter that comes in at a whopping 692 pages and incorporates the many ambitious concepts (in consultation with Drudi) that didn't make it to the end result. The UHD and Blu-ray have the feature film (with Dolby Vision on the former making it an eye popper similar to the vibrant presentation on the U.K. disc) with DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono English and Italian tracks with optional English-translated or SDH subtitles. A trailer is on both discs, while the Blu-ray has the rest of the extras starting with "Go To Hell" (12m33s) in which Mattei talks about his mania for seeing horror movies anywhere in Rome, his memories of this film and the cast including several Spanish supporting thespians, the improvisational nature of his work, and the tricks to staging performers acting like and being attacked by zombies. "The Beauty and the Zombies" (11m20s) has Newton looking back at her enjoyable, hard-working memories of the film after jetting off to sunny Barcelona to face off against the undead. Then in "My Big Chance" (21m41s), Garofalo explains his "crazed horse" theory of acting, the experiences that impacted him as a child to get into performing arts, and his outlook on appearing in a slew of crazy exploitation movies. In "Lt. Mike London Is Back!" (26m35s), actor José Gras goes into his busy time making this film during other projects while being based out of Sitges, as well as the tag team process between Mattei and Fragasso on the set including the language similarities they had to work with. "I Will Never Be A Zombie" (10m56s)  features actor Bernard Seray reminiscing about his early days as a fashion model and jury member, the loose production that even made use of a bunch of dead fish on the beach, and his positive rapport with the "polite" Mattei. In "My Son Is A Zombie" (8m6s), actor Pep Ballester talks about his early acting in theater in Santa Matrona in Barcelona, the casting call for a "monster film" that brought him aboard, the background he had for his distraught character, and the makeup process for when he gets eaten by his own kid. Next up in "Producing The Apocalypse" (5m36s), producer José María Cunillés briefly chats about the methods used to integrate the plentiful stock footage, the location scouting out in nature, and the frequent reselling of this film over the years. "Papua New Guinea In Barcelona" (42m24s) is a very extensive locations tour with Gras, "the legendary Robert O'Neill," and Xavi Sanchez Pons going into astoundingly precise detail strolling around all the existing locales from the film. Finally, "Peter And The Test Tube Babies' Zombie Creeping Flesh'"  (17m41s) features punk singer Peter Bywaters looking back at the U.K. punk scene where he made his mark and the creation of the band's signature song named after this film.

SEVERIN FILMS (Blu-ray)

88 FILMS (REISSUE) (Blu-ray)

BLUE UNDERGROUND (Blu-ray)

Updated review on March 24, 2025