Hell of the Living Dead (1980)

I don’t know much about Papua New Guinea (except that it’s apparently crawling with zombies and cannibals), but I don’t think that the racial makeup of the populace is quite as black as Hell of the Living Dead implies. Here, it looks more like Africa or the Caribbean than the South Pacific; I suppose dark skin is dark skin to some people. Italian schlock master Bruno Mattei (Rats: Night of Terror) cuts corners by splicing stock footage of anonymous tribesmen eating maggots and grainy Mutual of Omaha-style animal footage into his yarn about, well, the living dead and the inevitable Hell that accompanies them.

It’s standard early ’80s Italian zombie fare with enough action and gore to keep your attention and enough cheesy dialogue and bad makeup to have a drunken good time — particularly the scene where the white heroine “blends in” with the natives by taking off her shirt and painting her face and torso. There’s actually some message about supporting third-world countries buried somewhere within Hell of the Living Dead, although it spends most of the time exploiting them.

“If I stand really still, maybe they won’t notice…”
“So, you think my diaper is funny, eh?”
White people taste like chicken.
Eddie Money was never heard from again.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here