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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Hell of the Living Dead
Hateful8 — 11 years ago(July 14, 2014 09:59 PM)
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I found this on the shelves of a small Austrailian video store and had to have it. Had no idea it was an alternate cut of a semi-well known cult film! Posting this here for interest.
Rare director's cut of a Bruno Mattei film
"Hell of the Living Dead"(1980)
So I contacted the video store that had this film to find out more.
According to them: It's a super rare director's cut of the Bruno Mattei film "Virus" also known as Hell of the Living Dead. Only to be released on the 2014 blu-ray this was a last minute omission; probably because of embarrassing revelations of the production. Strangely it is an alternate cut that was created right before the final cut that we all love (to hate, in some people's cases) of this quirky cult classic.
Big changes include:
-Extended intro and conclusion. A Star Wars like text intro that provides more exposition into the zombie contagion, setting up the film as a prequel to Night of the Living Dead.
-The removal of lot of stock footage from the1972 film La Valle. Some of it still exists. But a lot of the dumber shots are missing (like the African Elephants in New Guinea, gone). Maybe they added more of that film into it at the last minute to punch up the production value. The film DOES look cheaply made in hindsight.
-A little less gore. Some shots on the zombies and the violence is a little less in your face. Don't worry. 90% of the gore is still there! Scenes don't linger as long, which for this film is a good thing. Leaves more to the imagination.
-Some expository text throughout. Saying locations, times. etc. Don't remember that being in the original version I saw.
-A very minor subplot suggesting that the terrorist is the crazed brat son of a scientist at the Hope Center. Huh. Makes sense now.
-At least one alternate voice actor, maybe two, for minor rolls. The scientist is now nerdy. Maybe he too was a last minute replacement, to make the men sound more manly? Who knows.
-In the Port Moresby scenes (where they come across an abandoned city) more 2nd unit shots included of the city itself. Makes the city more menacing, more shots of zombie hordes (maybe from the original cut?)
-A lot of little changes, sharper editing, etc.
-Alternate title card, reads: "Dusk of the Dead."
-Bruno Mattei credited here. Funny since he went with Vincent Dawn with this and his rats movie! Maybe on rough cuts, he uses his name.
-Crazy inclusion of stock footage from "Night of the Living Dead" at the end about the Venus probe! Normally, I'm thinking, why? This is plagiarism. But after looking up the history of "Night of the Living Dead", I discovered that the movie is in the public domain after Romero and crew screwed up the licensing. So, really, anyone can use it. But, wisely, they re-filmed the scene with their own actor (basically saying the same lines) for the cut we are familiar with. In this cut, though, it makes the movie more interesting, to say the least. Sets it up as a prequel for the Night of the Living dead.
-Some BIG color correction differences. In this, they chose to blow out the colors. The cam is shakier through out too. The movie has a more "Dawn of the Dead" feel in terms of its look since the blood is now REALLY red and the make up really stands out, in a good way. I'm thinking the last minute change to a more denatured look was, again, to make the film look more like Fulci's Zombi.to cash in on that.
-More little changes that I'm sure I'm missing. Noticed a few of the dumber lines and snippets of scenes missing. Again, tighter cut to be sure.
Well.. that's it. This was sitting on my shelf for eons! Thought I'd post it for interest after seeing the 2014 blu-ray re-release for this film.
The most fascinating thing about this movie (which was a total ripoff of Lucio Fulci's "Zombi" and George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" is that this alternate cut serves as a prequel to both movies, especially "Night of the Living Dead." It's novel for being a zombie origin story, which is rare to find at all since most zombie movies are shrouded in mystery, giving you little to go on. I'm guessing the last minute decision to re-edit the movie before the original release had more to do with the studio's hope to cash in on the zombie craze in Europe after Fulci's blockbuster success with "Zombi."
I actually contacted the distributors who are re-releasing the film on blu-ray and after a million emails latter got involved with some of the original people involved to get more answers about why this alternate version is not seeing the light of day and the official answer was (we couldn't fit it on the blu-ray after all the extras). They included the movie "Rats: Night of Terror" on it, so that may be sorta true. But maybe the film is so old and unknown that they just didn't really care anymore. Oh, wellthat's what youtube is for, right? haha
It's a crazy cult classic for sure. Rememberdon't hate me. I'm just the messenger! haha.
Cheers, mates. -
Hateful8 — 11 years ago(July 16, 2014 08:46 PM)
Right on, mate.
Well I will try the youtube thing tonight. It's a big file (I had to transfer it, encode itbeen a hell of a project just getting it over to my PC from VHSno easy task, for sure).
Will keep you abreast of my progress.
Cheers!