VIDEO NASTIES – Zombie Creeping Flesh

Published on: 23rd August, 2009

VIDEO NASTIES - Zombie Creeping Flesh  | read this item

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Whilst Italian cinema of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s had shamelessly plagiarized more successful productions, perhaps none could be considered as guilty as Bruno Mattei 1980 zombie flick Virus, more commonly known under many of its alternative titles, such as Night Of The Zombies, Hell of the Living Dead and, most infamously, Zombie Creeping Flesh. Taking elements wholesale from George A. Romero’s flesh-eating epic Dawn of the Dead, as well as stock footage and music samples from various sources, Zombie Creeping Flesh would fail to gain the recognition that Romero or his Italian counterpart Lucio Fulci would receive, resulting in Mattei often being written off as a talentless hack. Regardless, Zombie Creeping Flesh would be one of several Italian productions to make its way onto the DPP’s list of ‘Video Nasties.’

The project had first been conceived as a treatment by Spanish writer José María Cunillés, which had been passed across to husband and wife team Claudio Fragasso and Rossella Drudi. The industry, particularly in Italy, had become obsessed by zombies in the wake of Dawn of the Dead’s success, with Fulci’s Zombi 2 (Zombie Flesh Eaters) capitalizing on the newfound interest. With this in mind, the script was filled with scenes of gut-munching, brains exploding against walls and all manner of gruesome set pieces. Eager to jump on the zombie bandwagon, the project attracted the interest of two production companies, the Rome-based Beatrice Films and the Spanish Films Dara.

Mattei had come on board at the insistence of the producers. Initially, there had been two versions of the script that were available. One the director had expressed interest in, whilst the other he didn’t care for, finding the dialogue ridiculous and the story uninspired. Unfortunately, however, he was overruled and the producers decided to go with the script he disliked. Mattei’s father had owned a small editing company and so his son had developed a taste for filmmaking from a young age. Having started out in the industry as an editor, Mattei would eventually work his way up to directing, often using pseudonyms (a common device in Italy to help appeal to foreign markets), his ‘official’ being Jordon B. Matthews.

The late 1970’s would see him combining adult material with exploitation, resulting in such efforts as KZ9 – Lager di Sterminio (S.S. Extermination Love Camp), Le notti porno nel mondo (Mondo Erotico) and Emanuelle e le porno notti nel mondo n. 2 (Emanuelle and the Erotic Nights). Soon, however, his interests turned to something more commercial, horror, and eventually found himself on the set of Virus. Having been wowed by George A. Romero’s work, he decided to emulate (steal) various elements from Dawn of the Dead. With the Spanish producers insisting that he change his alias from Jordon B. Matthews, he eventually settled on Vincent Dawn, an explicit reference to Romero. He would not be the only one involved in Virus who would have to use a more American sounding pseudonym, as much of the cast and crew would also work under alternative names.

Cunillés, in an effort to avoid sounding too Spanish, chose to be credited as J.M. Cunilles, although as a producer he would be listed under his real name. Franco Garofalo, who would play one of the lead roles, would modify his first name to Frank, whilst co-star José Gras would use the name Robert O’Neil. Two other actors to follow suit were Gabriel Renom and Josep Lluís Fonoll, credited under the more accessible Gaby Renom and Luis Fonoll, respectively. Lead actress Margit Evelyn Newton, meanwhile, chose to be credited under her normal name. With the movie being produced with international sales in mind, the producers were nervous that if the production sounded too Italian or Spanish it could hurt the ticket sales in America and Britain.

Principal photography took place over five weeks and proved to be a troublesome affair for the director. The exterior sequences were shot near Barcelona in Spain before the production returned to Rome to film the interiors at Studio Mafera. But the producers were unimpressed with the results and the filmmakers soon realized that they would need more material if they were going to compete with the other zombie films on the market. Mattei suggested that they add some scenes with the natives and a new mid-section was written, which would see the SWAT team that had been sent to the New Guinea island witnessing firsthand as the natives try to deal with their sick and dying. Unwilling to burn their dead, the recently re-animated would then devour and/or infect the living, thus causing the virus to spread further.

In an effort to hide the fact that the film had been shot in Spain, it was decided that they would use stock footage from a documentary and insert it into the movie. The film in question that had been used was allegedly Barbet Schroeder’s 1972 drama La vallée (which the Pink Floyd album Obscured by Clouds had been recorded for), although there seems to be some discrepancy as to whether or not this was the film used for the footage. To make sure that the inserts did not look to fake, the crew built a fake village that would match the one on film and shot several sequences in order to fill in the gaps in the story. These included a bizarre ceremony and a chance for heroine Newton to unnecessarily bare her breasts for the camera.

Perhaps even more controversially than the footage, other material that the production stole was the music by famed prog rock group Goblin, who had rose to fame as regular collaborators of popular director Dario Argento. Mattei’s friend, Carlo Bizio, had provided the director with the music that he would require, which included excessive samples from Dawn of the Dead (which had been co-produced by Argento, who had edited the European version), as well as music from Luigi Cozzi’s science fiction horror Contamination. Coincidentally, other aspects of Dawn of the Dead that had been ‘borrowed’ by the filmmakers included the SWAT storyline, the killing of a zombified young child and the collapse of society as debated on a talk show.

The movie was first released in Spain on November 17 1980 under the title Apocalipsis cannibal, and in Italy the following August. Virus/Hell of the Living Dead received reviews even more negative than most Italian films of the era, with the main focus being the recycled music and incoherent storyline. The shock tactics of the zombie genre was starting to wear thin with many critics and it would take a lot more than gore to change their opinions. There would be countless zombie films released in Italy the same year as Hell of the Living Dead, including Umberto Lenzi’s Incubo sulla città contaminata (Nightmare City), Fulci’s Paura nella città dei morti viventi (City of the Living Dead) and Andrea Bianchi’s Le notti del terrore (Burial Ground).

Virus was released in the United Kingdom as Zombie Creeping Flesh (to cash-in on the success of Fulci’s Zombie Flesh Eaters) and was submitted to the BBFC on May 10 1982. The censors forced minor cuts, most notably on the gruesome climax in which a zombie tears out the heroine’s tongue and then forces its fist inside her mouth, ripping out her eyes. Surprisingly, the distributor would order further cuts of their own, eventually resulting in around fifteen minutes of footage removed (including the sequence in which the SWAT team storm the embassy, which sets the later events in motion). This decision was in order for the movie to be short enough to be able to be shown on double bills, despite removing important plot points. Regardless, this heavily censored print would find its way onto the Video Nasty list in the UK and would remain unavailable uncut for twenty years.

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