The Worst Film Ever

Just perfect...

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A group of treasure hunters survive a shipwreck only to find themselves stuck on a deserted island that's been overrun by ferocious flesh-eating zombies. Man, does the one and only Bruno Mattei nicely capture the endearingly scrappy aesthetic of a vintage 80's nickel'n'dime Italian horror splatter schlockfest: We've got lousy dubbing (the boat captain for some inexplicable reason sports an uproariously out of place British accent!), excessive cheesy gore, tin-eared dialogue, plenty of choice moments of inspired absurdity (one guy uses martial arts on a zombie in a cemetery!), cardboard characters, a gloriously ludicrous plot, lame acting, and shoddy (far from) special effects. Moreover, Mattei does manage to create some decent misty atmosphere, plus deserves praise for using old school practical gore and make-up. Yvette Yzon and Ydalia Suarez supply yummy distaff eye candy. Luigi Ciccarese's sharp cinematography provides a neat polished look. An absolute cruddy hoot.

Yes I know I only gave it 2 stars, but bear with me. If you know who Bruno Mattei is, then see this! It's hilarious for any zombie-movie fan. Here are some Things I Learned from Island of the Living Dead:1) If the opening to Lucio Fulci's Zombie is good, then repeating it three times in a row is even better!2) Damage from a zombie uprising is indistinguishable from earthquakes.3) Catholic churches are often underground, and are decorated with images of the Grim Reaper 4) Filipino natives often wore Conquistador armor, or dressed like Spanish ladies with mantillas. 5) If you are not looking at a pack of zombies, they immediately vanish. 6) It's easy to make a raft with no tools but a hammer. 7) Boats have a self-destruct button. It's red, and explodes the whole boat instantly. Here are some examples of Great Dialogue from this movie: "I know you're the best carpenter I know of."Girl "Tao sacrificed himself for us – we have to go back!" Guy "No, Tao sacrificed himself for us – we have to run away!"Tough Guy offers arm to zombie "Go ahead! Have a bite!" Zombie *chomp* Tough Guy "Argh!"Bruno Mattei stole scenes from Night of the Living Dead, Lucio Fulci's Zombi (repeatedly), and even his own film, Hell of the Living Dead. But in each case, the theft was in some way inept. For instance, Mattei steals the scene in Lenzi's Nightmare City when the characters encounter a priest in an abandoned church and accost him. But when the priest turns around, he's a zombie. But in this movie, the characters are on an island completely uninhabited by humans, and the person they mistake for a "priest" is wearing a filthy black hooded robe. Is that how priests dress? Why would they expect a priest? The answer - they wouldn't, but this movie doesn't care. It makes so little sense that one plot point, to which attention is drawn several times, is that the zombies are only out at night. Except that we see zombies in the daylight throughout the movie. It's like Mattei can't remember his own dialog. Frankly, I can't wait to see Zombies: The Beginning. If it's anything like Island of the Living Dead, it will make for a huge treat. Hilariously bad. Watch with a friend.

Island of the Living Dead (2006) * 1/2 (out of 4) The one and only Mattei got to end his career with a couple zombie movies, which will be good news for fans of the genre and horrid news for non-fans. In the film, a group of treasure hunters got lost in a fog bank and in the morning they notice what appears to be a deserted island. The group goes on shore and sure enough there are zombies running around. If you're looking for any type of actual story then you're obviously not too familiar with the work of Mattei. He's considered one of the biggest hacks in Italian history but at the same time he's made some rather entertaining bad films. This one here really doesn't work but there's enough gore and badness for fans of bad cinema to at least want to give it a single viewing. As is the normal case with the director, we get all sorts of stuff stolen from other movies including dialogue lifted from NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, the infamous eye/splinter sequence from Fulci's ZOMBIE and the Blind Dead movies are certainly playing a big key here. We also get stock footage which is another Mattei trademark. It's pretty hard to judge the acting in the film because the dubbing is so horrendous you really can't tell what's going on. I'm not sure who did this dubbing job but it's among one of the worst tracks I've ever heard but this does lead to some rather campy moments. I think zombie fans will enjoy some of the gore here as we get some (bad) CGI as well as real effects. We have heads being blown off, arms ripped off and plenty of flesh being eaten with all types of blood flowing at ease. We also get some rather bizarre zombie stuff including some having fangs, a few ghost zombies and one that can grow his dead parts back after they're shot off. On a technical level pretty much everything here is bad but those checking this title out are going to know that going in. The film's biggest flaw is its 90-minute running time, which is just way too long for a movie like this especially when you've only got enough plot for a half-hour movie and not enough attacks to justify the long time.

A group of treasure hunters get their boat lost in some wicked fog and run aground on an island inhabited by the living dead. Yay, Bruno Mattei dusts of his Vincent Dawn pseudonym and returns to the genre that gave him his biggest hit (HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD) of his career. And don't think 25 years has changed his improved his style at all as this is as equally gory, stupid and amusingly dubbed. It is like he didn't miss a beat between this and his last collaborative effort ZOMBIE IV (1988). Technically, the film has more in common with his soap opera looking THE TOMB (2004) than his previous shot-on-film zombie entries. But the locations in the Philippines look nice and this allows Bruno to recruit some eager extras to be his zombies. There are some odd twists thrown in here like the zombies having fangs and some zombie ghosts (including one that does some Flamenco dancing!?!). Uncle Bruno also takes it easy on the "borrowed" footage this time, only using stuff from another film once during a flashback (a galleon battle that looks like it is from a 1960s film). This was Mattei's next-to-last film with his final film (ZOMBIES: THE BEGINNING) being a sequel to this. Color me blood red excited! The film ends with a dedication to veteran Italian character actor Mike Monty, who was the script supervisor on this and died while it was being made.