Bruno Mattei Movies
A prolific auteur of horror and exploitation whose list of pseudonyms is rivaled only by his extensive filmography, prolific schlock director Bruno Mattei rose from editing the films of Joe D'Amato and Jess Franco to helming his own low budget, gore-drenched efforts. Though B-movie lovers can argue his importance in the realm of film until the world ends, few will deny that his films rarely fail to entertain on terms of sleaze and gratuitous violence alone -- if that's your kind of thing. A native of Rome who grew up surrounded by celluloid thanks to his father's modest but successful film editing studio, it was around age 20 that Mattei began working odd jobs around the studio, eventually making his way up to the status of editor. Following his directorial debut with the 1970 drama Armida, Il Drama di una Sposa, a brief return to editing proceeded a few more minor efforts before he helmed the film that many consider to be his finest cinematic effort, 1976's Women's Camp 119. A downbeat exploitation effort concerning a prisoner forced to witness numerous atrocities and medical experiments against her will, the film proved Mattei's calling card to the world of exploitation and the same year's SS Girls found him churning out more of the same.Soon moving into softcore with such efforts as 1978's Emmanuelle and the Erotic Nights, a partnering with writer/director Claudio Fragasso resulted in the "nunsploitation" classics The True Story of the Nun of Monza and The Other Hell (both 1980). Though the partnership would serve both parties well, many fans frown upon Fragasso's frequent claims to have served as the driving creative force behind many of Mattei's most successful efforts (while placing the blame for the less successful ones squarely on Mattei's shoulders). Mattei's 1981 effort Virus (aka Hell of the Living Dead) managed to churn stomachs worldwide while it continued the tradition of George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead, and he continued throughout the decade with such films as Porno Holocaust (also 1981), Rats (1984), Robowar (1988), and Terminator II (1989 -- no, not that Terminator II!). Though his output would slow somewhat in the 1990s, Mattei continued on with such efforts as the gruesome thriller Eyes Without a Face (1994) and the blatant Jaws rip-off Cruel Jaws (which lifted scenes directly from the classic Spielberg movie, in addition to listing author Peter Benchley with screenwriter credit!). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
When a tribe of Amazon cannibals kidnaps the daughter of a highly decorated general, the only hope for the girl's survival lies in a team of commandoes who venture deep into the jungle to save her life, or die trying. Late genre specialist Bruno Mattei directs this violent jungle adventure that harkens back to the 1970s-80s golden-era of such notorious Italian thrillers as Cannibal Ferox and Cannibal Holocaust. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claudio Morales, Lou Randall, (more)
- 1995
The coastal town of Hampton Bay is threatened when a tiger shark starts chomping up their vacationers in the king of all Jaws rip-offs, Cruel Jaws. Days before the annual Regatta celebration, the townspeople are faced with financial ruin if something isn't done about their newfound shark problem. If that wasn't enough, the owners of the local amusement park have been subject to a hostile takeover from a prospective businessman looking to cash in on their prized property. It's up to the sheriff, the park's owner, and a shark expert to head out and destroy the killing fish before the summer economy is slashed and the park is left for the bulldozer. Directed by Italy's foremost expert on rip-off cinema, Bruno Mattei (under the name William Snyder), Cruel Jaws features a heap load of footage taken from Enzo Castellari's The Last Shark, as well as snippets from the first two Jaws flicks, plus musical cues from none other than Star Wars. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Luther, George Barnes, (more)
The muddled production history of this sloppy horror film was so convoluted that for years it was assumed that schlockmeister Bruno Mattei (Inferno dei Morti-Viventi) had completed the project after the failing health of principal director Lucio Fulci had forced the cult legend to abandon it. It was subsequently revealed that co-producer Claudio Fragasso, who had directed such abominations as Monster Dog and La Casa 5, was the man responsible for the resultant mess (albeit with Mattei's assistance on location in the Philippines). The story line and approach bear little resemblance to Fulci's much-admired 1979 cult favorite Zombi 2, revolving around scientists at a top-secret research facility working on a biological weapon called Death One, which mutates and kills the living and reanimates the dead. Naturally, there is a leak, and the rest of the film concerns the spreading infection, zombie attacks, and their effect on a trio of vacationing soldiers and a group of stereotypically daft young people in and around a contaminated hotel. Where Fulci's Zombi 2 had taken elements of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (released in Italy in a re-edited Dario Argento version as Zombi) and introduced more traditional Haitian voodoo mythology to the plot line, this film attempts to play off not only its predecessors, but Day of the Dead, the jokey American remake Return of the Living Dead, and Romero's own 1972 bio-terror film The Crazies as well. Lowlights include a zombie baby ripping from its mother's womb Alien-style to tear off someone's face, a legless zombie attacking her ex-boyfriend in a swimming pool, and -- most groan-inducing of all -- a zombie DJ concluding the entire sorry affair by dedicating a record to "all the undead around the world." American exploitation director Deran Serafian leads a cast including Beatrice Ring, Luciano Pigozzi, and Massimo Vanni, while Franco Di Girolamo handled the gore effects. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1987
- R
In this low-budget, Rambo-esque actioner, a Vietnam vet re-enters the Southeast Asian jungles to complete some unfinished business. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Reb Brown, Christopher Connelly, (more)
- 1984
- PG
This sword-and-sorcery fantasy is about Han (Lou Ferrigno), a "hulk" of a man who is chosen by a village of desperate women to defend them against the half-god Nicerote (Dan Vadis). Nicerote comes into the village on a yearly basis to slaughter any boys who may have reached adult status, and he demands an onerous tribute. Han agrees to the women's request then searches out the gladiator Scipio (Brad Harris) and the female warrior Julia (Sybil Danning to add to his lean-and-mean team. Meanwhile, he gears up for a showdown with Nicerote. The plot lines here follow the basic story of the Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa and The Magnificent Seven which successfully copied Kurosawa's tale. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sybil Danning, Brad Harris, (more)
- 1984
A quickie rip-off of director Uli Edel's visceral addiction drama Christiane F., Hanna D. follows the eponymous Dutch schoolgirl on her descent into teenage depravity, never skimping on the exploitive details along the way. Directed by Rino Di Silvestro (Werewolf Woman, Woman in Cell Block 7) under the pseudonym Axel Berger. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 1984
When an Apache tribe takes in and raises a white child, the boy grows up to find that he is unable to truly become a part of both his Indian tribe and the society of the white settlers. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
A hybrid of the post-nuke action and gross-out gore film, this passably entertaining venture from splatter-maven Bruno Mattei (directing here as "Vincent Dawn"), aided by Claudio Fragasso (as "Clyde Anderson"), features killer rats attacking bikers in an apocalyptic wasteland. A nuclear bomb made the surface world unlivable, so most of humankind lived underground for many years. This drove rats to the surface, where they became super-intelligent flesh-hungry mutants. After about a hundred years, a group calling themselves the "new primitives" returned to the surface to try and revitalize society. The action picks up in 225 A.B. (that's After the Bomb), when a motley group of cycle-riding toughs led by flamethrower-toting stud Kurt (Richard Raymond) and his girlfriend, Diana (Cindy Leadbetter), bed down at an abandoned research lab for the night. They see lab equipment and a bunch of mangled corpses being gnawed on by vermin, but don't know what to make of it. Says one: "Computers and corpses make a bad mixture." After the usual nighttime sexual hijinks, the rats come out to play. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
Laura Gemser returns as Emanuelle Sterman/Laura Kendall in this rather extreme Italian-French women's prison film from Bruno Mattei (credited on some prints as "Vincent Dawn" and others as "Gilbert Roussel"). Emanuelle is sent to Santa Catarina Women's Penitentiary for drugs and prostitution, meeting the usual sadistic warden (Lorraine De Selle from Cannibal Ferox), lesbian inmates, and hookers with hearts of gold. Emanuelle is actually an undercover reporter for Amnesty International, and when this fact comes to light, she is tortured even worse. Mattei doesn't skimp on the nastiness, presenting a three-way catfight on a floor full of feces, Gemser nibbled by rats in solitary confinement, a homosexual who is sodomized to death after his straight cellmates are aroused by a striptease, and various rapes, tortures, and vomit scenes. Gabriele Tinti is the concerned doctor, who eventually gets a celebratory roll in the bushes with Emanuelle during the escape scene. Claudio Fragasso (Monster Dog) was the assistant director.
~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laura Gemser, Gabriele Tinti, (more)
In this woeful "zombie" film, an accident occurs in a scientific lab in Papua-New Guinea sending out a dangerous chemical in a cloud of green smoke and turning the technicians and locals into ghouls ravenous for human flesh. An Italian news reporter (Margit Evelyn Newton) and her crew land on the island in search of the story, quickly followed by a search-and-destroy mission of soldiers. From that point onward, highly unreal dialogue ("something eating you?") would classify the movie as a cult-camp favorite. When the mismatched or unmatched sequences in the film are combined with ugly color and moronic dialogue, it is difficult to tell whether the living-dead or brain-dead dominate the film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Margit Evelyn Newton, Franco Giraldi, (more)
- 1976
Yet another in the wave of Nazi sex-horror films released in Italy during 1976-1977, this seedy entry from cult exploitation director Bruno Mattei (working here as "Jordan B. Matthews") functions as a reductio ad absurdum of its obvious model, Giovanni Tinto Brass' Salon Kitty. The action takes place at a remote villa which functions as a pleasure-brothel for Nazi soldiers, with women forced to service the troops in some admittedly peculiar ways. Gabriele Carrara leads a cast full of caricatured grotesques including Marina Daunia as a sadistic, scarred nymphomaniac and Salvatore Baccaro from La Bestia in Calore doing his usual Neanderthal rapist bit. Macha Magall co-stars with Vassilli Karis, Ivano Staccioli, and the ubiquitous Luciano Pigozzi (aka "Alan Collins"). Director Mattei returned to Nazi softcore with KZ 9 -- Lager di Sterminio the same year. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1976
The only one of the two dozen or so Nazi sex-horror films of the 1976-1977 wave which actually forgoes the usual smarmy titillation in favor of rubbing the viewer's nose in the atrocities of the Holocaust, Bruno Mattei's most horrifying and serious-minded film may actually rise above exploitation to the level of a strange sort of art. In a time when grainy Auschwitz footage has been screened so often as to have lost its power to a generation of numbed youth, this unflinching descent into madness and horror may be the only way to educate the callous teens who laughed through more subtle films such as Schindler's List. Mattei and his fellow screenwriters obviously did their homework, because each of the experiments here are part of the historical record. Their motives may be suspect, but the results are brutally authentic. One prisoner has her leg broken in three places to see if it will heal without medical attention. Naked women are beaten, whipped, and left to die in the gas chamber, choking on vomit and covered with their own excrement. There are also references to the progress of the war effort and its effects on Hitler's policies regarding the medical camps, as well as one of the few filmed depictions of the homosexuals who went to their deaths in the Holocaust. Finally, there is a genuinely moving moment near the end of the film. As heroine Maria (Lorraine de Selle) and her friend are about to be hanged for trying to escape, the assembled prisoners sink to their knees and sing "Israel" in defiant support. The angry commandant has one row of them shot down like dogs, but the others continue singing until they, too, are executed one by one. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
This doggedly faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel about a vampiric nobleman was helmed by cult director Jesus Franco. Despite its textual loyalty and atmospheric photography by Manuel Merino, the film -- a co-production from Spain, Italy, Germany, and Liechtenstein -- is plodding and dull. Even Christopher Lee (in an uncharacteristically weak performance as Dracula), Klaus Kinski (as the mad Renfield), and seven credited screenwriters cannot make this confused, distant film worthwhile. Cult filmmaker Bruno Mattei edited the Italian version, and scenes were later used in Calvin Floyd's In Search of Dracula. Among several different versions are prints running 100, 98, and 86 minutes. Franco appears as a servant to Professor Van Helsing (Herbert Lom), and though certainly literate, the film nevertheless fails as both horror and drama. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christopher Lee, Klaus Kinski, (more)
