The Other Hell (Bruno Mattei, 1981)

I'm not a big fan of nuns. And I'm certainly not a fan of nunsploitation movies. This dislike, by the way, has nothing to do with some sort of traumatic experience I had as a child/sticky-fingered miscreant. Beyond the fact that nuns were used in the ads for a chain of dry cleaning joints, Sketchley Cleaners, I haven't had much experience with nuns. Wait, I think Sketchley Cleaners used penguins in their ads. What I think I meant to say was Cadet Cleaners. Great, now I'm confused. At any rate, I just don't like their  whole holier-than-thou attitude. Just kidding, I could careless about that. No, what I'm not a fan of is their outfits; they're not sexy. Aren't you a little bit curious about what's going on underneath all those thick layers of pious fabric? Hell no. However, if you were to put say, the luminous Franca Stoppi (Beyond the Darkness) in a nun's habit, and have her appear in a convent-set film written by Claudio Fragasso and directed by Bruno Mattei (Hell of the Living Dead), then I might have a change of heart. Don't tell me, there's a film floating around out there that just happens to adhere to the frightfully specific standards I just finished laying out? Hot dog! And what's this? I'm being told that I just watched it. Woo-hoo! It's called The Other Hell (L'altro Inferno), and, of course, it sort of sucks ass, but it's also kind of great, too. And that, in one of them nutshell thingies, is the main reason I will continue to beat myself over the head with Bruno Mattei cinema. You could say I enjoy the mind-altering headache that inevitably comes after I have inflicted a Bruno Mattei movie on myself. At first, you'll notice that it stings a little bit. But after a while, you get used it. So much so, you'll be wishing that every movie was directed by Bruno Mattei, a.k.a. Stefan Oblowsky. Oh, and don't forget Claudio Fragasso; yeah, he should definitely write every movie.
 

 

A cautionary tale about what might happen if you inexplicably decided to put Franca Stoppi's demon baby in a pot of scalding hot water, The Other Hell is possession, murder and forbidden lust wrapped in an exhaustively precise package. It is? Oh, it totally is. And get this, Franca Stoppi's face is always framed by her black and white nun head covering. Hold on, head covering? There must be a better name for it than that. How about headpiece? Headpiece. Headpiece. It's better than head covering, I'll give you that. But I need something with a little more pizazz. I think I got it. Are you sitting down? Yeah, yeah, what is it already? Wimple. Let it sink in. Wimple. You know what? I like it.
 

 

I'm gonna give the whole face framing thing another go, as I would like to use the word "wimple" in a more organic-sounding fashion. Shot from every angle possible, Franca Stoppi's beguiling mug is always framed by her wimple, a medieval piece of clothing that covers the head, as well as the neck.

 

I can't stress this enough: The wimple is the perfect garment for an actress like Franca Stoppi, as it accentuates her strongest feature. And that is, of course, her gorgeous face.
 

 

Don't get too excited my fellow Franca Stoppi fans. In order to see our beloved Franca Stoppi glower from the inside of a nun's habit, you're going to have to watch The Other Hell. Well, duh, we kind of figured that out already. No, I don't think you understand. You're going to have to watch this movie. Hmm, when you put it that way, it doesn't sound so easy.
 

 

Never fear, Goblin is here. It's true, the Goblin music heard throughout The Other Hell is simply the score from Beyond the Darkness. Nonetheless, it was comforting to hear their unique brand of synth-rock every now and then, as it perked up the film's many dull patches.
 

 

"The genitals are the door to evil!" You can say that again, sister. Notice how she said they were "the" door and not "a" door. Mildly fascinating. Down below in the convent's basement laboratory/crypt, one nun, let's call her Sister Assunta (Paola Montenero), is telling another nun about the wickedness that lies beyond the labia. And just as she's wrapping up her anti-pussy diatribe, a set of glowing red eyes appear from out of the darkness. These eyes, of course, cause Sister Assunta to stab the other nun to death.
 

 

If what I just described sounds out of the ordinary for a nunnery, I have to say, it's pretty standard stuff for the convent that's run by Mother Vincenza (Franca Stoppi), as acts of nun-on-nun violence are par for the course at this place.
 

 

Don't believe me? Just ask Boris (Franco Garofalo), the convent's resident creepy gardener. If he sees a nun ranting and raving about the devil while bleeding from the mouth, he will simply shrug his shoulders and continue trimming the bushes.
 

 

While Mother Vincenza and Boris the gardener (he also runs the dog pound/chicken farm next-door) seem indifferent to the convent chaos, the members of the clergy seem to think otherwise. When the doltish Father Inardo (Andrea Aureli) is unable to get to bottom of things (his attempt to pray the evil away is met with mixed results, and by "mixed results," I mean it was met with complete and utter failure), the church sends in Father Valerio (Carlo De Mejo), a sort of  ecclesiastical detective who solves problems by using reason and logic.
 

 

As he arrives, Mother Vincenza is forcing the other nuns to burn all of Sister Assunta's things; he's also nearly mauled by one of Boris' dogs. So, right from the get-go, it's clear that they have something to hide. But what could it be? Frankly, I don't really care what they're hiding, as the film is not providing me with anything I can use from a perversion perspective. Oh, you poor thing. Is this nun-based supernatural thriller lacking in the titillation department? Yes. Yes it is. Well, suck it up, and stop being such a baby. Not every film is going to cater to your debased needs. Why not? The world doesn't work that way. What you should have done was not watch the film. Now you tell me.  
 

 

That being said, I did like the hanging dolls. Hanging dolls? Yeah, the attic was filled with naked dolls hanging from the rafters. If you add the music of Goblin to the sight of the dolls dangling, it creates a pretty effective sense of dread. You know what? You're right. The sight of the dolls dangling to the music of Goblin is pretty dread-inducing.
 

 

And as far as perversion goes, check out the scene where a prematurely grey nun (Susan Forget) chokes Father Valerio in her room. No offense, but I'm not really into strangulation. No, pay attention to the part where she collapses on top of him mid-choke. What am I looking for? Look at her legs. Oh, they're sheathed in black nylons. Nice. I'm glad you pointed them out, because I was just about to declare The Other Hell a nylon-free zone.
 

 

You know what else needs pointing out? What? The fact that the guy dubbing Carlo De Mejo's voice sounded exactly like Dean Learner from Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. Are you serious? I'm deadly serious. Wow, this little nugget of information just upgraded The Other Hell from lame to not-so lame.
 

 

What about Franca Stoppi? What about her? She must do something besides look delightfully sinister in her habit? Let me see. Oh, yeah. There's this flashback sequence that has Franca Stoppi employ one of the most trouser-moistening head turns while holding a recently scalded baby in recent memory. Imagine being on the receiving end of one of Franca Stoppi's trademark head turns, I would do more than just pee my pants (too much information?). It should go without saying, but the synth flourish that accompanies Franca Stoppi's head turn was awesome. As was the part where Franca Stoppi tells Father Valerio that men only emit empty screams when they're stabbed, yet when women are stabbed, they produce children. I couldn't have said it better myself; pure poetry.
 

 

Ending like you would expect (with lot's of nuns screaming), The Other Hell will probably be my last nunsploitation film for quite some time (what can I say? the genre is not habit forming). I'm not giving up on the genre entirely, but I am going to be a lot more careful when it comes time to choose my next foray.

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Hell of the Living Dead (Bruno Mattei, 1980)

Rolling around on the floor, clasping at the casing I keep my brain in with both hands, isn't something I do often. But when it does happen, it's usually for a good reason. Now, I understand it when, oh, let's say, a shoe salesmen or a bank teller fails to grasp subtle nuances of your average zombie apocalypse, but highly trained members of a super-elite squad of commandos? They should flourish in a world overrun by flesh-eating ghouls, as the skills possessed by shoe salesmen and bank tellers are no longer required. Whether it's a geriatric zombie with a cat living inside its chest cavity or a child zombie with their dad's entrails dripping from their once cute little chins, these men should be front and centre when it comes to killing zombies. However, when a colleague, one who is obviously cognizant to the problem's head ventilating solution, tries to tell them where to aim ("shoot them in the head!") his words seem to go, rather ironically, straight over their heads. The inability to follow basic instructions wasn't the only thing had me writhing on the proverbial shag carpeting in Hell of the Living Dead (a.k.a. Virus Cannibale), the characters can't seem to do anything right. If there's any film where the dead have a distinct advantage over their living peers, it's definitely this one. Filming in a vast wilderness filled with nature, director Bruno Mattei (The Private House of the SS) captures humanity at its most useless. Unable to carry out even the most basic of tasks with any effectiveness, these people don't stand a chance against the hordes of radioactive zombies who desperately want to gnaw on their supple limbs. Mocking the human characters at every turn, the animals are always present, yet, at the same time, they seem like they're not there at all. And judging by the way the monkeys, the elephants, the jackals, and the water fowl appeared to frolic with an untroubled form of panache, you would think the zombie plague was the figment of a troubled turtle's turbulent imagination. But that's the brilliance of Mr. Mattei as a storyteller, he manages to trick you into believing that humankind and the animal kingdom are completely separate. But as everyone knows, they exist at the exact same time.

When a fox captures its prey, it goes straight for the jugular. Suffocating it until it is no longer living, the fox learned how to do this by watching its parents. People, on the other hand, boast a natural inclination to penetrate the brain matter of their fellow human beings. To put in another way, we don't need to be educated when it comes to jabbing foreign objects into the skulls of others. Whether it be articles of faith, nationalistic tendencies, cultural traditions, or hollow point bullets, the innate desire to poison/alter the human mind is something that lives within all us. What I want to know is, why don't these intuitive skills kick in when it comes to destroying the brains of zombies?

Instead of watching your friend get ripped to shreds by a group of dermatologically-challenged monsters, one's who, by the way, clearly have no qualms when it comes to invading your friend's personal space, why not help them out by shooting as many zombies in the head as you can with the machine gun you're currently holding in your hands? You know, give them a fighting chance. I'm sure they would do the same for you. The first instance of what I like to call, "don't just stand there syndrome" occurs almost immediately when two technicians working at a super-secret nuclear power plant on the island of New Guinea are confronted by a radioactive rat while performing a routine inspection. Somehow the rodent has managed to crawl up the pant leg of one of the technician's radiation suits and has started to eat his skin. While the rat is snacking on his face, his colleague, you guessed it, just stands there as his partner begins to spew blood all over the inside of his poorly tailored radiation suit.

Incompetence aside, the film has been nothing but wall-to-wall lab coats, nonsensical science jargon, plumes of green radioactive gas, and the sound of Goblin throbbing on the soundtrack, what more could you want? Yeah, hi. Long time listener, first time caller. I would like to see a scene where a guy in a lab coat, wearing a gas mask, inexplicably takes off said gas mask just as a radioactive zombie is about to bite him in the shoulder. We can do that. In fact, what you just described is about to happen. Let's watch. Ewww, that was nasty. I wonder why he took off his gas mask? Weird. Anyway, I liked how some of the radioactive zombies were still wearing their hard hats when they began to attack their non-zombie co-workers, as it added a sense of realism to the proceedings.

What we just witnessed at the nuclear power plant was the complete and utter failure of "operation sweet death," and with the name like that, it's no wonder it failed. Meanwhile, over at the U.S. Consulate, "a bunch of crazy goddamn terrorists" have taken the staff hostage, and are threatening to kill them all if their demands aren't met. This segment was the most tedious in the entire film as it features no plumes of radioactive green gas, no garland thongs, no animals frolicking, and definitely no zombies. It's sole purpose for existing is to introduce us to the members of the elite commando unit I alluded to earlier and to show them receiving a dire warning from a dying terrorist. And while it was a tad on the long side as far as introductions and the communicating of dire warnings go, it gets the job done.

It's true, I don't recall why four of the elite commandos were sent to the jungles of New Guinea, but that's where they end up going after the showdown at the U.S. Consulate. I'm willing to bet their arrival in New Guinea has something to do with the incident at the nuclear power plant. At any rate, the four elite commandos, Vincent (Selan Karay), Lt. London (José Gras), Osborne (Josep Lluís Fonoll), and Zantoro (Franco Garofalo), are seen milling about near a wall of skeletons. In the meantime, a passive-aggressive married couple, Steve (Pep Ballester) and Josie (Esther Mesina), and their injured young son (he's got a bloody lesion on his neck), and a couple of journalists, Mack (Gaby Renom) and Lia Rousseau (Margit Evelyn Newton), have parked their vehicle in, what looks like, an abandoned missionary town about a mile away from where the commandos are.

While it's inevitable that the two groups are going to merge with one another, there's no way I'm gonna be able to keep track of all these people. No, I'm afraid some of you are going to have to die. Any volunteers? Hey, Josie. Why don't you go exploring–you know, poke around inside those empty buildings over there. If you're lucky, you might get attacked by a zombie dressed like a priest. And, hey, badly injured little boy. Would you hurry up and die already? The sound you struggling to breath has grown tiresome. What would really cool is if you died while lying in your sleeping father's lap, turned into a zombie, and began to consume his internal organs as he napped. As for the reporters, you can wander around a bit. But don't go too far, I like your overall look, and would be mildly upset if you were to be torn apart at this juncture.

Let's see, so that's four elite commandos and two reporters. Yeah, I can work with that. After all, six is a much lower number than nine. Some quick notes about the scene in the abandoned missionary town: Children, say what you will about them (they're annoying, pretty much useless in every possible way imaginable, and contribute nothing of value to the zombie apocalypse), but the kid in the Hell of the Living Dead sports the best zombie face the genre has ever seen. And if Esther Mesina's voice sounds familiar while she's screaming for help, well, that's because her voice was dubbed by none other than Carolyn De Fonseca (the dubbing artist who provided the voice for Albina in Women's Prison Massacre and Iris in Beyond the Darkness).

"These mothers have got more lives than a cat," and it's with the utterance of that line that we're officially introduced the greatest zombie killer in the history of zombie cinema. His named is Zantoro, and he's only one who know how to kill zombies. While firing his submachine gun at a couple of zombies in an abandoned classroom, Zantoro notices that they only drop to the ground when you pierce their skulls with a bullet (any object will do, but bullets seem to work the best). Dying to tell the rest of his squad, he runs over to his commanding officer, who is currently blasting a little boy zombie in the chest with multiple rounds from his pistol, shoots the kid in the head, and says, "The head! Shoot them in the head!"

It's evident that "shoot them in the head" is too difficult a concept for them to grasp, because the very next day the group find themselves besieged by a throng of zombies in a jungle clearing, and everyone not named Zantoro seems to be shooting them everywhere but in the head. Frustrated by this pathetic display of marksmanship, Zantoro tries to give them another demonstration on how to properly kill a zombie. This time pointing to his own head, Zantoro puts his life in jeopardy to teach them the proper way to dispatch a zombie. Toying with the undead as they crowd around him, Zantoro calls the zombies "a bunch of turds," while, at the same time, periodically shooting a few of them in the head to hammer his point home.

Whether or not his comrades were able to comprehend what he was putting out there with his improvised how-to successfully put down a zombie in a jungle setting seminar is still up in the air. However, the fact one of the members of his team does manage to kill a zombie while investigating a suburban home soon afterward was a promising step in the right direction. It's true, the zombie he ended up killing was an old lady who couldn't even walk (she had a cat living inside her thorax), but you know what they say, baby steps. You could tell the pressure that ultimately comes with being the only person on earth who knows how to kill a zombie was starting take its tole on Zantoro's delicate psyche. Turning his hat backward then turning it forward again almost immediately during a rare quiet moment in the back of their sport-utility vehicle was the hat turning turning point for the unhinged commando. Slowly realizing that the last remnants of his sanity are beginning to erode, Zantoro struggles to maintain his grip on reality as the particulars of their mysterious mission start to become more clear.

While the bug-eyed Zantoro represents the pinnacle of zombie-killing efficiency, Lia Rousseau is the master when it comes to screaming while in the presence of zombies. She's also quite proficient when it comes to looking sincere while staring at natives. Removing her standard issue journalist shirt, Lia's nipples are painted and her probably Italian crotch is covered with garlands faster than you can say, where did they find a garland thong on such short notice? Told to look at New Guinea tribesmen while wearing a chocolate vanilla swirl teardrop on her face, Margit Evelyn Newton must have jumped at the chance to go native, because she goes native like no other actress has ever gone native before.

There was a weird, otherworldly quality to way Margit observed the natives in their natural habitat; it almost seemed like she and the natives were from totally different planets. In fact, it felt like Margit wasn't even there at times. But that's not what drew me to Margit as a performer. No, it was her ability to scream on cue. You know how celebrities like, Cary Grant (a.k.a. Archibald Alexander Leach) and Charo (a.k.a. María Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Gutiérrez de los Perales Santa Ana Romanguera y de la Hinojosa Rasten), have official biographers, men and women whose job it is to chronicle the lives of their chosen subject? Well, I would like to be Margit Evelyn Newton's official Hell of the Living Dead scream biographer. Of course, I realize I'm going to need to do more than just count the number of times she screams in this movie to be considered her official scream biographer (by the end of the film, I had counted eleven unique screams). But I believe, with a little elbow grease and some good old fashion sticktoitiveness, that I can make this woefully misguided dream a reality.

First of all, I know the inside of Margit's mouth like the back of my hand. And secondly, um, you know what? I don't have a "secondly" right at this moment, but I'm sure if I did, it would be pertinent as all get out. Speaking of her mouth, with a hefty eleven screams under her belt, I wonder how many lozenges Margit popped during the making of this film? I'm gonna say, "eleven," as in, one lozenge for each scream. Anyway, my favourite screams were the ones she tried to stifle. The best examples of this particular style of scream were the double-fisted scream stifle that occurs as a result seeing a small child eating his father's intestines (scream #2) and the open-palmed, back-handed number she employs while helplessly watching her male companion ripped apart in an elevator (scream #8).

Creating a world where straightforward lessons pertaining to head ventilation are completely ignored, Bruno Mattei is one of the few filmmakers who fully understands the important role nature plays during the zombie apocalypse. With humans hunting one another for food, nature is free to stretch its wings. This freedom is best signified when we see a herd of African elephants running through the brush. Now, you're probably thinking to yourself, how did a herd of African elephants wind up in New Guinea? Well, that's easy, they swam. But the reason they swam in the first place was because they no longer fear humans.

However, not everything in this film is as easily explained. Take, for example, one of the female lab coat-wearing zombies we spot during the film's action-packed, eye-popping finale. If you look closely, you'll notice she's wearing a pair of white high-heel cowboy-style ankle boots. What kind of person wears high-heel cowboy-style ankle boots to their job at a remote nuclear power plant on New Guinea? While her decision to go with a white pair made perfect to sense me, as they looked amazing paired with a regulation length white lab coat, I couldn't fathom her fashion choice in relation to her line of work. The only logical explanation I could think of was that she was going to a Mötley Crüe concert after work, and didn't feel like going home to change. They say that even the greatest films have flaws, and if the only one I could find in Hell of the Living Dead involved a five second shot of a zombie's inexplicable footwear, someone is doing something right.

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Special thanks to Kev D. over at Zombie Hall for making me acutely aware of this zombie epic.

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