The director of 80s Euro horror like Hell of the Living Dead, Rats: Night of Terror, Scalps, Night Killer, and The Other Hell came back for more after the new millennium kicked in, and the results are totally nostalgic.
THE TOMB (2006)
This is sort of like a Euro horror take on The Mummy with Brendan Frasier, and I just love the 80s throwback feel of it combined with its early 2000s, direct-to-DVD look.
It opens with a Yul Brynner looking high priest in ancient times indulging in a ritual that will give him immortality. Unfortunately, there are a lot of details he didn’t iron out…including the pain. The high priestess performs an agonizing ritual that mummifies him.
The King & Eyes
In modern times, pretty archaeology students come to Mexico to study the Mayan culture. After an awesome, old school attack of their tour guide in a cemetery at night, complete with numerous ghouls for no logical reason, the students wake to find he hasn’t shown up, and they are guideless.
However, they are redirected to a healer to help them and immediately witness her performing an exorcism. Ah, Euro horror. Everything but the kitchen sink.
Next, they head into the jungle to check out a temple. One of the girls is having nightmares about the high priest. The group encounters various death traps on their journey. The mummy is resurrected and wreaks havoc magically, but never bothers to stray far from his coffin.
It’s the healer, who turns into a demon that looks pretty much just like Angela from Night of the Demons, that delivers all the cheesy horror fun. Whether intentional or not, it all reads like high horror camp.
ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD (2007)
This was Mattei’s return to the zombie genre after decades, and he goes right for the kind of nonsensical shlock that made his zombie flicks favorites of the early VHS era. There are also loads of homages to classic zombie flicks, from Night of the Living Dead right through to all the Euro horror zombie films of the 80s. Awesome.
It starts with voodoo rituals on an island and colonial people shooting those that come back from the dead. It’s not an essential part of the plot, but it makes for a good, cheesy zombie action opener.
In the modern day, a group of treasure hunters on a boat comes across an island that is not on the map. Their dialogue is terribly dubbed—love it—making the whole vibe very comical and hokey. If you didn’t devour Euro horror in the 80s, you might not be able to deal with this essential aspect of Mattei’s movies.
On the island, the group ends up in what underground caverns and catacombs. They find ancient books, a chapel, treasure, and all kinds of zombies. There also seem to be some sort of supernatural forces at play, but don’t try to distinguish any logical plot…even when a talking zombie tries to explain it.
Just watch it for the practical effects and zombie makeup, the direct-to-video look and feel, and the chaotic action.
ZOMBIES: THE BEGINNING (2007)
This sequel to Island of the Living Dead picks up right where the last movie left off, with the final girl being rescued while afloat on the ocean. While recovering in the hospital, she has nightmares about her previous experience, then goes through some spiritual healing.
Finally, she is enlisted to lead a military team to another island that is rumored to have experienced a zombie outbreak.
Once again, the dubbing is over-the-top awesome in an old school 80s Euro horror way, as is all the cheesy horror and action insanity that ensues.
At the facility, the team discovers gore, dead bodies, gnarly zombies in cages that look much more like demons than zombies, plus these freaky zombie children with big bug eyes and huge egg heads.
There’s a basic plot about a breeding factory for these nasty zombies, with women in bondage being forced to give birth to them by huge tubes attached to their bellies to just suck the babies right out of them. Eek! And…gross.
And finally, adding to the 80s horror weirdness, our main girl at last finds the root of this whole outbreak…a talking brain in a glass box. I’m not even kidding. So maybe those zombies in Return of the Living Dead movies weren’t looking to eat brains…they were praying to their god…
