If you have seen a lot of Italian films – not only horror films, but other genre films as well, you’ll notice that the directors are split three ways: the good, the bad and the worst. Bruno Mattei is, unfortunately, one director that’s been placed in the latter category by many. I sat down and watched my first Bruno-film a year and a half ago, Hell of the Living Dead, and I could not understand what everybody was talking about. This man, this tiny little Italian, was a competent cinematic genius. An artist with perfectionism as his one and only limit. A man, who discovered new, unexplored areas of cinema itself.
Bruno went through his career visiting a lot of genres. Action, horror, exploitation, spaghetti western and so on, and he always handled the genres with top-notch solid direction with well thought through scripts. His scripts, exceptionally well written by Claudio Fragasso, featured some amazing dialogue. One example of this, is in the hi-tech jungle action film, Robowar; “Why do they have nicknames? You should know what the group is called; BAM. BAM? Big Ass Motherfuckers.” How on earth did this film not get a US-release?
While exploring his artistic genius, Bruno was throughout his career incorrectly blamed for copying other people’s work. Sure, he used stock footage in films like Hell of the Living Dead, Cruel Jaws and even a scene in Double Target, but that only adds to his originality by exploring the field of stock-footage. Sure, he picked up small pieces of inspiration here and there, but when the results were shown, it was the result of a unique pioneer.
Whether it was blood soaking terror or action spectacular, Bruno always kept his style of terror and suspense – easily compared to Hitchcock. His nerve-wracking stories of zombies, humanoid robots, naughty cowboys, realistic stock-footage, or sexual preferences were terrifyingly frightening. Bruno Mattei is a true maestro, and needs to be acknowledged for this.
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