Hell of the Living Dead

Hell of the Living Dead
Italian theatrical release poster
Directed by	Bruno Mattei
Screenplay by	Claudio Fragasso José María Cunillés[1]
Starring	Margit Evelyn Newton Franco Garofalo Selan Karay José Gras
Cinematography	John Cabrera[2]
Edited by	Claudio Borroni[2]
Music by	Goblin
Production companies	Beatrice Film Film Dara[2]
Release dates	November 1980 (1980-11) (Spain) August 1981 (1981-08) (Italy)
Countries	Italy Spain[2]

Hell of the Living Dead (Italian: Virus – L'inferno dei morti viventi, or simply Virus) is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Bruno Mattei. The film is set in a laboratory in Papua New Guinea that releases a dangerous chemical, turning the technicians and locals into zombies. A French news reporter (Margit Evelyn Newton) and her crew land on the island to investigate.

Hell of the Living Dead was a project developed by producers and given to director Bruno Mattei, who attempted to create a film similar to Dawn of the Dead but lighter in tone. It was shot in five weeks in Spain with a script that was not Mattei's first choice and a score by the band Goblin, taken from other film scores that the band had performed. The film generally received negative reviews, noting bad dialogue and its obvious derivation of 1978's Dawn of the Dead.