Full Name Bruno Mattei Years active 1962–2007 | Name Bruno Mattei Role Film director | |
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Other names Vincent Dawn, Pierre Le Blanc, Stefan Oblowsky, Gilbert Roussel, David Hunt, William Snyder, Jordan B. Matthews, Martin Miller, Jimmy Matheus, Michael Cardoso, Herik Montgomery, Frank Klox, David Graham Died May 21, 2007, Ostia, Italy Movies Hell of the Living Dead, Rats: Night of Terror, SS Girls, Violence in a Women's Prison, Shocking Dark Similar People Claudio Fragasso, Joe D'Amato, Lucio Fulci, Massimo Vanni, Gabriele Tinti | ||
Bruno mattei vs hollywood episode 1
Bruno Mattei (30 July 1931 – 21 May 2007) was an Italian film director, screenwriter and editor who directed exploitation films in many genres, including women in prison, nunsploitation, zombie, cannibal and Naziploitation films. Mattei's films were often following the popular genre trends of the era. Mattei continued work as a director until his death in 2007.
Contents
Bruno Mattei Intervista
Biography
Bruno Mattei was born on July 30, 1931 in Rome, Italy. Mattei grew up around films as his father owned a film editing studio. He studied at the Centro Sperimentale Centrale, the national film school, and graduated in 1951. Mattei initially worked as a screenwriter and claimed to have worked on over 100 films as an editor, a claim that film historian Louis Paul stated was "difficult to verify". Some of the earliest films Mattei worked on included Lulu (1953) and Tua per la vita.
Early film work started in 1956 on Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, after which Mattei worked on several peplum and eurospy films. His first film as a director was Armida, il Dramma di Una Sposa (1970), after which he directed Cuginetta...Amore Mio!, an exploitation film starring Rita De Simone. Then followed his Nazi-themed exploitation films such as La Casa Privata per le SS and KZ9 Lager di Sterminio (Women's Camp 119), some mondo documentary films starring Laura Gemser (Le Notti Porno nel Mondo (1977) and Emanuelle le Porno Notti del Mondo N. 2 (1978)), and films of possessed nuns such as L'altro inferno. Mattei continued working in various other exploitation-themed genres in the 1980s such as zombie films, sex films, peplums, and Vietnam War-themed productions.
In 1980, Mattei began collaborating with screenwriter Claudio Fragasso, beginning with The Nun of Monza (1980) and ending with a comedy called Three For One (1990). The two worked closely together for that ten year period (collaborating on 15 films), with Fragasso assuming several roles including screenwriter and second unit director.
Mattei was initially attached to direct an adaptation of Hercules from a screenplay by Ricardo Ghione. Principal photography was scheduled to begin May 1982 in Rome, Italy while The Hollywood Reporter naming Fragasso as screenwriter, and Ennio Morricone as music composer and conductor. Neither Mattei, Fragasso, or Morricone appear in onscreen credits. The Hollywood Reporter later stated that principal photography on Hercules began on August 1982 in Italy under the direction of Luigi Cozzi.
Mattei replaced Lucio Fulci as the director of Zombi 3 (1988) in the Philippines, after Fulci left the project unfinished, then co-produced Zombie 4: After Death (1988) immediately afterward, using the same sets and some of the same cast members, and allowing Fragasso to direct that one on his own. Mattei's other 1980s film included Shocking Dark, which incorporated elements of other popular science fiction films of the time such as The Terminator and Alien. As the 1980s ended, most of Mattei's work was released direct to video or to Italian television such as his Appuntamento a Trieste, a 1987 Italian 6-hour-long mini-series. Many of Mattei's films from the 1990s were becoming rarer to find as export releases or home video releases.
Mattei continued directing films until 2007, working throughout this latter period almost exclusively for Italian producer Giovanni Paolucci, a working arrangement that jump-started Mattei's career after he and Fragasso went their own ways. Paolucci produced most of Mattei's later films, beginning with Dangerous Attraction (1993) and ending with Mattei's final film, Zombies: The Beginning (2007). Mattei died in Rome, Italy in a hospital after complications from brain tumor surgery on May 21, 2007, at age 75.
Style
Jason Buchanan described Bruno Mattei's films as "low budget, gore-drenched efforts" and that "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."
Louis Paul, in his analysis of Italian horror film directors, stated that Mattei's career consisted of him being a "director of copy-cat movies. Whenever a film or a genre became popular, he directed his own (unsanctioned) remake or unofficial sequel." Daniel Budnik, an author of a book on 1980s action films, described Mattei as "no stranger to simply ripping stuff off", noting his use of Goblin's music for Hell of the Living Dead, stock footage from documentaries on South African tribes, and shark attack footage for his Cruel Jaws, ultimately describing him as "the best of all possible rip-off artists [...] Bruno just really did his own thing and went his own way" which involved "ripping everyone off, but you can't have everything".
Mattei used several aliases through his career, including Jordan B. Matthews, Jimmy Matheus, Gilbert Roussel, Axel Berger, Michael Cardoso, David Hunt, Werner Knox, Pierre Le Blanc, Stefan Oblowsky and Vincent Dawn.