Revenge of the Dead: Italian horror movie getting re-release on October
Revenge of the Dead was a bit of an anomaly for us ’80s rental kids who lived to watch Eurohorror. It was packaged to appear like a kissing cousin to Lucio Fulci’s notorious The Gates of Hell (City of the Living Dead) and the countless other meaty Italian splatter ghoul movies that ended up on VHS and were the exotic, revolting alternative to comparitively pedestrian American horror. But Revenge of the Dead was really odd…
Directed by Pupi Avati (the mesmerizing The House of the Laughing Windows) and originally released as Zeder, the movie is a bizarre hybird of horror, sci-fi and supernatural weirdness is not your usual zombie flick, but a thought-provoking puzzler steeped in ancient mysteries. Stefano, a budding novelist, (Gabrielle Lavia, Beyond The Door, Deep Red) receives the innocent gift of a used typewriter from his wife on their wedding anniversary. While changing the ribbon, he discovers the typed imprint of writing left by the previous owner. Fascinated by this startling essay, Stefano uncovers the experiments of scientist Paolo Zeder whose claims of places where death ceases to exist intrigue the young writer. Obsessed with finding the truth about Zeder’s theories, Stefano is led on a terrifying journey where he is confronted with an occult conspiracy to reanimate the dead!
Revenge of the Dead is a movie I’m dying to reevaluate and now you can too because Code Red (via Kino Lorber) is now re-releasing this terrifying tale in HD in a reasonably priced edition. The film streets on October 17th and retails for an SRP of $19.95.
Have you seen Revenge of the Dead? Are you an Italian horror movie freak? Will you be picking this one up?