Bruno Mattei (alias Michael Cardoso, alias Norman Dawn, alias Vincent Dawn, alias David Graham, alias David Hunt, alias Bob Hunter, alias Frank Klox, alias Werner Knox , alias Pierre Le Blanc , alias Jimmy B. Matheus … *sigh*… alias Jordan B. Matthews, alias J. Metheus, alias Martin Miller, alias Erik Montgomery, alias Herik Montgomery, alias Stefan Oblowsky, alias Gilbert Roussel… almost there… alias George Smith, alias William Snyder *whew*) passed away on Monday, May 21st 2007 from cancer, as opposed to the zombie mauling or “women’s prison warden torn apart by lust enraged lesbians” deaths he probably would have preferred. I’m not sure what kind of cancer, as the few outlets I could find of people bothering to carry the news story didn’t seem to know or care to look into the matter any further. I wanted to walk around all day with a black armband with the initials “BM” on it, but given the looks I received from everyone on the street who thought I was mourning the passing of my latest bowel movement, I opted not to. Born on July 30th, 1931 in Rome, Italy, Mattei was 75 at the date of his death and is succeeded by… well… I can’t seem to find any info on a family either, but the man has left behind over 50 directorial efforts in his body of work with 29 of those including writing credits. They run the gamut of “bad” to “worse” but one thing you have to give them: every movie was entertaining.

The son of a movie editor, Bruno followed in his father’s footsteps, laying claim to over 100 films under his editorial eyes between the ‘60s and ‘70s. After some time working with the infamous Spanish director Jess Franco (probably the only director in the world to have used more pseudonyms during his career than Mattei himself), Bruno decided to get behind the camera and take a stab at showing the world his brand of slash and sleaze. Regarded by some as the boot-shaped nation’s answer to Ed Wood, Mattei dabbled in every kind of exploitation from women-in-prison movies to demonic nuns to zombie plagues to nature gone wild and every one of them had Mattei’s style of “haven’t I seen this somewhere before?” filmmaking. Though many would simply call this copyright infringement, others would say it’s the ultimate form of exploitation: the complete exploitation of other peoples’ movies. Either way, much like Mr. Wood, you always knew that Bruno made his movies with a measure of love. Nobody puts out 50 movies of his “caliber” and suffers through the slings and arrows of critics the world over (ourselves included) if he doesn’t love what he’s doing. If only Mattei could get a movie made about his life (which would no doubt heavily “borrow” from Ed Wood…), I’m sure that everyone would look at his movies with a new compassion. Now that’s he’s passed on, maybe he can finally get that tribute, the gods of bad moviedom willing.

Though he’s gone, the man will never be forgotten… no matter how hard his critics may try. A number of the man’s films will never reach American distribution shores thanks to the infamy of their abuse on US copyright laws, but I urge everyone to view at least one of his movies in the following weeks as tribute and do the same every July 30th in tribute. I think I’ll be taking up that task myself and dedicating every July 30th to reviewing another of Mr. Mattei’s movies until all 51 have been covered… or until the man comes back from the grave to start filming more, in which case all bets are off.

For more on Mr. Mattei's work, check out the following links: