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 in August 1982 in Italy under the direction of Luigi Cozzi. Mattei later directed Lou Ferrigno in The Seven Magnificent Gladiators.) Mattei replaced Lucio Fulci as the director of Zombi 3 in the Philippines, after Fulci left the project unfinished, then co-produced Zombie 4: After Death immediately afterward with Fragasso in the director's chair, using the same sets and some of the same cast members. Mattei's other late-1980s films included Robowar and Shocking Dark - Terminator II (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 6-hour-long Italian TV mini-series. Many of Mattei's films from the 1990s became harder to find as export releases or home video releases. From 1993 onward, Mattei worked as a director almost exclusively for Italian producer Giovanni Paolucci, a working arrangement that jump-started Mattei's career after he and Fragasso had gone their own ways in 1990. Paolucci produced most of Mattei's later films, beginning with Dangerous Attraction and ending with Mattei's final film, Zombies: The Beginning. Mattei continued directing films right up until his death. 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