Banned in Italy, Morituris is coming to America from Synapse Films

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

It’s been four years since we last heard of director Raffaele Picchio’s MORITURIS: LEGIONS OF THE DEAD, a film which has received a mixed reaction from those who have seen it, with some viewers calling it out for misogyny, gratuitous rape, and lack of taste. It was most poorly received by the censors in Italy, who banned it from being shown theatrically in its home country.

What kind of story could cause such reactions and feature such brutality? This one:

Two lovely Romanian girls take a trip with three Italian men to a rumored midnight rave in the middle of a dark forest. As the gang proceeds on foot to their final destination, a mysterious graveyard is discovered, a shockingly vile plot twist is revealed and bloodthirsty undead Roman gladiators rise from the dead to torture and mutilate their victims! For the two women, an already terrifying night is about to get much, much worse, as the zombified warriors hunt down the group to tear their heads off! Will anyone survive the night?

They can ban it from Italian theatres, but they can’t stop it from getting out into the world, and MORITURIS is about to reach a much wider audience, as Synapse Films has announced that they will be releasing it on DVD and Blu-ray in the U.S. on September 8th.

The only features are the trailer and reversible cover art, but the film’s reputation and the chance to see it in “eye-popping High Definition” will be enough of a draw for a good number of collectors and genre fans.

I’m not a fan of mean-spirited, “extreme”, brutal movies, but I am somewhat intrigued by the concept of this one and the fact that it’s a new zombie movie with special effects by DEMONS/DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE’s Sergio Stivaletti. That’s tough to resist.