Umberto Lenzi

Italian film director and author. Born 6 August 1931 in Massa Marittima, Italy. Died 19 October 2017 in Rome, Italy. Lenzi was very active in low budget crime films, peplums, spaghetti westerns, war movies, cannibal films and giallo mysteries (in addition to writing many of the screenplays himself). He was the director of two highly controversial exploitation films: Eaten Alive! (1980) and Cannibal Ferox (1981) as well as the film adaptation of the Italian comic book Kriminal (1966). He was one of the first Italian directors to get involved in the Giallo film craze (along with Mario Bava and Dario Argento), and his “Man From Deep River” is credited as being the film that started the “Italian cannibal film” genre later popularized by Ruggero Deodato, Jess Franco and others. His most critically acclaimed film is Milano odia: la polizia non può sparare (1974).