[4][5] Hell of the Living Dead received a cult following, which later led to a featurette documentary called Bonded by Blood released on the Blu-ray disc edition of the film.
Claudio Fragasso, who served as co-writer and co-director in Hell of the Living Dead, noted in Bonded by Blood that Franco Garofalo's portrayal of his character's eccentric and increasingly unstable nature was largely improvised by Garofalo himself, including scenes where Zantoro would deliberately provoke and walk into hordes of zombies for fun.
[6][7][8] Prior to the advent of internet film metadata banks, Garofalo was often unrecognized for his own roles, owing largely to his Italian name being replaced in credits with an Anglican variant.
[9][10] In 2002, Garofalo worked on writing and directing his own project, a short film titled Schizofrenia di un attore (English: "Schizophrenia of an Actor"), which he had started in 1982 and completed in 2002.
[11] Franco Garofalo suffered from severe physical and mental health issues for most of his post-1980s career and life,[1] which he disclosed in media interviews.