Good start, but then it gets ruined

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

This is an outstanding zombie film that instead of going straight for the jugular, piles on the atmosphere and tension...and then goes for the jugular. Slightly annoying antiques dealer/hippy George leaves the polluted and overcrowded city and heads for the countryside on his motorbike, where he intends to spend the weekend watching the grass grow in the back garden of his cottage. His weekend is ruined when Cristinia Galbo reverses her car into his bike, wrecking it, so the least she can do is give him a ride to his cottage. Cristina soon finds that George is a bit of a gobby smartarse who might have a point, talking as he is about how the powers that be are destroying the Earth. George finds out the Cristina is a neurotic flake who doesn't even know where her sister's house is.George ends up leaving Cristina in the car to go and ask a farmer for directions. It's at the farm he discovers an experimental machine that is being used for destroying insects and parasites (haven't these folk heard of the food chain?), which he lectures the scientists about in his strangely Zippy-from-Rainbow-like voice. It's about this time that a strange man dripping with water tries to attack Cristina, but when George and the farmer get back to the car, the man is gone. It's weird however how the description of the man reminds the farmer of Old Guthrie, a tramp who drowned in the area recently.It's dark by the time George and Cristina get to her sister's house. It turns out Cristina's sister is a junky just about to be taken to rehab, and while trying to sneak a fix in the shed she's attacked by Guthrie, which leads to the death of her husband Martin. Enter the cops, especially hard-ass Irish cop Arthur Kennedy, and if there's one thing he hates more than dead bodies, it's hippies! He doesn't buy the story of walking corpses and arrests Cristina's sister after he finds out she's a junky. How are George and Cristina going to prove her innocence?It takes ages for the first full on zombie attack to occur, but you won't be caring. Every scene in the film is just filled with atmosphere. Martin is killed right in front of his automatic camera that keeps flashing upon the scene of a waterfall. His house is adorned with pictures of his wife having withdrawl symptoms. The local pub has a scabby live owl perched in the hallway. When the zombies do rise up, there aren't that many of them but the sheer terror of the victims comes through live and clear. The zombie rules haven't truly been written in stone either - these zombies are super strong, can take a shot to the head, but really don't like being set on fire.Grau doesn't skimp on the gore either, especially when zombies rise up in the hospital and attack the receptionist. Best of all is Arthur Kennedy's performance as the copper. He hates George so much that he will not listen to anything he's saying at all, even if it could save lives. This leads to several shocks near the end of the film, as well as the ambiguous ending.I must admit this is one film I did rush out and buy when it appeared on DVD, and have watched it many a time. It's a good one! The only thing it lacks in comparison to the later Italian zombie film is cheese.

his is definitely a film of its time and not just for the low budget or dodgy acting but for the context. The dead reanimator is an experimental low-frequency radiation emitting pest controller, which our anti-hero keeps telling people that they shouldn't trust it. We also shouldn't trust the police to do their job correctly. I remember these being the underlying feelings of quite a few people in the 1970's. It's a shame it got banned because it could have had quite a following for these ideologies alone.What you have is your standard fare of Italian horror, though this time, transferred into the English countryside. If you were in doubt that this is England the Director punches it home in the opening sequence as our anti-hero, George Meaning (Ray Lovelock) rides through the countryside on his Norton. When he pulls into a garage for supplies our heroine Edna (poor lass) Simmonds (Cristina Galbo) reverses into the Norton in her Mini. From here on out they are pretty much joined at the hip as he commands her to take him to Windermere because it's the least she could do... then he jumps into the driver's seat since he doesn't want to go there in reverse.George is a bullish man who likes to command everybody and isn't afraid to speak out and let everybody know how he feels. There are sometimes that you would love to hit this guy for being so rude, though most of the time it made me giggle.As with most Italian Horror Films, the dubbing is pretty atrocious, however, it does give it a strange kind of ambiance, maybe I've watched too many and I've grown fond of the sub-genre. Jorge Grau does a satisfying job of bringing the story, wrote by Sandro Continenza and Marcello Coscia, to the screen. He creates nice tension as the film progresses. You can feel the uneasiness that Edna feels when she first sees the dead homeless man Guthrie Wilson for the first time. This scene reminded me of Romero's Night Of The Living Dead, though it's not a rip-off more of a tribute as the rest of the film try to add something to the Zombie folklore, such as the way other cadavers can be resurrected.On the whole, the acting is okay, though the dubbing does detract from the actor's skills because their voices don't feel like they're their own. The only character who appeared to have his own voice was The Inspector. The trouble was that Arthur Kennedy who portrayed him is American and his accent was a mix of Irish, Scottish, and American, he never quite landed on just one. This made his character unintentionally humorous at times.I've always like the Italian FX as they really know how to deliver the gory goods. For me, the tearing apart of the Hospital Nurse come receptionist was the best. There were rumours of a scene where a Zombie eats an eyeball, I think this is the church scene; a policeman is food for the zombies and you see his face sans eye, then you get a shot of Granny-Z popping something into her mouth, though you don't see what. It would have been so good to have that shot.All-in-All it's not a bad movie though it has its flaws it's still worth a watch. If only half the horrors today were like this then I'd be happy.

Following George A. Romero's ground-breaking 'Night of the Living Dead (1968)', a whole new style of horror films arrived. This Italian/Spanish project, in which the title alone gives away its inspiration, is one of the best zombie follow-ups, notorious not least because of its array of titles (including 'Don't Open the Window' and 'Let Sleeping Corpses Lie').The main hero, the fairly objectionable George (Ray Lovelock) seems self-dubbed, and sounding like he is doing a Michael Caine impression. Edna (Christine Galbo) accidentally backs her car into George's motorbike and he has to wait a few days while it is repaired. This means she is then lumbered with his company as she visits her sister Katie (Jeannine Mestre), a struggling drug addict and husband Martin (José Lifante), who becomes the first victim of an apparently reanimated corpse.Galbo is excellent as Edna, who stoically puts up with George's over-bearing chauvinism (SPOILER – her final scene, in which she is newly 'turned' and left to burn, dead-eyed and uncomprehending, her hand held out despairingly to George, is tremendous). Yet George, for all his flaws, makes a captivating and solid lead, especially when pitted against the prejudiced police sergeant (an excellent Arthur Kennedy) – who might seem to spend his time telling everyone his force 'aren't as stupid as you seem to think', but with every utterance, appears to prove that, if anything, the claims are over generous.There are several nicely gruesome, gory moments and a genuine atmosphere of ghoulish jeopardy here, and the pace really builds towards a series of climactic highpoints. Having carefully built-up the growing conflagration involving deadly pesticides, an idiotic police force and a rapidly growing zombie community, the pay-off is splendidly grim. The first zombie is a dead ringer for actor Harry Dean Stanton, but he is soon joined by several others. Their number might be axed or burnt by the resolute heroes, but there are always more to take their place.Jorge Grau directs wonderfully. Filmed in Rome and Madrid, with extensive footage shot in Manchester (including a young lady streaking through the traffic in front of Manchester Cathedral, where no-one takes any notice), many scenes create a terrific snapshot of Britain in the early 1970s, whilst creating a world of living dead, squalid police stations and grainy hospitals. The musical score by Giuliano Sorgini is nicely minimalist and subtly sinister. Apart from the wonderful title, 'The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue' is a masterclass of growing horror and comes strongly recommended.

A cop chases two hippies suspected of a series of Manson family-like murders; unbeknownst to him, the real culprits are the living dead, brought to life with a thirst for human flesh by chemical pesticides being used by area farmers.That description is what IMDb says is happening. But that is off the mark. First, there is not much of a "chase". Second, there are no hippies (even if one guy has shaggy hair). Third, any murders in this film are not really Manson-style. Lastly, unless I misunderstood, the farmers were using some sort of sonic waves, not pesticides.But anyway, a fantastic Italian-Spanish-British horror film with plenty of good colors and a fun plot. Some of it makes no sense. The eyeball-eating babies are odd. The ability of zombies to teleport across town is a bit bizarre. But this only seems to add to the fun of it all.No matter what title you see this under (it seems to have at least a dozen), it has to be among the better zombie films of the 1970s. Perhaps even of all-time, but that might be a stretch. At least better than almost anything in the last decade.