Let Sleeping Corpses Lie
aka The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue
Jorge Grau 1974 Spain / Italy

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An experimental radar machine used by farmers as a pesticide alternative also wakens the dead who terrorize the town. After the first killing, a man and woman traveling together through the countryside are suspected by the police and are not allowed to leave.

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This is one of the best zombie movies I've seen in a long time. I might even rank it as my second favorite right after Night of the Living Dead. It's too bad that this movie followed the success of Night of the Living Dead along with so many others because it is a good movie that was lost in the mix. With a very strong environmental message taking place in England it is a bit slower than most zombie movies which works great because Grau builds the atmosphere so well. There aren't even that many zombies but when you see them they are frightening and, unlike most other movies in it's genre, the zombies don't seem to be completely brain dead, holding grudges and even working together to kill their targets.

Aside from an overly dramatic police detective (which didn't bother me) the acting was very good. The cinematography was well done including beautiful green English hills and streams as well as interesting camera angles of the zombies attacking.

The gore is there and disturbing as one might expect from a zombie film, but it is relatively minimal and used effectively. The horror is mostly in the atmosphere.

My only criticism is that there is a sound issue where the voices don't seem to always match up with the actors mouth movement giving it a dubbed foreign language feel. My guess is that the actors re-recorded their own voices in a studio later on to cut down on outside noise. Maybe someone here who has more technical knowledge could explain why the sound might be a little off at times. The sound issue wasn't that bad though and I highly recommend this to anyone who is a fan of zombie films.