The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue

As Spanish director Jorge Grau points out in his introduction to this 1974 horror flick, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue has appeared with numerous titles: in English alone, it's also known as Let Sleeping Corpses Lie and Don't Open the Window. Unfortunately, it's not very good…by any name. The script pits handsome motorcyclist George (Ray Lovelock) and new companion Edna (Christine Galbo) against a horde of ravenous zombies in a small English village (the dead have been raised by an experimental agricultural machine that supposedly uses ultrasound to combat subterranean pests, but turns out to have unexpected effects on the “undeveloped nervous systems” of insects and infants as well as corpses). George and Edna also have to deal with a bigoted police inspector, played by Arthur Kennedy in the twilight of his career, who blindly insists on believing that they're somehow responsible for all the gory murders. Although set in England, the film is actually an Italian-Spanish co-production, so it's not surprising that the dialogue sounds as if it were clumsily translated from a foreign language (many of the actors are dubbed—but not Kennedy, who employs a terrible Irish accent). Boasting a few chills and a couple of decent twists at the close, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue is, at best, a mediocre zombie film. DVD extras on this double-disc set include interviews (with Grau, Lovelock, and special effects artist Giannetto De Rossi), a featurette in which Grau revisits the English locations, and a stills/poster gallery. Not a necessary purchase. (F. Swietek)[Blu-ray Review—Oct. 27, 2009—Blue Underground, 93 min., not rated, $29.95—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray, 1974's The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue sports a good transfer with DTS-HD 7.1 sound. Blu-ray extras include a “Back to the Morgue” location featurette with director Jorge Grau (45 min.), a 2000 interview with Grau (20 min.), a “Zombie Maker” interview with special effects artist Giannetto De Rossi (17 min.), a “Zombie Fighter” interview with star Ray Lovelock (16 min.), TV and radio spots, a poster and stills gallery, and trailers. Bottom line: although better-looking on Blu-ray, this is still an uneven zombie flick.]