The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (1974)

dir. Jorge Grau  cast Cristina Galbo, Ray Lovelock, Arthur Kennedy, Jeannie Mestre

Saddled with a bewildering array of alternate titles, including Breakfast at Manchester Morgue, Don't Open the Window, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, Non si deve profanare il sonne dei morti (Do Not Profane the Sleep of the Dead), and others, this Italian-Spanish co-production probably has the most critical love of any of the first generation of cannibal zombie films made between the first two George Romero Dead films: Night of the Living Dead (1968), and Dawn of the Dead (1978). Its reputation is well deserved.

George (Lovelock), a young bearded, long-haired curio shop owner, leaves Manchester on his motorcycle for a relaxing weekend in Great Britain's Peak District. At a highway gas station, he meets pretty strawberry blonde Edna (Galbo) when she backs over his bike in her mini. Now lacking transportation, the assertive George all but forces the meek Edna to give him a ride to his destination in the nearby village of Windermere (he insists on driving). After successfully pleading to be dropped off first at her sister's house, Edna waits in the car while George asks directions at a local farm. Edna manages to escape when a strange man lurches out of the nearby woods, apparently with the design of attacking her. The man matches the description of a well-known tramp who recently drowned in a nearby river, but no one will believe Edna's story. Later, the same man turns up and kills Edna's brother-in-law Martin, an event witnessed by Edna's heroin-addicted sister, Kate (Mestre).

Sergeant McCormick, the detective on the case, won't believe Kate and Edna's story or George's protest that he had nothing to do with the crime. McCormick is a hostile arch-conservative who rails against George's "long hair and faggot clothes". He becomes even more convinced that George and Edna are responsible when photographs of the incident taken by Martin's automatic camera fail to reveal the zombie (this strange detail is never explained). Later, George takes Edna to a remote graveyard to prove to her that the tramp's body lies in its coffin. Of course, it does not and George and Edna barely escape with their lives after encountering more zombies. Further deaths occur, which McCormick also blames on George. George discovers that an experimental sound-wave machine, designed to get rid of agricultural pests, is making the dead rise and attack the living, but can't get anyone in authority to believe him. Carnage ensues.

Grau admitted that he was charged with simply making an imitation of Night of the Living Dead in color, but The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue has enough intriguing differences from the Romero film to have a life of its own. Filmed on location, the movie effectively contrasts the horror of the walking dead with the quaint beauty of the Peak District's woods, valleys, and small villages. The film reveals its menace very gradually, as it takes George and Edna quite awhile to figure out what is happening, and Grau does well in building a sense of mounting dread. Rather than Romero's mass invasion of zombies, we never get more than three or four zombies onscreen at one time. However, these zombies seem more intelligent than Romero's, possessing an ability to use tools and weapons. The only means of destroying them is with fire; even shotgun blasts to the head don't do the trick. In an intriguing touch, the zombies have a desire and ability to increase their number by daubing blood on the eyes of recently deceased corpses. They also have a tendency to strangle or bludgeon their victims before eating their organs. The use of gore is more restrained than in Romero's films, but what we do see is just as intense.

Kennedy is very good as the hateful McCormick; the other performances are acceptable. Galbo is attractive, but regrettably, her character is written as always on the edge of hysteria and perpetually needing to be rescued by George. George is easy to root for when he goes up against the thick-headed officials who refuse to even listen to his story merely because they don't like the way he looks and when he fights the zombies, but his condescending and domineering treatment of Edna makes him seem like a chauvinistic jerk. I'm guessing this is a symptom of the times, rather than the result of any intention of the screenwriters.

In some ways, I like Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, even better than the Romero films. It seems more "plausible" (if that term can even be used in discussing zombie films) and I liked the gradual unfolding of the story. I recommend it highly.