Frankenhooker reviewed by Director

       Frankenhooker

 

“Medical schools upset me, mother – I’m anti-social – I’m becoming dangerously amoral.” -Jeffery.

The Premise:

A medical student’s fiancé dies at her Dad’s birthday party. The young medical student Jeffery builds his father-in-law to be, a horrendously dangerous lawnmower or a tiller I’m not sure, but it’s remote control. Which is really cool. Anyone who has ever cut grass has dreamt of a radio controlled lawnmower. I suppose hardcore gardeners dream of radio controlled tillers. Daddy’s daughter is excited to show off the remote control feature. Oops she immediately runs herself over because she is a total moron. Everything is destroyed but her head. Fortunately that’s all her lover needs.

If you are still reading:

Jeffery is totally distraught over his fiancé demise. He feels he can put her back together. He not only wants to rebuild her, he wants to make her better than before. She was a foodie, she ate for comfort and had a fat ass. A fake fat ass, but a fat ass regardless.

Now where can he get sexy body parts for his lover that’s just a head floating in swishing magic purple water?

Prostitutes of course!

Jeff devises a semi-retarded plan. This is a guy who can perform reconstructive surgery even the worlds greatest surgeons couldn’t dream of. For the sake of multiple cheesy jokes and gaping plot holes, I’ll keep this moving along. Jeff gets his skank ho parts and uses crack cocaine with explosives to get his parts separated. The tramps smoke the hell out of that crack because, as we all know, hookers love to smoke the crack.

Half naked girls and glass pipes, I kind wonder if that’s what the producers had in mind at the pitch meeting. I can’t even imagine that pitch meeting. Who wouldn’t invest nearly a million dollars in a film called Frankenhooker?

A very angry pimp is after him for killing all his pussy hustlers but he is, like everyone in this movie, as smart as a box of hammers. It is of note I learned that not only is crack cocaine highly addictive it can also be laced with invisible explosives. One can also just sew any body part back on, give it a huge jolt of electricity, and it will work fine, it won’t even bleed.
The medical student Mary Shelly style uses lightning to reanimate his sexy corpse of stripper parts.

Parts he personally selected especially the blown off jiggly jugs.
Nothing good happens after this point to anyone. Hell nothing good happens to anyone in this bastard of a movie.

If you are a veteran of bad movies like Lawrence S. Talbot, Gorehound, and I are as we sat down to watch this 1990 pile of sheep vomit and you can make it to the end. It has a surprise (completely impossible) ending!

GORE:

Yes, the movie is gory, but it always comes soaked in absurdity and comedy. A freezer of rubber looking practical body parts from tits to toes. I never saw a torso though. I would have thought I would have seen at least one profusely bleeding torso. As disgusting as the idea is, it’s never gross. We witness six or seven escorts get blown to chunks by explosive cocaine. FrankenHooker kills everyone she tricks out, via electrical explosion. I think this movie has the most exploding mannequins in lingerie I’ve ever seen.

SEX:

No sex but plenty of naked boobs, breast groping, and scantily clade prostitutes. No full frontal though, what’s up with that? Frankenhooker has a smokin hot bod too bad if you try to bang her she bangs you apart like an M-80.

Acting:

Painful to watch.

Director:

He was really good at filming mannequins explode in various poses.

Music:

Was there music? I think it had random 1980s homemade keyboards and synth.

Final Rating:

Maybe really drunk and at a party with free drugs this would be mildly entertaining.

On it’s own, substance free, ouch. It’s so terrible but mildly funny to poke fun at. It certainly fails as a comedy and it fails as a horror movie. I think the first time I saw it, I was so engaged in how bad it was I was in a mild state of shock. It’s hard to believe ‘Unearth Films’ produces DVDs of this movie. Why would they want to be associated with Frankenhooker in any way? It can only damage your credibility and Unearthed has so many excellent titles. This is not one of them. This is a bad troma movie. Let that last sentence sink in.

 “durr watch this movie, impress your friends.”                   

-The Delicious Director

Cannibal Holocaust reviewed by Das Director

      Cannibal Holocaust

 

The Rep:

Banned in multiple countries! The alleged most controversial movie ever made. The film crew was arrested after production. PETA advocates are foaming at the mouth in disgust. Is this real cannibalism? Will I see naked natives eating human flesh? Perhaps you’ve seen the pictures.

Is it all shock and hype or is there a good movie buried under all this fluff?

Let’s get out the fork and knife: 

Ok, ok, so what is this shocker about? Four asshole adventurous film makers head off in the deep Amazonian jungle. Three fucktard dudes and one immodest chick in search of a lost cannibal tribe still around in this modern age.

Referred to as the green inferno for good reason, the amazon is a suffocatingly hot and dangerous place. It’s not really an exaggeration to say everything and everyone is trying to kill each other. If it can’t kill them, they kill it.

Our fearless quartet of film makers never return from the jungle. Did they find the cannibals they were looking for? A doctor of anthropology wants to find out.

He finds a couple really cool guides to lead him into cannibal country.

They expose him to various stone age tribes, animal cruelty, and some tangy native hairy gash. The guide reminds me exactly of Sid Haig in the Big Doll House. The guide uses cocaine, which is totally easy to get in the inferno I assume, to control the cannibal guide to lead them to his crew. Of course he also snorts a little himself all bad ass, off a buck knife blade.

The Doctor eventually finds the film cans lost from the four ass clown explorers. Trading the film cans for some shit like a watch and gold plated lighter the doctor skips back to the big city to enjoy some serious amateur cannibal exploitation films.

The group of professionals including the doctor, a lawyer, some TV executives, sit back and it’s show time. Here begins the second movie. Cannibal Holocaust is really a film within a film. The second movie is the lost film footage shot by the four douche bag film makers. Keep in mind this was done decades before Blair Witch or Cloverland made a movie appear to be shot by the actors. I have to give Cannibal holocaust major props for originality.

The Group shoots plenty of film of each other being cocky, constantly making dumb ass jokes, and mocking everyone. I never found myself endeared to them. As they trek along and come across various tribes they to go mysteriously fucking bananas. The heat, the jungle, the images they have seen, the isolation, frustration, it’s anyone’s guess. They engage in various forms of exploitation, setting villages on fire, gang rape, and other things I’ll leave out. At this point they have made enemies out of the cannibals. Not a smooth move stupid fucks, they should have had some coked up guides with them.

GORE:

 

Cannibal Holocaust doesn’t fail to deliver the goods. There is a great deal of graphic violence in the movie. You will see some really gross actual animals death. One word, ‘turtle,’ you have been warned.

The foreign films don’t seem to bother with fake rubber organs, I think these crazy actors are eating real guts. A violent giant stone dildo rape and bashed head. Severed arms, heads, ripped open guts, slimy organs being chewed on, genitals lopped off, skin bit off, you are in the gorezone.

I am always amazed at these jungle movies. The special effects look amazingly good and these guys had to set up these effects in a horrible atmosphere. Yes, that’s an impressively real looking penis copped off, it’s almost more impressive it was done in the amazon jungle.
Don’t worry about gore, it’s plentiful.

SEX:

We get copious male and female full frontal nudity.

 

A voyeuristic soft-core sex scene.

Two rapes, one is adultery punishment and features a giant stone dildo soaked in blood as it rips apart a hairy native puss. A longer gang rape, if you are a sicko and that tickles your pickle.

Music: 

Unfortunately the movie had some 1980s funk, keyboard, or disco type music. This dated the movie. That being said there was a theme song. The theme was chilling and you knew when you heard that tune something disturbing was coming. To me that was perfect use of  theme music.

Directing: 

Fantastic job! This is a horrible environment to shoot a movie in and you would never notice as you watched. All the first half of the movie, the footage of the doctor is professional looking, quality film making.

I am amazed at films that are shot first person. It seems like a truly difficult way to tell a story.  It’s done well here. You won’t have any problem. I found these moments in the movie the most engaging. I didn’t want to look away and miss something.

Final Rating:

Cannibal Holocaust really is a great movie. Holocaust means: any mass slaughter or reckless destruction of life. Success was achieved. This is a true horror movie and all fans of the genre should see it, hell, buy a fucking copy. It’s a right of passage.

The theme of this film seems to be ‘look how awful these stone ages fucks are, and yet modern man is no better.’ Everyone is trying to exploit something from this movie. The Doctor, the TV executives, the daring film makers from the second half, the natives in the jungle, even the production company who produced Cannibal Holocaust. Us for watching it for enjoyment, and on and on. A long chain of exploitation. Don’t get depressed it’s all fiction. Except for that fucking turtle, poor bastard.

              It left me dead….

 -Za DiReCtoR

Hatchet 3 review by Director

 

Premise: Victory Crowely the manic is back to haunting Honey Island Swamp. A voodoo curse keeps the hatchet wielding psychopath alive. Can anyone stop this mutant freak from tearing everyone apart? Can he be stopped? Not without a fight, modern weapons versus supernatural villainy and a double sided axe. Let the brutal blood bath begin. Haunted Honey Island swamp is gonna run red with hemoglobin.

A bigger bite: Hatchet 3 smokes it’s tires right from the start with gory mayhem. Our protagonist Marybeth thinks she has killed Victor Crawley. The Cops of course don’t believe in supernatural voodoo ghosts. They arrest blood soaked Marybeth holding a meaty chunk of Crowley’s massive head. Certainly she is behind the violent killings out on Honey Island. The CSI are sent in to mop up the mess and see what really happened. Call for back up boys, Crowely ain’t dead. He is only getting started.

The chief of police is a skeptic. I, like Carl Sagon, admire some critical thinking. It’s starts to get obvious real quick Marybeth has nothing to do with the grizzly murders. Lots of cops show up to the slaughter fest like tree limbs in a chipper. The Swat team shows up bazooka and all, but it’s too late. Better yet, a large breasted GILF reporter, a believer in the Crowely legend shows up and bails Marybeth out of Jail. Which of course you can’t do without seeing a judge, but we got a plot to drive hole or no holes. She wants to help Marybeth figure how to put the monster to rest. That is, if anyone is left to save anyway.

GORE: Holy fucking guacamole is this gory. The blood flows like Niagara Falls in this one. It’s like Dead Alive up in here. I was really surprised how insanely violent this movie was. When the box says ‘strong pervasive violence’ its no exaggeration. Not to mention I saw the R rated version, not the uncut version. How the MPAA gave this an R rating I can only speculate. Maybe because it was considered slightly over the top, maybe comedic. Comedic to a hardcore horror fan, but not the casual observer.

Gorehounds will be bursting with multiple orgasms here. The gore never lets up. We get all kinds of horrific kills. No one is safe, no one. I can’t even remember if anyone survives. Every poor protector of the peace get chopped, chainsawed, shot, ripped apart, smashed, gutted, de-gloved, de-spined, and it’s all merciless. It’s a great time, a gore buffet.

Was it Scary: Not only is it chock full of sadistic manslaughter Hatchet 3 is creepy as hell. I loved the dark swamp at night. Kane Hodder returns as Victor Crowely and he is a scary enough dude without make up. Give him a giant mutant head, fill the chum bucket with lots of boo scares, and this flick gets down right chilling. I recommend taking a dark and lonely walk in the woods after watching this gory delight. Try not to look over your shoulder at every little twig you hear snap.

SEX: We get a quick hose down of Marybeth at the police station. The T,P&A are hidden unfortunately. She has one hell of a bad ass full color tattoo running down from her ribs to mid thigh, nice ink girl.

Music Score: Nothing memorable to me, it served the rampage on screen and the boo scares.

Directing/Production value: The movie looked great. The effects were all practical, sweet. I didn’t miss any action even in the low light of all the night scenes. I didn’t notice anything amazing just an all around quality job.

Final Rating: I had a great time with Hatchet 3. I felt there should have been at least some nudity. The plot was a little unrealistic, especially the way Marybeth gets out of jail and solves the mysterious solution to battle Victor. I loved the short Sid Haig cameo. It was clever how he toed the overtly racism line with a black cop. I just let unrealistic plot drives slide because I was having too much fun watching all the death scenes. The ferocity of bloody kill after blood kill at such a rapid fire pace makes the movie a ton of fun for a gorehound with attention deficit disorder. Though I don’t suffer from ADD, I am a victim of the instant gratification culture. Hatchet 3 cranks the hack and slash to full throttle from beginning to end. Yes, the film has weak spots but I would strongly recommend it to any horror fan, especially those who like it wetter than a heavy menstrual day on the rag. It’s hard to give it 5 out of 5 brain stabs but I just really liked it. It could be a 4, but to each his own.

 -Your’s truly 

Zombie, Ohio review by Bobbie

Zombie, Ohio

    Zombie, Ohio puts a new twist on an old genre. The tale comes from the zombie point of view. College professor Peter Mallor who awakens from a car accident with no memories of who he is or what is goin on around him. Peter soon finds out he has become a thinking ,talking member of the brain munching undead. Chaos and hilarity ensue as Peter realizes his car accident was in fact no accident, and brains aren’t as easy to get to as the movies made it seem. Follow Peter as he gathers his zombie army, tries to figure out the correct way to get into a skull for the gooey brains he craves all while trying to find out who killed him.

  Zombie, Ohio was a slow start but once Peter decided to go zombie and give up his human side the humor and horror started. A tale of identity and morality from a zombie point of view.

-Bloody Bobbie

Hell of the Living Dead review by Lawrence S. Talbot

Hell of the living dead(1980)

Over the years, I’ve seen nearly one-hundred Italian horror films and one theory that I have about them is that the more alternate titles one has, the worse the movie is. Released under the titles Virus, Zombie creeping flesh, and Night of the zombies (and probably a zillion more), Hell of the living dead is a prime example of this rule. The film is directed by infamous knock off and exploitation filmmaker, Bruno Mattei and written by Claudio Fraggasso of Troll 2 fame. With these two schlockmeisters at the helm, Hell of the living dead could be considered so bad that it’s good.

Our journey through cheesiness begins with A team of scientists creating “operation sweet death”, a chemical created to solve the world’s population problem. In typical zombie movie fashion, the agent is released and the world becomes infested with the living dead. Later, swat team finds themselves on a top secret mission in Papua New Guinea where they encounter the titular flesh eaters, along with a group of vacationers. Together, they fight for survival and seek to find the cause of the infection.

I’ll begin with the part that everyone is here for-The gore. Luckily for gorehounds, it’s plentiful. However, those looking for realistic depictions of gory mayhem should look elsewhere as the effects are completely laughable. A charming staple of bad Italian horror films is that the filmmakers always seem to be so focused on their gory set pieces that they forget that the human body isn’t made out of silly putty. The zombies themselves are unimpressive though, mostly consisting of men in glistening, unset greasepaint and the few gory ones look like they’ve had their faces dunked in cherry pie. Another important element of  a good-bad movie is the acting. Here it’s completely madcap and perfectly compliments the zany  and utterly stupid characters, who spout a stream of constant one liners, courtesy of Fraggosso’s signature flair for laugh inducing dialog. Unfortunately, the score is composed of pieces stolen from Goblin’s scores for Dawn of the dead, Contamination, and Beyond the darkness. While these scores are fantastic, it’s really distracting if you’ve seen these movies. What keeps this movie from being the perfect laugh-fest is that it is bogged down by a constant use of stock footage, mostly from nature documentaries and mondo shock films. These scenes go on forever and stop the movie dead in it’s tracks, while not adding anything at all to the narrative. So, unless the idea of watching ten minutes of ancient burial rites and villagers eating maggots seems entertaining to you, I’d recommend keeping the fast forward button handy. Overall, I would recommend this movie as something to watch with a group of friends and a few beers. It’s one of my favorite bad movies.

-Lawrence Talbot         

I walked with a zombie review by Lawrence S. Talbot

I walked with a zombie(1943)

During the second World War, Hollywood became a well-oiled horror machine, producing an ever-expanding heap of horror movies to meet with the growing demands of the public, who sought refuge from the real life horrors of the war. None of these studios was  more successful at creating genuinely frightening and intelligent horror movies as RKO’s B- picture unit, and no other picture was as thoughtful, haunting, and poetic  as 1943’s I Walked with a Zombie.

The story concerns Betsy Connell (Frances Dee), a nurse who travels to the mysterious Caribbean island of Saint Sebastian to care for plantation owner Paul Holland’s (Tom Conway) catatonic wife. Falling in love with Holland, she promises to bring his wife back to him and soon discovers the island’s superstitious Voodoo roots.

Taking its title from a sensational story appearing in American weekly magazine, Producer Val Lewton aimed to elevate the film beyond its lurid source material and instead  drew inspiration from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca. Together with director Jacques Tourneur and screenwriters Curt Siodmak and Ardell Wray, he fashioned his masterpiece. What makes I Walked with a Zombie so memorable is how rich it is with atmosphere. Cinematographer J. Roy Hunt saturates the film with stylistic dark shadows that could easily compete with the best film noir of the time. The score, by Roy Webb, is filled with lovely melodies and lullabies that are graceful yet minimal; the soundtrack relying  more on the mournful sounds of  the wind, voodoo drums, and  silence, to establish mood rather than a  bombastic horror score. Filmed on sets borrowed from RKO’s  A-pictures and bathed in stunning gloom, it creates a dreamlike and romanticized vision of the West Indies that is completely mesmerizing. The film’s horror comes solely from suggestion and atmosphere, creating a true sense of psychological dread without even a hint of onscreen violence.  Before the sensationalism of today’s gut munching undead, I Walked with a Zombie shows just enough to imply more and asks us to take a chilling look into the dark and into our own hearts.

 -Lawrence S. Talbot                       

Dead Snow review by Zach

          Dead Snow 

 

2009

This Norwegian horror film starts like so many others; a group of college kids on their way to a remote cabin in the mountains for spring break.  You might roll your eyes, and say ‘This old chestnut?’ but when one of the main characters starts naming other horror movies that started the exact same way, you know you’re in for a treat. The friends make it to the remote cabin and immediately start partying, until… a mysterious stranger shows up for some coffee and handy exposition. He weaves a bleak tale about the Nazi’s that occupied that area during the war. Commandant Herzog led a band of 300 men that generally brutalized and stole from everyone in town.

The townsfolk rose up against their oppressors and the ones that weren’t killed by the enraged mob were chased off into the mountains, never to be seen again. The creeper takes his leave after his harbinger of doom shtick is over and the group promptly finds a chest of stolen Nazi gold. This awakens some very angry zombie Nazis that want their misappropriated gold back at any cost. After this the movie really picks up speed with one gory kill after another.

The college students are relatable enough to root for, and the zombies are quick heartless bastards that just won’t stay down. What makes this film stand out and helps it rise above the typical zombie fare is its wicked sense of humor. There are several great laugh out loud moments that you might have to rewind and watch again. The kills are creative and done with old school effects and fountains of blood.

The setting is gorgeous and the camera work never ceases to amaze. Dead Snow won the Audience award at the 2009 Toronto After Dark Film Festival and in my opinion is one of the better zombie movies to come out in recent memory.

-Zach

Tombs of the blind dead review by Lawrence S. Talbot

Tombs of the blind dead 

In 1972, Armando De Ossorio directed the first of four films in his delightfully creepy blind dead series. The resurrected Templet Knights might be the scariest zombies ever created and this film may be one of the most influential horror films of the 1970’s.

In a European castle in the middle of nowhere, the Templars, a fictionalized version of the real Templar Knights, are resurrected when the sun sets. Being horrible sadists in life, the Templars were burned at the stake and their eyes were eaten out by crows, resulting in their blindness. Nightly, they return from the grave as shrouded skeletal figures and feed on the blood of the living. Thought they cannot see, they locate their victims by sound.

An unfortunate woman decides to spend the night in the ruins and is feasted upon by the ghouls. Eventually, her friends venture  to the castle hoping to find her and end up having to fend off the relentless undead Templars.

Though the pacing of the film is a bit slow and it’s very short on plot, Tombs of the blind dead more than delivers when it comes to mood and creepiness. It’s also one of the first european horror films to combine graphic violence with sex, becoming a true exploitation classic. What makes the movie so memorable are the Templars themselves, the magnificent and eerie locations, and the haunting musical score.

The Templars aren’t nearly greasepaint smeared ghouls like most undead in films at the time. They are completely skeletal and shrouded in hoods and rotting medieval garb. Coming in droves, like an army, they slowly shamble along, reaching out their skeletal arms and relentlessly listen for their victims. They are inescapable and unstoppable, and in their reaper-like are hoods are like death itself literally creeping up. One can run for so long, but the undead fiends will eventually get you. To up the ante, the Templars ride on undead horses and carry swords in pursuit of their victims. More than just mindless flesh eaters, they are sadistic in nature and occasionally add sexual torture to the mix. As a result, the Templars are some of the most nightmarish and memorable creatures in the annals of horror. I honestly can’t say enough about them.

The movie was filmed in a crumbling Spanish castle which serve as possibly the most sinister, creepy sets ever put to film, being further augmented by a chilling score composed mostly of chants. The film contains a high level of eerie atmosphere, making Tombs of the blind dead is an unforgettable film experience.

It was followed by three sequels: Return of the evil dead, The ghost Galleon, and Night of the sequels. I would highly recommend the second one as well.

 -Lawrence S. Talbot 

Zombie 2 review by Lawrence S. Talbot

          Zombi 2 

1978 saw the release of the quintessential zombie film, George Romero’s Dawn of the dead. Italian horror maestro Dario Argento served as producer and was given license to create his own cut  of the film in Europe.  It was retitled “Zombi” in Italy and was a massive success. One of the popular trends in Italian filmmaking at the time was churning out often inferior cash-ins or fake sequels to hit films, with the release of “dawn” almost single handedly inspiring the Italian zombie genre and virtually replacing their notorious cannibal movies in the realm of gut munching cinema. An unofficial sequel, Zombi 2 was quickly put into production. Directed by famed director, Lucio Fulci, who had been responsible for some of the great giallo mystery films(Don’t torture a duckling and Lizard in a woman’s skin), directs the film with more integrity than is usually found in these exploitative titles and fashioned what most consider to be his masterpiece. It was released in the United States simply under the title of “Zombie” and became notorious in the U.K as “Zombie flesh eaters”, where it was quickly banned. It is perhaps the greatest of all of the Italian gore epics.

An abandoned ship washes into New York Harbor, where it is investigated by two harbor patrol officers.  Suddenly, a hulking zombie attacks them, ripping the throat out of one officer and being fired upon by the other.

The boat is revealed to belong to the father of  a young woman, Anne Bowles(Tisa Farrow). However, all that she knows about her father had left for the Island of Matool in the Caribbean and that she had not heard from him since. Meanwhile, reporter Peter West(Ian McCulloch) is sent to investigate. The two meet and decide to venture  to Matool to find her father. What follows is a Journey to an island of voodoo superstition and swarms of walking corpses with an appetite for human flesh.

Despite it’s exploitative beginnings, Zombi 2 may be my favorite zombie film. Gianetto De Rossi’s effects far surpass Savini’s work in Dawn of the dead and are genuinely unsettling, especially when you come to the film’s most famous set piece, the infamous “splinter in the eye” sequence. Fulci loads the film with atmosphere, transforming the island of Matool into a dreamlike, nightmare world of fog with a constant tinge of grime that permeates nearly every scene. This makes the film’s gory offerings all the more grotesque, visceral, and dirty. One can almost feel the tropical heat of the island upon viewing the film. The cinematography is downright brilliant and establishes a true sense of dread, despite the characters themselves being virtually paper thin and annoying at times. At times, Fulci’s work recalls the best Spaghetti westerns in style, fully taking advantage of it’s wide screen format, while also being perfectly suited for tighter shots which create a feeling of total claustrophobia. At the end of the day, Zombi 2 is a fine zombie film and one that I would consider essential viewing for anyone who is in love with the genre.

 -Lawrence S. Talbot         

The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue review by Lawrence S. Talbot

The living dead at Manchester morgue.

Review by Lawrence S. Talbot

 

Being released under over 15 different titles internationally, The living dead at Manchester morgue (A.K.A: Let sleeping corpses like, Don’t open the window) is often mistakingly considered to be a British film. Actually, it’s a Spanish/Italian production from Spanish filmmaker, Jorge Grau. However, for better or worse, It and films of it’s kind were responsible for bringing  horror out of the Victorian era and away from the classic gothic set pieces that were formerly popular, thus  changing the face of the genre forever. This film is perhaps the best zombie movie to be released in the genre’s humble beginnings between Night of the living dead and Dawn of the dead.

George (Ray Lovelock), a motorcyclist very much of the “Easy Rider” mold, is on his way to an antique shop when his motorcycle is accidentally damaged by a girl named Edna (Cristina Galbó of “what have they done to Solange?” fame) at a local gas station. After demanding a lift to his destination, the two find themselves at a dead end beside a river. While stopping for directions, they witness a large machine in the field and upon inquiring about it’s use, they discover that the machine is used to destroy insects by blasting sonic radiation waves  into the ground.  Edna is soon attacked by a shambling man by the river and it’s eventually revealed that the radiation has brought the dead back to life. The ghouls unintentionally frame the couple for murder and while dodging attacks from the creatures, they are also on the run from a cop who wants to take them in.

The living Dead at Manchester Morgue may be responsible for setting the Italian zombie genre into motion. It might have been Dawn of the Dead’s influence that would later inspire a rash of imitators, but this earlier effort tends to get overlooked. Filled with gruesome gore and chilling set pieces,  the film begins as a slow build but becomes something of unrelenting shock. It’s visually interesting with it’s depiction of the living dead shambling along the British countryside, through crumbling cemeteries, and eventually laying waste to a hospital. Jorge Grau’s direction is first rate and loaded with atmosphere, further enhanced by lurid colors and the occasional gothic trappings. Living dead at Manchester morgue is a classic Zombie film that is filled with tension and a constant sense of dread. Though the gore might be tame by today’s standards, at the time it was unparalleled by anything else.  However, the atmosphere more than makes up for it and the characters are actually worth caring about.  The Film has since become a cult classic and it’s reputation is well earned as It manages to be both scary and incredibly well made. In the end, this is one of the more imaginative horror films of it’s era and one that shouldn’t be overlooked.

-Lawrence S. Talbot