Rent The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue (1974)

Why hadn't I heard about this zombie flick before? - The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue review by RP

Why hadn't I heard about this zombie flick before? It's probably not the first zombie film you might think of (that's if you've heard of it at all) but it is a rather good example of its genre, slow and atmospheric, reasonably well scripted, and a few classic shambling, entrail eating zombies. And although there's not much gore, what there is nicely gruesome :)

Made in 1974 - so its about 40 years old. The sequences under the opening titles show shots of 1970s Manchester and assorted residents in clothes of the day, but other than the lead character's over-long hair and 1970s dress sense and a few cars of the period it doesn't seem outdated. That's because, despite the title, there isn't much of Manchester in it - it's set in fictional Southgate, supposedly a village in the Lake District.

This is a Spanish-Italian production so the fact that it's set in England is a bit unusual. I assume the non-English actors' lines were dubbed in post production...

The story goes like this: George is on his way to Windermere on his Norton (without a helmet) when Edna in her mini damages his bike. They team up and head for her destination of Southgate, where it turns out that an experimental agricultural insect-killing machine using 'ultra sonic radiation' is waking the dead. There are assorted encounters with zombies, no-one believes them (of course), they are suspected by a cop with a bad US-Irish accent of being drug crazed murdering hippies, and there is a final zombie sequence in a hospital with a final (fairly obvious) twist at the end.

For me, the most fascinating thing is the filming locations - it was mostly shot in and around Castleton in the Peak District with a bit of Dovedale thrown in, all places that I know well and recognise. For more info on this look here:

It seems it's a cult classic and I can see why - well worth a watch. 4/5 stars.

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie - The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue review by NP

George A. Romero’s ‘Night of the Living Dead (1968)’ ushered in a whole new wave of zombie-flavoured horror films, and many of them rose to stumble from the grave in the early '70s. This is an Italian/Spanish project, which has been released in a variety of strangely jokey titles including ‘Don’t Open the Window’ and ‘Let Sleeping Corpses Lie’.

Ray Lovelock plays hero George, initally in a very difficult-to-like manner not atypical of films of this time. He's especially mean to Edna (Christine Galbo) who admittedly makes a very bad impression of him to begin with. Llumbered with each other's company, they nevertheless become close as gruesome things start to occur.

Jorge Grau directs this twisted, turning story very effectively, making good use of the British location - especially at the beginning - although the police force isn't portrayed in a very sympathetic light. Filmed in Rome and Madrid, with extensive footage shot in Manchester there is the genuine feeling that things are going to get a lot more bloody as the 95 minutes roll on. Giuliano Sorgini also deserves a mention for his highly sinister score.

Awful - George was and is the greatest - The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue review by The REAL Film Cricket

Not made on a huge budget, a Spanish-Italian coproduction shot in the north of England in 1973-74 I can understand the limitations the problems and the failings a film like this would produce. Nevertheless, this hugely admired film, including one comment ‘the greatest zombie film ever made’ is not just poor, or not very good, it is utterly rubbish.

The beginning, Manchester City centre, a shop owner jumping on his Norton motorbike and riding off – with a cloth cap on – to the Lake District, started off well and actually caught my attention and gave me a trip back to when I was a lad. Okay a shapely lady suddenly drops all her clothes and runs naked through the street as he is in traffic, no reason, no one bats an eyelid, but it is a movie so all good.

The part that dropped this film into the bottom of the sewer was the first proper ‘acting’ part. George stops to get some petrol in a Lake District local garage and ‘Edna’ reverses over his motorbike; it has to be fixed. This is how we introduce our ‘heroes’ and that is okay, unlikely, but okay. Unfortunately, this the point where I immediately no longer cared what was in front of me on the screen. I know it was 1974 and I know Ray Lovelock’s George had to be macho and leading but the way he talks to Edna the way he treats her and what he actually does, on top of her allowing him to do it, is utterly ridiculous and one-hundred years out of date even at that time. From this point the premise is ruined because the main characters would not be where they were if they had behaved like normal humans of the time. Add in the introduction of the ‘living dead’ and what happens and I felt the story was written by a twelve-year old at best.

The only good part was how the writers decided the dead came back to life – okay scientifically nonsense but most films do that – but it gave a reason and sort of made sense.

How the rest of the dead coming back to life unfolded was poor, very poor to be honest, the roles of the police…. I nearly do not have words for it. The chief police office in the film is actually played by Arthur Kennedy, who was in Lawrence of Arabia, here he plays some sort of Irish version of a New York tough guy cop from the same era. Except it is north England in the 1970s. He even has a thousand bullet capacity handgun he carries tucked in his trousers that he kills people with seemingly no consequences. Did the makers do any research or study films from the UK before they wrote and made the film?

The film is shot in annoying semi-dark for a lot of the time, nearly every character is an idiot or does not behave how someone doing that job would. The acting is poor or average at best. The characters are all unpleasant, rude and idiotic. I was bored very early in the film.

I will never watch this film again. I have read about it for decades too and was looking forward to seeing a film that was around at the same time as George A. Romero was making the zombie-genre something to get into and make great films about. Watch Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, even the later Day of the Dead to clear you mind of this film and show you how to make a story about human beings, how they behave, that just happens to have living dead people in it trying to eat them as well.

Just my opinion of course.