Review: Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974)
(aka The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, Don’t Open the Window)
Directed by: Jorge Grau
Starring: Cristina Galbó, Ray Lovelock, Arthur Kennedy
Written by: Sandro Continenza, Marcello Coscia
Music by: Giuliano Sorgini
Country: Spain, Italy
Available on: Blu-ray (Synapse Films), DVD (Blue Underground)
IMDb
This Spanish/Italian zombie flick came at an interesting time in horror film history, a good few years after Night of the Living Dead (1968) but a good few years before Dawn of the Dead (1978) or the slew of American and Italian zombie movies birthed in the ‘80s. It was originally intended as just a full-color cash-in on George A. Romero’s original masterpiece, but it ended up being very much its own thing and a progenitor to the more visceral Italian zombie cinema of Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzi, Bruno Mattei, and others. In Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (also well-known as The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, even though it doesn’t take place near Manchester), the dead are brought back to life via an sonic instrument designed to kill crop pests through vibration. It’s up to a very sassy Ray Lovelock and the beautiful Cristina Galbó to convince the inept authorities to send the zombies back to hell. This movie takes a while to kick into gear, but its first half is very watchable nonetheless thanks to gorgeously shot scenes of the drab English countryside, an eerie score that’s half disquieting noises, breathing, scapes, etc. and half funky prog rock, and the lovable gruffness of Mr. Lovelock, who throws unearned spite at literally every person he encounters. Once the zombies shake loose, the film gains serious momentum that begins with a tension-permeated standoff in an ancient crypt and surrounding graveyard and continues towards an unrelentingly bleak conclusion. Although the undead here are more the gray- and blue-pallored sort that Romero would make famous in Dawn of the Dead than the rotted, slithering carcasses of Day of the Dead (1985), this movie has plenty of shocking disembowelments, dismemberments, and other forms of bodily destruction that demonstrate why it would be such an influence on the gore-focused films to come at the turn of the decade. In addition to all that, Grau’s wonderful film has the distinction of being one of the most atmospheric odes to the living dead, feeling very much like a hazy perpetual nightmare. This is easily among the finest zombie movies ever made and really essential viewing.
Rating: 9 out of 10