The Plague of the
Zombies
Director: John Gilling
Year: 1966
Rating: 7.0
This film was a delight. I enjoyed it immensely.
Watching zombies clunking around the idyllic English countryside of Cornwall
was a treat. These zombies are pre-Day of the Dead zombies - more a throwback
to original zombies that came out of the Caribbean and voodoo that films
of the 1930s and 40s had. Not bloodsuckers. slow movers, just dead
men who have been brought back to life, partially decomposed and following
the orders of their Master. You don't expect to see that wandering about
a quiet town, coming out of the grave, their eyes suddenly popping open.
Especially if it was your dead wife.
At a little less than 90-minutes this film
directed by John Gilling whizzes by and barely gives you a moment to breathe.
From the opening of drums being pounded in a rapid hypnotic rhythm by a few
bare-chested black men being directed by a man in a hood practicing voodoo
it rarely slows down. Composer James Bernard (The Legend of the 7 Golden
Vampires, Scars of Dracula, Taste the Blood of Dracula and lots of other
Hammer films) uses those drums to keep the film pushing forward and feeling
like something is going to happen. And it does.
Sir James Forbes (André Morell) and
his innocent daughter Sylvia (Diane Clare) receive a letter from a past student
of his who has set up his medical practice in a sleepy village. His wife
is good friends with Sylvia. In the letter his student tells him that inhabitants
in the village have been dying mysteriously and he can't figure out why.
Father and daughter rush to help. But nothing feels right, the wife barely
recognizes Sylvia and walks about in a daze and has a bandage on her wrist.
Forbes wants to perform an autopsy on a recent death - and they become body
snatchers - but there is no body.
Forbes rushes around looking for answers
but black magic seems to be the only answer. But in Cornwall? Dead men are
being spotted walking around like broken toys. And then he spots that Sylvia
has a bandage as well. When you finally realize why someone is bringing the
dead back to life it is more than idiotic - perhaps a jibe at Capitalism.
We are all zombies. Brook Williams plays the doctor, his wife by Jacqueline
Pearce and the constable by Michael Ripper.
