Lively, entertaining reviews of, and essays on, old and newer films and everything relating to them, written by professional author William Schoell.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES

A zombie on the attack!
THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES (1966). Director: John Gilling.

This Hammer horror movie has the distinction of presenting pasty-faced zombies two years before the more infamous Night of the Living Dead, but it hasn't much else going for it. People are mysteriously dying -- and then being seen alive -- in a small Cornish village, and the local doctor, Tompson (Brook Williams), can't figure out why. Sir James Forbes (Andre Morrell of The Giant Behemoth) arrives to help investigate the matter with his daughter, Sylvia (Diane Clare). Do all these living dead men and women have something to do with activity at a supposedly abandoned mine at the edge of the village? Jacqueline Pearce plays Tompson's wife, but the best performances are from the ever-excellent Morrell and John Carson as Squire Hamilton. The movie has no real style or tension and doesn't hold the interest. Maybe if Terence Fisher had directed it?

Verdict: It's all a rather dreary mish mash.**.


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