Weirdhouse Cinema: Let Sleeping Corpses Lie

this time period. It's also a Spanish Italian co production and has I think no actual British people in it. It's also not only a horror film, but eco horror film all true. This is also definitely a grindhouse era picture. It was actually shown in a double feature with West Craven's notorious Last House on the Left, which I realized is a seventy two film, but guess it was still making the round by seventy four or just hitting certain markets by seventy four. But at any rate, Uh, these

two films were sometimes on the same building. It's interesting to realize where different zombie movies come in the course of history, because I think of most zombie films as derivative, uh, not just of Night of the Living Dead, but of Dawn of the Dead, the second film in George Romero's uh trilogy. But of course Dawn of the Dead actually didn't come out, I think until nineteen seventy eight, so like four years after this one. Of course Night was earlier.

But it's kind of strange how I would have said this movie was derivative of Dawn, but in fact it proceeds Dawn. Yeah, it's interesting. It's kind of a I think even at the time, a lot of people compared it to Night of the Living Dead, and certainly it owes uh something to to to that film, as pretty much any zombie film that came after it does. But yeah, maybe it's a little head of the curve on something

as well. Now we keep talking about it, we haven't said the title of the film yet because you kind of have your pick of titles for this film. The again, it's an Italian Spanish co production, and the original title and both languages translates basically to do not profane the Sleep of the Debt, which I guess the international distributors didn't go for. They saw opportunities to to tap into other areas of fear. Uh. It was released under a

lot of different names around the world. The two most common are either Let's Sleeping corpses Lie, which is how we haven't listed in the title for this episode, but it was also widely distributed as The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, or it eventually was widely distributed under that name. Um, that is the title that displayed in the version of it that I watched, though the screen where that title pops up looks very out of place. It like doesn't

match the visual style of anything around it. Yeah, it's also it's a strange title. A lot of these titles are hard to to really rationalize because a lot of them don't really make sense once you get into the plot that there is not a Manchester Morgue in the film as an actual setting. Uh. We only briefly see Manchester at the very beginning of the film, and then we go out into rural Britain and that is where the rest of the film is supposed to be taking place.

Is the city at the beginning definitely supposed to be Manchester. I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be Manchester or London. It is Manchester. That's what I've read. Yes, other titles that this film had there was do not Speak Ill of the Dead, which which sounds pretty good. I mean, that's more or less a translation of the original. Even though it kind of implies that that what's going on here is um like the raising of the dead

via slander or something. It shouldn't come as anybody to any surprise to anyone out there that it was also known as Zombie three, at least in some markets. And this is hilarious because a number of films seem to have been released at one time or another as part of the very unofficial Italian zombie franchise, including Zombie three, which was a Fucci and Matte film. So anything can

or could be a zombie movie. Wait now I'm incredibly confused here, because so Zombie three would mean this is trying to be a sequel to Zombie two, which was the Fulci film that was not actually a sequel to the original Zombie, which was another name for Romero's Dawn of the Dead, which came out in seventy eight. But this movie we're talking about came out in seventy four, and at some point it was called Zombie three. That's

the beauty of the Zombie zero MBI franchise. Yes, so I guess this would have to be like in like I don't know, later video releases or something, right, Yeah, yeah, I think so. Now another title that's a lot of fun for this one that, again it doesn't really fit the movie is Don't Open the Window. I love a

good seventies don't movie. And we're actually going to hear the trailer for Don't Open the Window for that release of the film here and a bit, just because it's the most, in my opinion, the most amusing of the trailers to listen to in a podcast format. I don't remember. Okay, So running through these different titles, we do I think see a Manchester area hospital as a set used in the movie, but it's not really set in Manchester. Do Not Speak Ill of the Dead, as far as I

can tell, has no relationship to the plot. Zombie three is hilarious because this movie came out before the original Zombie and I don't think there's anything about opening a window at all. Can you remember any window stuff? I mean, people probably look through windows, and maybe there's a scene where somebody grabs through a window, but it's not it's not the centerpiece of the picture. I don't know that any of the don't movies really had that going for it.

But when a movie's titles say don't go in the basement, I feel like that one really works. And if well, this is a movie about something horrible going on in the basement where horrible things belong. Uh, but don't open the window, this seems very broad like, I mean, I really just not supposed to open the window. Again. Actually, there's one scene where one character, Katie, escapes a zombie by jumping out a window. So she obeyed the title

of that version, she would have been killed by the zombie. Yeah, a more fitting title would be don't use ultrasound technology. Yeah, exactly, don't trust science, I think would be the correct title here, and and in that vein, I'd say, let sleeping corpses lie. It's probably the most on track of all these titles because it suggests that something is being done to disturb the dead, like you're kind of meddling in some way that you shouldn't. Ye. So the elevator pitch for this

one's pretty straightforward. You have youths from the city clashing with authority figures and the living dad in rural written. Strangely, though, the dichotomy set up in this movie is not an alliance of like urbanity with the youth. The youths are from the city, but urbanity, I would say, is sort of the villain, because that's uh in this nexus of evil things that the movie uh were probably grouped together like UH cops, UH, cities, science, uh, the government, and

I guess anything that happens in a big building. And big buildings, of course have windows. So let's let's go ahead and listen to the trailer for Don't Open the Window. A k Let's sleep in corpses live. They tampered with nature, Now they must pay the price. See the grotesque invade an unsuspecting village, See a hospital, panic when day old babies go berserk. See friends turn on each other in a nightmare of horror. You'll cringe with terror when you

see don't open the window. Whatever's out there? Wait read it are see. Now you'll think twice about opening that window, right, I mean, I wasn't gonna do it before, but now I'm really convinced. So before we get going here, you you may be wondering, well, where can I find this movie under one title or another? Well? I streamed the movie on AMC Plus on Amazon under the title The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue. Shutter has it as well,

and you can render by it digitally. But there's also a Blu ray release from Signapse Films that features a four K restoration and it looks really great, has a lot of neat extra features on it. Now we mentioned a little bit about the locations. One thing to keep in mind with this picture is that parts of it

are definitely shot. Their locations and exteriors that are definitely shot in Britain, and they seem to have have done a good enough job where they used just enough of it that, at least to my eyes, it feels like Britain most of the time, like there are enough establishing shots to establish that. Occasionally though, you can tell like, oh, well that's this looks a lot more like an Italian horror film. The hills look more Italian, uh and uh and so yeah, there there are plenty of scenes that

were actually shot in Italy. Oh. I thought they did an excellent job with the scenery. I was fully convinced about the English landscape and uh yeah, I have no complaints whatsoever about the locations and scenery in this movie. In fact, they're they're pretty, they're gorgeous most of the time. Yeah, it's it's a really well shot film. So let's go ahead and get into the into the folks involved in it. Here,

we'll start with the director. Uh, this is some Jorge Grao who lived nineteen thirty through Spanish director, probably best remembered internationally anyway, I'm not sure about in Spain for this picture, but was responsible for various romances and thrillers. I think he only did three other horror films in nineteen seventy three, Countess Bathory film titled The Legend of Blood Castle, vy Threes, Violent blood Bath and h Hunting Ground. I think those two seventy three films are separate films.

But but now that I read them out loud, it makes me wonder maybe this is the same film. I don't know. Oh yeah, the bath Thory Bath Bathing and blood thing that I can see that, But I don't know. I I don't have the details in front of I think it's two separate films, but they sound a lot of like title wise, now There are four different names that are attributed on the screenplay, two credited to uncredited that you find in in a couple of the databases.

But one of the credited screenwriters is Sandro Continenza, who lived um, Italian screenwriter best known for such films as nineteen sixty on Valley of the Lions, eight, The Inglorious Bastards, Uh, not the Tarantino one later, but Tarantino was drawing on that title, n Hercules in the Haunted World and really just a long list of thrillers, action movies, horror movies, comedies and more. Okay. The other name is credited is

Marcello Kostia. This is um, an Italian screenwriter dates unknown, whose filmography includes work apparently uncredited work on nineteen sixties Black Sunday and such films as nineteen seventy seven Yetti Giant of the Twentieth Century, which stars Tony Kendall and a King Kong sized Yetti. Wait a minute, this nineteen sixties, that's the Mario Baba Black Sunday, Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, Oh,

that's a fantastic horror movie. Yeah. So I don't know to what degree, uh the screenwriter actually worked on it. But there's at least an uncredited tagging on that. And then there are a couple of other Spanish screenwriters who are uncredited. There's Miguel Rubio and one Cobos Um. Both of those are individuals who are like Rubio did a number of Spanish romances, it looks like, and uh Cobos

did various Western thrillers, etcetera. Now getting into the cast here, it apparently depends on where it was released, who got top billing and so forth. But uh, the character, and I guess she's she's one of our our two main characters in this and that is Edna the City Girl, played by Christina Galbo. She was born nineteen fifty was a Spanish child actor who later worked in various films, a number of horror films, but also some dramas in

there as well. Her credits include the Western from Night Twice, a Judas with klaus Kinski, nineteen sixty nine is the House That Screamed? N seventy two is What Have You Done to Solange? And nine The Killer Must Kill Again? Oh, and then also a nine one film titled Sober Natural which just looks amazing. It's also known as Return of the poulter Geist. Oh, this is the verk Beast movie that you shared the cover box and the box art with me on. Yeah. Yeah, this is what a Dutch

VHS cover that I found here. And I have read some reviews that say, don't go into this film, uh sober natural expectant return of the poulter Geist, expecting to get this level of insanity. But it's it's supposedly interesting. Nonetheless, I'm sorry it was so funny because the Dutch language on the cover you shared with has this like tagline that says over Winnen, which I think means like will evil prevail? I don't know I haven't seen it. I

don't know how how it turns out. They might, but it's got the work beast standing there, like clutching some kind of glowing skull over his crotch. It's yeah, or like his belly has a ghost in it or something. It's it's very intriguing. Yeah. Um. Anyway, the actor here, Gabbo, Christina Gabbo, uh quite good in this. It's, as we'll discuss, it's a role that does limit her to a fair amount of screaming and being afraid. But you know, so it's essentially kind of a scream queen role. But I

think she's really good in it. I mean, I would say that the acting in this movie is good for what the movie calls for, which is not very nuanced performances. The roles in this movie are painted with a broad brush, but in in that capacity, the cast is by and large very good. Now our central uh we we kept calling him a hippie, but it might be more accurate to think of him as a rocker. I don't know. There's a lot to dissect there. I've got a note on this later in the plot. All Right, we'll get

we'll get back to this. But this is George. George is played by Ray Lovelock, who lived nineteen fifty through seen. He was an Italian actor and musician. His father was English, his mother was Italian. But I'm still doubtful he's he's doing his own English language dubbing in this film because it's very I don't know that it's very um um over the top, it seemed to me, but I could

be could be wrong on this. Well, it's it's very loaded with the vernacular markers of British English, so it's just a lot of a lot, a little you know, like I don't know what you call it, a little flourishes, like like referring to women as birds and stuff. So so I'm not sure on this, and this might be his own voice. I think everyone is dubbed in this film.

I think this is one of those pictures where they didn't have um, they weren't actually recording this a sound but locally, and then everybody's coming back into dub it. But I'm not sure if he's doing his own dubbing or not here. But at any rate, even if it's just a physical performance, he's still pretty good in this.

It's ah So. As a musician, he put out a number of singles in Italy and Japan in the late sixties and then early to mid seventies, and as an actor, his credits include sixties sevens Django, Kill If You Live Shoot, also Norman Jewison's nineteen seventy one adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof. Oh who does he play in in that Fiddler? Um, let's see, I have to look it up again. Okay,

let me look it up. Hold on Oh, Okay, he plays He plays uh Fiedka, who is a a Christian farmer who is the husband married by the third daughter, have a Okay, it's been a I think I saw Fiddler on the Roof, this version of it with Toball in it when I was a child, But all I remember is just some of the singing. I always loved

Fiddler on the Roof. I think his role in this is sad because when hav falls in love with Fieka and they want to get married, that this is what Teva finally like, won't accept and he says no, no, I will not accept it. Is there a scene in Fiddler in the Roof where someone plays a fiddle on

the roof? Yes, okay, that's at the beginning. Yeah, I thought, I mean I I had that image in my mind, but I was suddenly second guessing myself, Like maybe I since I saw it as a kid and I remember the title, I would just create the memory of top Ball singing on the roof. I need to see it again, clearly anyway. There are other pictures that love Luck was in, including the nineteen seventy four umberto Lindsay police thriller Almost

Human and the nineteen seventy five Jallo film Autopsy. Oh and he was also in Luccio Folci four musical Murder Rock. That's the gory horror musical. Yes, yeah, I I actually have a blu ray of it, but I haven't watched it yet. Um, So at some point I'll check that out and see if it's um if it is something for weird house, or if it's something just for me,

we'll see, Okay, all right. We also have an authority figure in this picture, and that is the inspector, who is not a rural police inspector like he seems to have come in from the city himself because he's staying at the hotel. He doesn't have a local residence. But this character is played by Arthur Kennedy um not a Brett,

not an Italian or or a Spanish actor. An American actor of stage and screen who won a Tony Award for his role in the original production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and was a five time Oscar nominee. He worked in a number of Arthur Miller's Broadway plays as well, and he was in such major films of the forties five teas in sixties as Lawrence of Arabia, Right, Victory, Peyton Place, and Champion. He worked a lot in Europe

later in his career. Uh. This is the second Arthur Kennedy movie that we've discussed on Weird House, because it was in the human Oid from it was an Italian star Wars rip off. Right, Yeah, the one that had what's his name in it? Um? Oh, Richard Keel or Kyle Keel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he plays the the titular humanoid, I believe. Yeah, I forgot Arthur Kennedy was in that. Well, in this he's just a snarling fascist police inspector who has absolutely had it up to here

with the hippies. And it's it's difficult to figure out his accent in this. I was I was, im, I'm guessing, like, since the film is supposed to take place near the Scottish border in what Cumbria, I was thinking, well, maybe he's going for a Scottish accent here. No, to the extent that he is attempting an accent, I think he's going for Irish, not Scottish. But it's but no, it's

almost as bad as Kevin Costner in Robin Hood. Uh. He just alternating freely between attempting an accent and not at all and in the cases where he does actually alter his accent, I do think he's trying for Irish, but there are plenty of scenes where it's just nothing, not even trying. He has a gravelly American voice. I guess it's just his natural voice, and he sounds kind of like imagine the voice of William Holden, you know, kind of gruff, gravelly, um core American accent. And I'd

say this is what we hear at least half the time. Yeah, now trying to figure out the accent itself. Aside, I think he is a very convincing screen presence in the film. Like, again, not maybe not the most nuanced character of all time here, but just as a just as an absolute authority figure villain to to menace our our freethinking youths are supposedly

freethinking youths. I think he's he's pretty great. Like he's just bristling and snarling every time he's on the screen, Basically every scene, he's just decrying the decadence and filth of the young and and saying, why don't we just lock them all up? Yeah? Why why can't I abuse my power more? If only I could abuse my power? Uh, like a few degrees more than we could, we wouldn't have any problems at all. Yeah, we'll see some other actors in this of note, Janine Mestry plays Katie Katie West.

This is the sister of the character played by Christina Galbo. So this is Edna's sister. Uh. She's a major uh, an important character that kind of brings everyone together here. But the actor here was born in forty seven, Spanish actor whose work seems to lean more historical and more into dramas. But she had a small role as a vampire woman in Jeff Franco's nineteen seventy Dracula movie that had Christopher Lee, Klaskinski and Herbert lom in it. Mm hmm quite a cast. I mean you can guess who

klaus Kinsky played, right, Yes? Wait are you saying not Dracula, not drag Christopher Lee's Dracula. Oh klaus Kinsey Rinfield? Yes, yes, okay, makes sense all right? And then playing Katie's husband, Martin West, who have Jose Lafonte, Spanish actor with two hundred four almost at two thousand, two hundred and four varied credits, including seven's beaks. The movie is that when you've seen what You don't remember us talking about Beaks in the past,

I don't remind me. I think it came up on this show, maybe because a listener UH asked us what were the worst films we've ever seen? And I don't know exactly how to answer that. Not you know, it's hard to put old movies on the same scale. You can't consider them all with the same criteria. But I think one of the worst times I ever had trying to finish watching a movie was Beaks, which is a rip off of the Bird, but it was like excruciating.

It had these high pitched, droning synthesizer sounds that were just like needles going into your ears. And pair that with overuse of slow motion and you can imagine just the nausea and the pain of trying to get to the end. This was a Renee Cardona Junior picture too. All right, well, now you've been twice warned to avoid Beaks.

We also have a character that will become important. Guthrie Wilson, who is a tramp lives by the river in this rural British setting, played by Fernando Hillbeck, who of ninety three through two thousand and nine. Um, I thought Hillbeck was interesting in this, and maybe it's more in the way he was shot, but he almost has kind of George Eastman vibes going on here, very intimidating physical presence. Uh. He was a Spanish actor, mostly the character actor, who

did a lot of work in various genres. One of his biggest international credits is I believe he plays a uh like an evil night or something in Paul Verhoven's medieval drama Flesh. I guess it's flesh and blood, but it's always flesh plus blood. Um, like it's supposed to equal something equals negative fun. Yeah, I guess because I don't think it's you never really hear it. Um discussed a lot, all right, don't anyway, But anyway, it had a great cast, Rudgar Howard, Jennifer Jason Lee, Ronald Lacy,

Brian James So uh fun cast. I love. I love Verehoven. I've never seen. Oh yeah I would. It's on my radar. Is something I want to check out at some point, like because the Paul Verhoven movies that that I'm familiar, most people are familiar, you know, like it's it's it's it's it's gonna be the RoboCop. It's gonna be um um total recall. It's gonna be like that caliber of film, which which is great. I mean, those are are perfect films in their own way. But I am curious at times,

like what what are the predecessors to that? You know, what sort of brought him to the international scene, And I just haven't seen any of them. All Right, we also have this is a minor character, but I don't want to mention him because he's kind of I kept thinking of him as the discount Peter Cushing in this um. Perhaps a lot of this has to do is just the shape of his skull and the way he's presented.

But vincente Vega plays Dr Duffield uh dates unknown on the two databases I was looking at, but he's been inactive since nineteen so I suspect he may be dead. But anyway, the actor himself seems to have fairly had had a fairly diverse career, and he acted in various dramas, even some Shakespeare. I can see why you would say Cushing because they bring him into be the kind of thin angular, clinical, semi good guy. Mm hmm. Yeah, kind

of as a grim demeanor. He he's almost a good guy in the movie, but he can't fully be that way because he's too closely aligned with science. This is a major problem. Yeah, this, this film seems to have some some definite opinions about science and it's overreach. Yeah,

we'll we'll get to that in the plot section. All right, it's worth noting that, uh, you know, there are multiple individuals that are credited with the makeup and the special effects, but gianetto do Rosie Is is credited as makeup artist and special optical effects here. He lived one through and Rossi was a big name in both Italian and American films,

with a noted specialty in prosthetic appliances for gory movies. So, I mean, this is a zombie movie, so you know what that means, scenes in which people have parts of their anatomy ripped open or ripped off and eaten by bloodthirsty creatures. I am not really a gorehound, you know, That's not what I usually come to a movie for. But the stuff in this movie is good that there are scenes of zombies like pulling people's guts out and

chowed down on him. And stuff, and it's it's quite convincing. Yeah, And I mean everyone's tolerance level for this is gonna vary. For my taste level, I felt like they they gave us just enough for it to be shocking within the context of the film without feeling like the the cameras really lingering too long, either on the effects or on the like the intended blood and gore itself. Anyway, do

Rosie's credits are are pretty robust. I mean, they're all over the place, and I'm not even I didn't list all of them here, and I'm not gonna read all the ones I listed. But uh, he worked on The Humanoid, which we already referenced. Um, he worked on nineteen eighties Cannibal Apocalypse, which we've covered on the show. Um he was. He worked on a film I've never seen, but this title never fails to make me snicker is nineteen eighties

Dr Butcher m d uh, which I don't know. I just always I'm always intrigued that that there's Dr Butcher empty but anyway, um as it well, I liked that it's opposed to Dr Butcher like Masters of Education or something. Yeah. Um, but yeah, he has also worked on Full Cheese, The Beyond House by the Cemetery, which we've also talked about, Piranha two and eighty one, Conan the Destroyer. In eighty four he did the remember Andre the Giant is in that is this like big like statue monster creature? Okay,

well he was responsible for the monster effects there. He worked on four's Dune. He was one of the people who brought the Guild Navigator to life. Oh yeah, even though the Guild Navigator doesn't really show up in the first Dune novel, but they had to get him in the Lynch movie. Yeah, there's like, we gotta get get him in there, and let's cart him in and it's a great scene. I mean, let's say what you will

about that adaptation of Dune. It's visually enthralling. Anyway. He has some other lists that that go on up um uh into into subsequent periods of motion picture. Here include in two thousand and threes, High Tension, a k A Switchblade Romance, which there's a film I enjoyed when it came out. I haven't gone back and watched it again. It's not a film that really um bears a lot of revisiting, but the first viewing is pretty pretty fun, and it does have some gross score in it. Sorry,

I'm just looking at the credits. You're listed from the nineties where he did Dragonheart, which just that Sean Connery c g I Dragon movie, yeah, oh man. And then he did the um he did the U the Conan rip off that had Kevin Sorbo from TV's Hercules in it. Yep, Cole the Conqueror. Yeah, also the man in the Iron Mask in there. So let like I say, he worked on a wide variety of pictures from low budget um grindhouse fair uh to to maybe even worse stuff than that,

but then also some big pictures as well. And so so any of these films, you know, if you check them out, well at least they're gonna have maybe a an in resting gut ripped sequence in them or something a neat monster effect that sort of thing. Finally, the music on this one, I was really enthralled by this. This film has has really nice sound design and really nice music, and the credited musician here is Giuliano Sorghini. Dates I couldn't find the dates for him. I think

he's still around though. Uh. Italian composer and keyboardists whose work in this film is really good. In my opinion, it's very creepy and unsettling, definitely electronic. Uh. This was his first score, and I don't know, it's kind of all downhill from here in terms of the film quality, of the quality of the films he was attached to. I'm not even gonna list all of these because some of these are really skiezy. But uh. He followed this up within the scores for a number of Spanish exploitation

films of the nineties seventies. Some real trash in there, some of it just notoriously so. But the score for let Sleeping corpses Lie has been released on various formats a number of times, and his non film work is also available on streaming sides. Over the weekend, I was listening to of streaming a record titled Um Occulto and it is supposed to be I believe ten unreleased tracks

from his archives. So stuff that he was, he was he was putting together and composing in the nineteen seventies four film that just wasn't used, and it's it's really good stuff if you if you like, uh like nineteen seventies cinemas, seventh and and the kind of stuff that would show up on a Spanish or Italian horror picture. Uh. Then this is right up your alley. I've been meaning to listen to it. I haven't gotten to it yet, but but I I believe you. Well, I just have

to say this. If you do listen to it, Joe, make sure the windows are shut. Okay you want to go, don't open the window. Well? Should we let sleeping corpses lie here and just call it an episode? Or should we get into the plot of this And I think we should disturb the corpses? Yes? Um, okay, So uh let's see. The movie opens strangely quiet. We we come up cold, no credits yet, in an art shop full of pieces both old and new. And we've got this handsome, bearded, blonde,

slightly Robert Redford ish looking guy who's closing up. I don't know, maybe he somewhere between Redford kind of a bearded young Mark Hamill. Uh. Then again, the hair beard combination also kept making me think of Kurt Russell, though he doesn't really look like him at all in the face. But this is George, this is Ray Lovelock. And he will be I guess, one of our two protagonists. So we see him getting ready to leave the store. I guess he's the shopkeeper, and uh, you know, we're painting

around seeing all the stuff. The store has everything from antique fertility statues to cubist paintings of fish and uh and I just noticed when looking back, it goes by very fast. But Rob, did you notice there is a telephone on the desk and then a clay statue of a telephone sitting right across from it. Look at this. I did not notice this during my viewing of the film, but yeah, there's no denying it. What is that for?

I don't know, it's it's um. One gets the impression that these are pieces of art from cultures around the world. So maybe this is just a mimicry of a of a telephone from some culture, the traditional art of Manchester. Uh, maybe it's the first telephone. I don't know. Yeah, So George gets one, gets this ancient looking fertility statue and he stashes it in his bag. As he's heading out the door, he leaves a sign up says closed for

the holidays. And then I thought this was funny. We get like an extreme close up of the guts of this guy's motorcycle as he is driving away. You know, the camera's right up in the gears and stuff. Now, did you get the impression that he was just a shopkeeper at this store or that he owned the store? And in either case, does he have a right to shove the stuff in a bag and take off for the country. That's a good question. I could not tell

that it was ever answered in the film. Whether he's taking the statue because it belongs to him and he plans to sell it, uh, and that's fine, or if he's stealing it. Yeah, I'm not sure. His stories about why he's going into the countryside are also hard for me to figure out, because at one point kind of like yeah, yeah, they changed, but he's saying, oh, I'm meeting some people to fix up a house. We never

hear anything else about that. And then it's also said that he's taking these things to sell them somewhere in the countryside, and I'm not sure about that either. This is never resolved. Yeah, so in retrospect, I'm a little

suspicious of George. After he leaves the shop, we get a slow zoom shot through through the space where we see more pieces from the collection while these ominous droning sounds and these little like hollow hoots and crackles play on the soundtrack, and you see a Caesar head and the Holy Grail and then a painting that looks a lot like the poster for Apocalypse. Now did you notice that? Yeah, yeah,

I know that you pointed out. But right from the beginning, one thing I love about this movie is the spooky sound design. It's not just the music. There's a lot of just to kind of i don't know, ambient atmospheric sound effects, kind of droning and worrying, as if from distant machines or things coming from underground, and these kind of uh drips and echoing sounds that that create an

ominous feeling, and it's very good stuff. Yeah, yeah, you get that feeling of dread even before anything starts dripping blood. But then suddenly there's green rings a zooming in through the screen and we see red eyes on pale faces, and then a title card that looks straight out of a power point presentation. It says the Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue. And I'm gonna say this title just does not look like it fits the rest of the movie.

It feels kind of inserted hastily. Yeah, if we had more time, it would be interesting to look at other additional title cards for this picture and let's see which once felt the most authentic. But the this one feels very spliced in anyway. We follow the shopkeeper on his motorcycle and he's buzzing down the city streets in busy traffic. We see roundabouts, double decker buses. I was trying to pause it and see what the signs on the buses said.

One said next stop Magnet Building Society, and I tried to look that up and didn't find much. I think it might be like a name for an old construction firm. But anyway, I was wondering, what is this supposed to be Manchester? Because there are later comments that make me wonder if it's supposed to be London, because somebody's saying, oh, the way you're dressed, you must have come up from London. Yeah,

I I noticed that as well. I think this that they did shoot these scenes in Manchester, so that leans one to interpret it as Manchester, but who knows. Again, this was not a British film, but an Italian Spanish co production. Uh. So, even if it creates a convincing vision of life and unlife in Britain, uh, it's still like from the outside looking in, so George's drive being around on the motorcycle. But then we see some bits of green English countryside, but then that inter cuts back

with smoke stacks, heavy industry. We see a man in a trench code weaving his way through the rush hour crowd, wearing a surgical mask, and they're actually a number of images of people wearing masks or scarves over their faces. I wondered if this is supposed to be about like air pollution, because there are a lot of images coming really fast in this sequence, and a lot of them seem to me to be highlighting some kind of pollution or chemical themes. We see vapor coming out of pipes,

steam rising from the sewer, nuclear cooling towers. We see paper waste and just litter blowing through a graveyard. We see dead rats and the gutters, and then there's one uh, we just see a guy taking pills. They just they're really shoehorn in it all in there, like look at the modern world. Manchester is a city of just absolute urban decay, right, I mean it's just like like lots of just like black metal things around, like like industrial

um buildings where everything is just so grimy. Yeah, so pollution, a guy sticking pills, and then there's a streaker. I kept expecting to find out what this meant later, but it's never revisited in the movie. There is just randomly a streaker running through a cross walk while cars and

busses wait at the light. Yeah. I mean, on one level, we can definitely interpret this is just pure seventies tittilation in a way to make sure that people kept watching the movie at this time period in this time period, But within the context of the film, I think maybe it's supposed to let us know that that urban England is also a place of sort of gleeful liberation. That yeah, it's polluted and gross and people are wearing masks, but also, hey,

here's a naked lady running across the street. Okay, I guess so I did not know what to make of that. Um, So George makes it out of the city's riding his motorcycle through the countryside, and I guess here maybe is

a good place to come back to. This flag we raised earlier about what George is supposed to be, like, what subculture or cultural stereotype are we supposed to understand George as belonging to, Because, as we will find out later, the movie is establishing a clear divide, with George on the one side of it and the Man on the other side, and George is supposed to stand in for

counterculture youth rebellion in some way. The police inspector character, who is our main representative of the man, obviously hates hippies in particular, which would seem to indicate that that's what George is supposed to be because they clash. But then again, this is nineteen seventy four, so it's a little late for your your classic movement hippie, and George

doesn't exactly read to me as hippie anyway. He has long hair, yes, but he doesn't display other hippie visual cues or loathing, nor any traces of like a make love not war kind of personality. Instead, he is just a he's more just kind of like a middle finger to the world kind of guy. He is a disagreeable, acerbic, sexist, leather clad, motorcycle driving jerk. I don't. So what's your

take on this? Do you think he's supposed Is it just kind of like, is this what the people who used to be hippies or thought to have sort of turned into by nine four? Yeah? So yeah, so on one level, obviously, when we think of British biker gangs and uh in motorcycles, we instantly think of of Psychomania and which would have just been seventy three, so basically

the same time period. He does not feel like he would this character would fit in with the living Dead motorcycle gang of Psychomania, though, Oh you don't think so. I kind of feel like maybe he could be in Psychomania. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think he could. He get it, he didn't care in off, I don't think this guy cares about anything as much as the crew in Psychomania cares about killing themselves and living forever.

That's right. The Psychomania, you've gotta be really dedicated to mayhem and destruction, and George isn'thing like that. He more just like hates authority and hates institutions and just doesn't want to be hassled. I think, yeah, I was looking poking around a little on this because I was thinking, well, I guess maybe he is technically this sort of British biker stereotype of the day, the rocker, not a mod

but a rocker. And it does seem like motorcycle culture in Britain from from what I was looking at, like you have kind of this earlier version of it, where it was it was seen as quite quite quite this independent and refined thing for you to do, like nice

people ride motorcycles around the British countryside. But then you get kind of this influx of of sort of the the American motorcycle gang culture, and then you get kind of like, uh so the hippie culture or also affects it, and so you kind of get this rocker um version of the rocker uh stereotype, this rocker subculture that I guess George is supposed to be a part of. That's

my best bet. I should also add that as of now, I have not seen a British biker film that doesn't have a zombie in it or a living dead creature of one form or another. So this is something that this is a question that might also be answered by just broader exposure to say, biking films of the nineteen seventies that are set in Britain. Now, wait, I thought we determined that the undead gang in uh in Psychomania,

we're not zombies but liches or something like that. Yeah, they're more like liches for sure, Okay, undead, but but not zombies. Okay. But to come back from that tangent, George whatever he is, hippie rocker whatever. He comes up to a stop at a full service gas station where there's a lady parked in front, parked in front of him, and she's getting some petrol and he says, give us a fill up, and he runs over to get some sweet treats from the pascal stand. Uh. And I was

just looking. I love kind of pausing in old movies to look at all the I don't know, the the ephemeral ads and stuff in the windows. And there was one thing I found here that was a a pin that said it's hanging in the windows of the gas station. It says blow up a groundhog today. And I was like, what is this But it looks like it was a

promotional pin for a type of British tires called groundhog tires. Yeah, There are a number of fun moments in this when they're poking around stores or they're at gas stations that occasionally there'll be some some logo or cartoon character that catch my eye. There's a pink one that shows up later. There's like a pink elephant looking creature. Oh, I didn't I didn't see that one. There's something like paraffin or

but not paraffin. Oh it is this what George is going to use later to light his axe on fire. I don't think so. I don't remember it it actually playing out a part in the plot. It was just me noticing it on a shelf and thinking it was cool. All right. Well, as George is just getting ready to leave, the lady in front of him backs up. Her car crashes into his motorcycle rexit destroys his front tire. She

gets outd and says, I'm so sorry. I must be a little tired, and uh, well, his bike is all busted up and the mechanics says it can't be fixed until Monday. So George just insists that the lady give him a ride to where he's going, which is Windermere, which is the name of a lake, and I guess probably the area around the lake in northern England. Yeah. He's not very easy going, like that's established pretty early on. This guy is fussy and bossy and self centered. Um

and uh it's not all that agreeable. Yeah. He says, like, you'll take me where I'm going is the least you can do? And then he she's just like, well, I guess and then he says, I'll drive. I mean we don't want to go all the way and reverst do we? The vibes are instantly weird. Yeah uh and uh. Then she goes, actually, you'll be doing me a favor because I have driven all the way from London and I'm

a little tired. And he just says, then go to sleep, and he gets in the driver's seat and they drive off, driving a car, by the way, the approximate size and shape of a Galapagos tortoise. Yeah. Um, and there there's so there's a lot a little like character color while they're driving along. At one point, the lady goes to light up a cigarette and he just like yoinks it out of her mouth and takes it for himself. And they introduced themselves. We find out his name is George.

She introduces herself as Edna and he goes, you look a little like an Edna. So I kept thinking of her as Edna for the rest of the film. But we learned about Edna's mission. She's up from London to visit her sister who has a cottage at Southgate, and while they're driving along, the dude starts getting mad at the radio because there is a report on there where scientists are talking about how ecological problems are exaggerated and there's no reason to get worked up about them, and

he gets very mad at this. He says to Edna, he's like, when we all die, only the scientists will survive. Yeah. I was kind of taken aback that this movie would would draw this. You know, obviously it's going to draw a line between the rebellious youths of the day and the aged establishment at the police and so forth. But they just go ahead and heap science in with the man as well. Yeah, and this is not unique to this film, and this movie is sort of one of

a type. There are other horror movies of this period that have this kind of I would say it's a shallow, anti intellectual view of science that doesn't really understand what

science is or what it means. Uh. And unfortunately there's still plenty of this thinking in the world today, but it sort of thinks of science not as a word that refers to like the totality of the human effort to understand the world through empirical method and rigorous experimentation, but instead to refer to a cabal of wicked old men who want to do unnatural things with chemicals and radiation. Yeah. And in a way, this this hearkens back to the

mad scientists of of older films. But this is definitely a period we saw and we've talked about some of these ecological horror films. Sometimes it's it's it's the ecological horror going on. Is pollution or uh, you know, it's chemical, or it's it's certainly radiation. Uh. And then sometimes it's it's it's very distant, it doesn't have a face, it doesn't have a mad scientist at the center of it.

There's more of the sense of bureaucracy to it. Yeah, and this movie, I would say it's more like that, like we don't even know the person who invented the machine in this movie. That will that will raise the dead. We only see some kind of low level functionaries bringing it out to the field to implement it. Yeah, and when we see it, it looks nice. It doesn't look particularly particularly suspect um, but it is modern and shiny

and uh and ultimately poses a threat. Yeah. But but again, like, I think it's funny that the radio broadcast here in the movie is used specifically to introduce us to scientists, as like the voices who tell people not to worry about ecological problems or pollution and just ignore it. The irony being that in reality, like if you know about ecological threats like I don't know, like how did we find out about ozone depletion, or like the human health

effects of environment lead from gasoline and other sources. Here, it's all like paved over. Like I guess if if George in this movie met Claire Cameron Patterson, he would like call him a twisted old geezer and punch him in the face. Uh. But it's like, you know, we are often made aware of these ecological threats specifically because

of the work of scientists. Anyway, get off the hobby horse. Uh. So back on the journey, there is a really funny scene where they get stuck behind a City of Manchester mortuary truck and they're weaving back and forth wildly. George's driving, of course, and he performs a hideously reckless passing maneuver, like driving off into the grass. I guess this is the show. He's like, he's cool and he doesn't play by the rules. And so they're going to Windermere. George

says it's because he has a house there. Again, his story kind of keeps changing, but he says he has a house in the country. He says it's away from industry in city life, and he likes to sit there and be natural and listen to the grass grow. But this leads to an argument because Edna needs to go to Southgate to to meet her sister to go to her cottage. So they argue, and then eventually they decide, okay, he'll take her to Southgate. And here is they're going through.

There is absolutely marvelous scenery. I love the locations picked out. I assume most of these are in Britain because they look like Britain. I don't know if some of them were actually Italian. But for example, they come across Uh, this kind of craggy relic of an abbey or something on these green cliffs overlooking a road down at the

bottom of the ravine. Uh. And I was wondering. I think some parts of this movie were shot at Tintagel, which is like a medieval Cornish fortress down in the southwest of England, and it might have been this sequence, but I'm not sure. But yeah, there are number of sequences here where it's like lush green landscape surrounding them and these winding isolated roads and uh. And it's quite beautiful.

But of course the film score, the sound effects that we hear the droning begins to uh make as suspect that there's something else going on here. There's something underneath the surface of all of this natural beauty. Yes, certainly. Uh. Now they get lost, of course, So they got to

ask for directions at a nearby farm. And there's a scene where George he's gonna go ask for directions, so he leaves Edna in the car, and it looks like he has to like cross a stream and climb a mountain to get to a farm where he's going to ask for directions. It looks like it is a it is a ways. Uh oh, and he takes the car keys with him because he's just again, he's just gonna be in a jerk. Uh. And Edna has left behind to smoke a cigarette. And I'm sure get into no

trouble whatsoever. But at the farm, George goes out. He's looking around. The place seems kind of deserted, and I love the eerie feeling conjured here. There are chickens clucking in the distance, but nobody in sight until a weird droning sound comes in and George looks up up through the fields up the hill and sees a strange red vehicle with what looked like people in white lab coats or I guess they're in white full body jumpsuits. And so next we jump to them. We're going to meet

them and see what's going on here. The vehicle they're working from says that it is the Midland Area Agricultural Department Experimental Section. These guys will be a recurring theme in the movie, Rob. Do you want to describe what's going on with the agg Department scientists? Yeah, we have a couple of gentlemen here in these white jump suits. Uh. And I want to say not your space age jump suit. They look very you know, blue collar in many respects,

and the individuals act very uh. You know, they're very laid back about it. They're not, they're not. They're happy to talk about their work to a random dude who just walked up across the field. Uh. And yeah, they're They have this big red um vehicle that, you know, they're very much looks like some sort of like a combine type vehicle, except you don't see any any traditional agricultural tools on it. So that instantly makes you wonder, like,

what does it do? It doesn't have, um, it doesn't have a combine on, it doesn't have any kind of like a plow attached to it. And then one of the dudes is walking around with some sort of scanning device. It kind of looks kind of like a metal detector type thing, except with some added dude ads on it. Uh, clearly monitoring something going on in the soil. Yes, it

looks like a big sci fi weed whacker. Uh. And so he's holding it there and George comes walking up to everybody and he's like, hey, tell me how to get to the Madison place. But they're like, wait a second, Um, now, and the scientist is show or at least the I don't know if these are supposed to be scientists or just the guys who work for the scientists, I'm not sure, but they they they're showing the farmer how to use this metal weed whacker thing to do something to either

scan something or emit raise or something. And George goes, oh, what is that thing? And uh? And they explain, or the farmer does, that it's supposed to destroy insects and parasites. He says it was simply the Department of Agriculture. And then George goes, oh, I'd send it right back where it came from and keep the insects and parasites nature has given you. And so they argue about it. They say, no, hold on, now, it's they make excuses for it. They're like,

it works by ultrasonic radiation, not a chemical involved. Love that no chemicals. Uh. And then they also explained that it is progress. But meanwhile, so George is trying to get directions from the farmer to the place they're going, and then we see the agg department guys in the background like they're going like, all right, Bernard, let's give it another bash at the main rotator. Yeah, they're they're good nature trusting technicians of this machine ray that they've

been sent out to test. Yeah, I think so. Now, I don't think it's much of a spoiler to go ahead and reveal. Yeah, this is definitely the science running buck that will raise the living dead later on in the picture. And I do love the localized nature of the premise here, and I think the specivity of it

works well with the themes here. Our main character will of course put one and two together in time and realize that we know what is causing the deep ecological unrest here, and we know exactly what we need to do to stop it. But is the establishment going to let him? Is the man going to let him? Or they just gonna accuse him of everything? Well, no, because they are allied with science, and as we know, science is evil and all it wants to do is do

unnatural experiments and cause pain and suffering. I you like so again you have a very specific origin for the zombie minutes that's gonna come, And I like that it's not the old standby of radiation, it's not chemical waste. Maybe it's a little early for chemical waste. Cinema, I'm not sure. Electricity is often a frequent pick as well, even in pictures from this time period. You get they get some get some electricity leaching into the ground, and

watch out, earthworms that're gonna come for you. But this one is this is a picture that involves ultrasound as being the source of the unrest, and I'm struggling to think of another ultrasound eco horror film. I'm sure such a thing exists, but I can't think of it. But I also think it's funny that they can't just call it ultrasound because I think that doesn't sound scary enough,

so they call it an ultra sonic radiation. Oh well yeah, and then you do get to invoke radiation uh in in the in the picture as well, So yeah, yeah, But anyway, so you know, they're giving another bash at the oscillator, and then there is this ominous humming and worrying as the machine spins up and again. As I mentioned earlier, the sound design is very nice and a lot of the scary scenes in this movie there are these various types of eerie, throbbing, hooting sounds that seem

to come from nowhere or from everywhere, very effective. Meanwhile, back down at the car, we're we're here with Edna or Edna, and here's our first zombie attack. It kind of comes out of nowhere. She's just standing there in the road. And then there is and so there's a nice beautiful stream going by. And again I want to emphasize that the location here is gorgeous. So every uh you know, it's like this green, verdant valley with the with trees running along the side of the stream and

an old uh you know, stone walled cemetery. And then we see suddenly a man just sort of like walking into frame in the cemetery and we get a close up of him and the pupils of his eyes are not round there, star shaped, and they're set against red irises, and uh oh, he's coming for Edna. It's very creepy looking. I think, extremely good zombie design. I think so too. Yeah, the zombies in this picture are not greatly decayed. This

is not going to be a real um. What we might think of today is kind of like you know, the the the walking dead sort of zombie that's that's heavily rotted. Uh And that these contacts are nice. They give them this nice um other worldliness to them. And also the zombies I think they're just they're shot well, they presented well. Uh, it can be a challenge, evidently you can see this in some of the lesser zombie pictures out there. How do you make a man stumbling

around or even lunging, uh, you know, incoherently? How do you make that that frightening to people who have all their wits about them? How do you make them a surprise? How do you make them feel terrifying? And uh? This picture you know uses a number of different tools to really get that across. Uh. Not only you know, a distance and angle at the shot, but but again that that that sound design which just seems to you know, to resonate and and also invoked this idea of like

sound waves. Yes, and hey, I want to be really I want to be fair to the people who called this movie don't open the window. There is a part here where and that tries to hide in the car, and the zombie reaches through the window at her. So okay, I stand corrected. There there is a window and the zombie tries to come through it, but it's a car window, which is not what you think of when you hear

don't open the window. Yeah. Yeah, this was gonna be the inspiration for the picture they just got Don't hide in the car. Yeah anyway, and escapes. She meets up with George and the farmer. She tries to explain what happened. She says, that man, he's following me, he tried to attack me. But George looks down there, there's no one there. They just see, you know, the peaceful little ravine, the stream going along, And it seems like George doesn't believe her.

He's like, are you certain? And uh. The farmer here's the description she gives it says it sounds like she's describing three the tramp who used to sleep down by the river, but he drowned recently, so it probably wasn't him. And then from here we go on to meet some more characters. We meet Edna's sister, Katie, the one who she's going to visit, and Katie's husband Martin, who together live in a rustic country cottage with a waterfall in

the yard. This is a nice piece of land. And Martin seems to be like an artist and a photographer, and we learned that Katie has been addicted to heroin she has she's been addicted, and Martin is trying to help her quit, but she like secretly uses the drug when he's not looking. Yeah. I don't know where she's getting her drug out here in the middle of nowhere, but but we we see her with it, so she does have some. She's stashing it away and trying to

get to it in secret. Right, And like I said, Martin is a photographer, and his particular art photography seems to revolve in large part around taking photographs of flowers at night with stupendous artificial lighting. So it looks interesting in the picture unless you stop to wonder, like, what's going on here? Is is all the artificial lighting we're seeing in this shot? Is this supposed to be his artificial lighting? Or is this movie lighting just to make

it things look cool? Uh? It was kind of hard to figure out what they were going for here. Did you show Bonnie the scene? Did she have thoughts? I didn't show her this particular scene. Um, I mean, so, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like this guy's going to a lot of trouble to to shoot these flowers, Like shouldn't he be. If he wants to control the lighting so much, he should just shoot them indoors in the studio and he's gonna shoot him outside.

He should make use of natural lighting. But who am I to tell Martin how to how to follow his dreams? Here? Yeah? Okay, so Martin is kind of strange looking. Would you say? He's got sort of a bird of prey face with like metal heavy eyebrows. And whenever I see if it's a zombie movie and they introduce a human character who is visually striking in this way, I often wonder if this person was cast first of all, with an eye

for what he will look like once he inevitably gets zombified. Uh, and then rather than being cast for the part of the movie where he's a living human with lines and not saying he's bad in the part where he has lines. But I just look at this guy and I think, Okay, they wanted him as a zombie, and they will get him as a zombie. Oh. Absolutely, he'll spend most of his screen time as a zombie. But but first you gotta make him believable as as a non zombified human being,

which they guess mostly do. So we find out he and Katie talk, and we find out Katie knows her sister is coming to visit. She deduces that's because Martin is going to try to send her to a clinic so that she can get off drugs. But she she is not ready, and she she has a big emotional breakdown about this, and uh and that that it leads to a fight, and so Martin just goes off to do his photography by himself. And oh and then meanwhile we cut back to George and Edna while they're approaching

the house. They're still driving and and Edna is saying like, I'm not mad, you know, I don't imagine things, and George just goes me thinks the lady don't protest too much. Yeah, absolutely does not believe her. I think it's what he says, like, go three must have had a twin brother, that's all it was. No, he hasn't even gotten to that yet. He says that later once he starts a little bit believing her. At this point, it seems like he doesn't

even believe anybody actually attacked her. So, like you said, at the cottage, Martin is like setting up his camera to automatically take pictures of a flower next to a waterfall, and with all this artificial lighting and so like, what do you know, if it's just snapping shot after shot, it's it's gonna keep taking pictures as zombie attacks, right, how convenient. So of course, Guthrie, the tramp zombie shows up. I don't know how it beat the car, like I

got there before the car did. Well, you know, they're they're shambling when they actually go over the attack because they've been just booking it the rest of the time, I guess um because because you know, we have all the zombie action going on at locations in this film that are are very isolated, like this is very rural Britain, we're supposed to believe here. So uh yeah, they're traveling from one location to to another pretty quickly somehow. But

the zombie shows up. It chases Katie around. Uh initially I think she's trying to do drugs and then she gets startled and the zombie chases her. She escapes out a window manages to get away, but then the thing comes upon Martin on the banks of the creek and it kills him. And just then George and Edna arrived to find Katie screaming. And then we cut to the

next morning and the police are here. They're investigating Martin's death, and so the setup of the movie is complete, and here we are about to meet I guess our chief antagonist other than like science and the zombies created by science, and that is our vicious fascist police inspector. I don't think he has a name, does He's just the inspector. Inspector. So they're looking at the body, and the I think the medical examiner he's like, I've never seen anything like it.

Somebody certainly enjoyed themselves here. And the inspector says, oh, a sadist, huh. And then the medical examiner goes or a lunatic, But he says, one thing is for sure, the attacker was enormously strong, because the victims of Bones have been crushed, every one of them. M M. I don't know about that, yeah, but oh and then meanwhile, so the inspector is going to go interrogate all of

the witnesses, so George, Katie, and Edna. And on the way to doing that, he like pulls aside one of the cops there and he goes, button up, man, you're wearing a uniform, not a pair of pajamas. So he's that kind of guy. He's a he's a uniform code guy. Yeah, he's a he's just a real ray of SunShot of this guy. But the interrogation is going on, and Katie is describing the zombie who attacked her, and then Edna

tells the cops. She's like, oh, I was attacked by that same zombie, And obviously the inspector does not believe them. But then h and the says, why would I invent such a thing? And he says, why, it's very simple, miss to back up your sister's story. And I was just thinking, okay, wait, is this correct interrogation procedure? Are you just supposed to like explain your theory of the

case directly to the Interviewee? No, I mean I mean, likewise, is the inspector just gonna set there and just consider any wild idea that a medical examiner throws out there? Or or later on there'll be another scene where somebody just brings up an idea and he's like, yeah, yeah, I think you're right. Yeah lunatic, Yeah, broke all the bones, all of them. I love how this will connect later to when somebody tells him about the existence of satanic cults. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

that's the same. Yeah. So he's just he's hard, nos, he's out to finger somebody for this crime. And and he doesn't mind telling you to your face like yeah, I think you're I think you're a killer, and uh yeah and and uh and we're gonna We're gonna get you for this one. There's no escaping me. There's no I think the law on this one. And he he

has several just like brilliant things in the scene. One is that the inspector finds that Katie's photographer husband had taken naked photos of her, and he's like, explain this. It's like, what what is the relevance? And here we get to the inspector's awesome theory that Katie must have done the murder because, as is well known, being addicted to heroin gives people superhuman strength enough to crush every

bone in Martin's body. Now, as we're dissecting it here, all of this sounds ludicrous, but there is something about the way that it's presented in the film, like the authority with it with which is presented, and like like Arthur Kennedy's character. The inspector here is so sure of himself and so sure of his um, his his role in the investigation that everything he says is just considered reality, is just considered a considered a fact and the proper

interpretation of the evidence before him. Yes, that's exactly right. He I mean, he said, I explaining this in a matter of fact way to highlight how ludicrous it is, but he delivers it with cold cruel authority. Oh and then George comes in, by the way to be like, hey, I'm not part of this. Let let me get out of here. I've got a house to look after. And the inspector like grabs him by the collar and he goes, listen, boy,

you keep getting on my nerves. I'll give you another house to look after, the kind with lots of bars on the windows. Yeah. Like he's he's already like physically grabbing, even though he's like, they don't think he's really they've really had a lot of time in the picture yet to really bump up against each other. Yeah, not at all. So anyway, the police tell George and Edna you can't leave. You have to stay in the hotel in south Gate

until the investigation is finished. And uh so, while they're getting out of there, but George steals the film from Martin's camera because they think if they can get it developed, it will prove Katie is innocent. And George says, we better develop it ourselves because cops never like to admit that they're wrong, and if it shows that Katie is in a sense, they'll just destroy it. So they go

to a place to get the film developed. It is a place that is a store called Groceries c R O C E R I E S. Maybe that's supposed to be a G but if there's a bar on it, it is indistinguishable from a seraph. But these are delightful looking storefronts. You just want to go in. Oh yeah, I love it, check out the labels, freshly made sandwiches. And then they go to the hotel which is called the Old Owl Hotel, which has an old owl in it.

And I so thought this owl was gonna go berserk and attack somebody in the movie due to the ultrasonic rays, alas never happens. Yeah, it looks impressive though, sitting there in this little perch, and when they're checking in George is again just a jerk for no reason. To the hotel owner, He's like, I don't want to spend any longer in this place than I have to. He hates everything. Yeah, I mean, granted he's going through a lot in this particular moment, but he was grumpy before all of this.

So let me get to the hospital sequence. And there are several things to discuss here. One is the okay, so the setup is, uh, they find out Katie has been taken to the hospital, and George and Ed and I go to see her. First is the location. I love the location again, this hospital looks awesome. It's like a kind of New Gothic style. Yeah, I was reading this is Barnes Hospital for the exteriors. Anyway here Manchester.

But let's see, there are a few things to describe here, Rob can you can you explain what's going on with the cadaver freezer boxes here? Oh yeah, so we're introduced to these, uh, these freezer boxes that they're hauling corpses out in and they look very space age, um like it's I guess it's possible that this is exactly what, um what these kind of sarcophagus coolers looked like um at the time, but I they they felt a little high tech. But the idea here is that, hey, we

need to move dead bodies across the countryside. Uh. We don't want them to rot, so we have these special like cooler coffins for them. And so George is looking at one of these things in the hospital and Dr Duffield comes across him. This is the Peter Cushing kind of guy. Uh, and they they discussed. He's like, what is this and and he explains He's like, oh, well it's a way as to the Manchester Morgue and so

you have to put him in these boxes. But Dr Duffield says to George, quite a few people leave their bodies to science these days. Shall I make a reservation for you? And of course George is like, of course not. I would not leave my body to science. It plaies that science is just this ghoulish endeavor and all it wants is just to desecrate your body for it some sinister purposes. Give me body so I can do something evil and unnatural with them. I'll probably put chemicals on it,

probably um. But this this gives way to the aggressive babies to see, Oh my god, this. This was just out of kind of out of nowhere. It's one of these scenes where I guess in the grand scheme of things, they introduced this to further explain how zombies work in this picture her, but it ends up just feeling like this sort of side pool of just absurdity and weirdness that is of course delightful, like the very kind of thing. I love it a picture. What is the deal with

the aggressive babies? Well, it's just suddenly in this um makes sense later on. But all the babies that are being born are born super aggressive, and they're so aggressive that like, if you get close to one, the baby will bite you and draw blood or scratch you and draw blood. In fact, doesn't it happen to George, like he gets a little too close. Um, Well, it starts because one of the nurses gets like her, I poked

out by a baby. And then the doctor is like, come help me, So he just enlists this random guy from the hallway to come help him with the baby. I guess they're trying to sedate the baby because otherwise the baby is ripping people's arms off. Um, and they do, and yeah, the baby I think like attacks George while they're they're they're trying to get it sedated. And they explained, Yes, every baby born here from the region around this farm

where they're trying out the agricultural device. Uh, it's just been born with hostility and aggression. It's like they're all born bart Harley Jarvis is one of the most aggressive babies I've ever seen. So, Joe, you have a baby. How strong is a baby? They're incredibly strong, but I think not quite as strong as this movie depicts. So

George goes on to share his theory. He's like, hey, wait a minute, all these aggressive babies that have been born, they're all from this area around where they're trying out the the the ultrasonic radiation device. I wonder if that's making the babies aggressive. So Dr Duffield is intrigued, and together George and and the scientist or the doctor, they go out to talk to the act Department scientists in the field. The aggt department guys explained to Dr Duffield

how it works. They say it works by ultrasonic rays. That the rays are used intentionally to drive insects mad and make them kill all of each other. Uh, and it has destroyed they say it has destroyed every insect for a mile radius, which, to be clear, I think would not be a good thing. No. I mean imagine they the the ecological uh disorder that would erupt if

you just totally distorted all the insects in a given area. Um. Yeah, So in a way, it's it's kind of an interesting concept to roll out in the film, but also one that just seems also unrealistically breathless, like the scientists involved in creating this strange weapon would have to realize that this is incredibly dangerous. Well, they say soon they're going to get it working up to a five mile radius. They're proud. They're like, yeah, there's actually one mile that

was yesterday. Five miles that is what we're going for today. We didn't hear anything you said about making rage babies. That's ridiculous. Yeah, And they they appealed to him. They say, to the doctor, you're a man of science. Surely you understand this machine only the affects the most primitive life forms like insects, and that more evolved life forms cannot be affected. Yeah, that sounds very scientific. Um uh. Dr Delfield seems to acknowledge that this machine maybe what's causing

the rage babies. But unfortunately he's like, he says, like, it's never wise to exaggerate, you know, they would laugh at us. He says that to George, so it's basically like he's saying, I am I too, am one of the dark invoys of science, So I cannot stop it no matter how much I would like to. I mean, how many rage babies could there be at a given time?

Not here the kind of side. So there's a scene in the groceries store in town where they're getting their George and Edna get the pictures developed, and then they're like, oh, too bad. The zombie does not show up on any of the pictures, and they're asking the guy like, could could anything caused someone not to appear in a picture? And he goes if they were a ghost maybe um, And then uh, George says about one of the pictures,

good thing the police haven't seen this one. She really looks like she's about to do him in, I guess talking about Katie. And then just hilarious, the inspector comes right in and he like walks into the store and he's like, got you now, and then he gives a speech about all you damn hippies. I I'd kill you all if I had my way. Yeah, this is a wonderful snarling scene from Marthur Kennedy. This is the you're all the same, the lot of you speech that he

gives gives George in particular. So oh, but after he leaves we the shopkeeper shows off a newspaper that has a picture of the guy who drowned of Guthrie, and Edna looks at it and she's like, that's him. I was taken by the fact that here is the local newspaper and above the fold huge picture of a dead man, very common, Yeah, just of a corpse. And she's like, yes, that was him, And George is like, well it must have been his twin. Then he must have had a twin,

and that's what you saw. Uh. So George decides to take Edna to the cemetery so he can He says, I'm going to cure you of your fancy hallucinations. And I think the plan is George is going to make Edna look at Guthrie's dead body so that she will know that he is actually dead. Yeah. Again, this is another detail of the picture of plot details that sounds ridiculous. But when you're watching the film, like I don't know, you don't, I found myself not questioning these these plot choices.

I'm like, yeah, this is the logical place for them to go. Of course they would go and look for the body. It's great. And so they go. They're followed by a police officer by the way, this guy named Craig is tailing them. And then oh so this is this goes into one of the big horror action set pieces in the movie, the semi terry scene, which I thought was just fantastic, really tense, uh scary, good staging of a lot of the action. I don't know how you felt, but I thought this was a great uh

centerpiece of like the action horror in the film. Oh absolutely. This is one of those sequences that really makes you think about zombie films in general and just realize you don't need a whole horde of zombies to have an effective nail biting sequence. You just have some some internet interesting setting, interesting location, and then you only need like one, two, three zombies tops, which is all they have going on here as they end up having to deal with them

in this uh this basement here. That's serving as. Uh, it's not really mortuary. I don't know what it's wherever they're they're preparing, they're they're casketing the bodies. I guess, yeah, I don't. It seems like it's a crypt maybe or something, or it has vaults on the wall. Okay, so describe that. What what happens in the cemetery scene here, Well, obviously a gut Thrie shows up. He's been booking it this

whole time. He knows where his next zombie mauling appointment is going to take place, and so he shows up, and we quickly learned that these these uh, these create critters are pretty indestructible. Yeah, so they're impervious two wounds. Guthree attacks them in like the basement of this like

the caretaker's house in the cemetery. They go down in the basement and they're there in the crypt and Guthrie shows up and locks them inside and so that they can't get back out the way they came in, and he's he's coming at them, and George is trying to like stab him with a rail or something, but it doesn't afford to harm him at all. And then we

learn that these zombies. The Ultrasonic zombies can reanimate other corpses by smearing blood on them, so they recruit freely from the RESTful dead and and turn them into the undead. And this was just a whole great tent scene. George and Edna finally escaped by like knocking bricks out of a vault wall and climbing up through an open grave. Uh. And they meet up with Officer Craig here that the

police officer, but then the zombies attack again. They get chased back into the caretaker's room and have to barricade the doors. Uh. Eventually, Craig, the police officer, is killed while trying to escape and get help. Uh. And in the last minute, like the air, character seemed doomed until George defeats the zombies. He realizes he can by burning them. It's the only thing that works. Oh yeah, yeah, this,

this whole sequences is fabulous. Craig the cop is so doomed from the moment you start getting to know him, because he's like, he's like, oh, Georgia, after this, you'll realize not all cops are bad. I'm a good guy, right, And you're like, oh, this dude is getting his gut seaten by a zombie, no doubt about it. Um. So, the two interesting things about the zombies that are revealed

in this thing. First of all, there is the the ritualistic dabbing of the blood on other bodies to raise them as like zombie almost like zombie men, and um that I really liked and ultimately raises a lot of questions that are you cannot answer regarding how zombies work in this picture, but it's very unsettling in the moment because it's it's so unexpected. Also, we quickly learned that these zombies are tool users. While zombies and other pictures might just want to rip and bite at you, they're

just gonna use your claw and bide attack. These will actively try and hammer you to pieces with a big crucifix. Yes. Oh, and that crucifix will come back in in a minute when when the cops arrive on the scene. Uh so. But anyway, George and Edna escape and they run off in separate directions. I think Edna is going to maybe try to find Katie or something, and George runs off to destroy the ultrasonic machine at the Lewis farm. And meanwhile you think, well, wait, a minute, though, are all

the zombies dealt with? I think all the zombies we knew about have been destroyed, so maybe the nightmare is over. But no, remember Martin, remember market, the guy who had that the weird look from earlier. It looks like the rays have powered him up now and he attacks and he eats some cops. And then George arrives back at the agg department guys, and and he's explaining what's going on,

and they, for some reason don't believe him. They go, like, you talk about the dead walking and cannibalism, it's unscientific, man. And then George says, lots of things are unscientific, and they happen just the same, and he like grabs a wrench and starts smashing the oscillator on the machine. No, no examples, by the way of what all these unscientific things that are happening all the time are I want to know, like, other than the zombies, what does he

have in mind? But anyway, back in the scene at the cemetery, the inspector has arrived and he concludes that George is in fact the one who killed Officer Craig here and the caretaker and all the zombies. So he's like, Okay, this guy is he's got to be destroyed. Shoot him on site. And then he's like, why did they burn the bodies? And there's this new creep hanging out. I don't know where this creep came from. This guy shows up this late in the movie and he's like, oh, inspector,

you need to learn about Satanic cults. Yea, So this weird rando shows up to introduce the idea of Satanic ritual murder into the inspector's mind. It's like it's a match made in heaven. It's a well, there's a moment where he's like thinking about it. He's like, you know, I hadn't thought about that, But then instantly he's in like, I bet that's it. Yeah, that's this guy, George. He's awful. He's clearly a sex craze, drug using, um hippie rebel

who hates the police. Uh. So, it's just it's just one step beyond that to assume that he also worships Satan and his car hanging out unspeakable acts for a black mass. Uh. It's also if we were talking about this a little off, Mike, it's fitting and funny that the inspector believes all these things of George where George doesn't. Actually, we never see George do drugs. We never see George um have any kind of a sexual interest in anybody. Like, so he's none of these things that he's accused off

throughout the picture. He he just is a rebellious jerk. Yeah. No, all he really does is like he's just rude to people. That's his main character trait. As if the film is saying, yes, the youth of today they do suck, but but not for the reasons that guys like this thing. They say, it's just because they're they're selfish and rude and they don't want to be uh they want to be off to in their own thing. Uh yeah, yeah, not because they're all in satanic cults and anyways, so Edna is uh,

several other things happen in between here. There's a whole thing where Edna gets attacked by the Martin zombie, but she escapes. She starts to kind of lose her mind. Uh, the agg department guys power up the five mile trusonic rays. That can't be good because then we cut to the hospital, the Southgate Hospital and we see all these new freezer bodies arriving. Uh. Um, so we know there's gonna be

a zombie rampage at the hospital. And there is. The police catch George and interrogate him in a hilarious scene where they're, uh, they're telling him, you know what all the satanic murders he's been doing in George, he protests. He says, I've never been to a black mass in my life. Oh. Because they find the statue, like the antique statue that he had in his luggage that he was bringing up here, uh, and they pull it out and they're like, this obviously proves you are involved in

Satanic cults. And he says, I don't worship that. I just sell things like that. And then he says, it's not my fault, Sarge, that Christ and the Saints are out of fashion. It's a it's a it's a good scene. I like the that this, uh that his his his use of these artifacts or as they're having these artifacts on his person, like it's come back around to bite him. And now this is evidence being supposed evidence being thrown

at him by the authorities here. Also, though this are effect in no way appears to have anything to do with Satan. I guess it's just because it doesn't look Christian. Maybe I don't know. Yeah, I mean I think it it fits with what they're going for here, Like this is a guy who just assumes anything that is a little bit foreign or un Christian is just satanic. Clearly these are these are occult items. And George is up to bloody business. But the inspector he he has like

a rage moment and he like punches George. He's he's incredibly mad. Uh. And he's complaining to this other guy, the creep, who showed up earlier to tell him about Satanic cults. He's like, if I just had more of a free hand with these criminals, um and uh. I mean, well, George he escapes out the window and then he runs to the hospital for the final showdown, So you basically know what's gonna happen. It's gonna be a big zombie showdown with all the characters and uh and and basically

all of our main characters get killed by the zombies. Here. There's a great part where where George lights an axe on fire and he's swinging it at the zombies, and that's that's pretty brutal. Uh and uh, at one moment, you think, oh, George, is he gonna be able to save Edna? But no he when he gets her out of the room where the zombies have attacked, she has star shaped pupils. Now, so it's too late. She's already one of the zombies. And then in a final brutal twist,

George is shot by the police. The inspector guns him down. Yeah, just brutally guns him down, shoots him multiple times, and then he kind of like leans over the body and says something about how he wishes he'd come back to life so he could kill him again in cold blood. Uh so just real, real, real brutal moment that I mean, I could not unexpected. I mean, this is the mid seventies. But yeah, in the space of just a few minutes, Uh, Edna is mauled by her own sister and uh who

has become a zombie? She becomes a zombie, and then our our last protagonist is just murdered in cold blood, and then we kept the only characters who were left are the fascist cops. And so the inspector is like riding ground in a car with his sidekick here and the guys like all the papers say you're a hero, and uh, he says the inspector says, justice has been a bit slow in these parts, all this permissive rot going on. Maybe people will learn a thing or two

from my example here. Um and uh so, so what's going on? Is he gonna go into a career in politics now or something? But nope, And we we then see, uh, they drive past another one of the Agriculture department machines and they and the guy comments on it. He's like, oh, they're setting up a new one of those now, um, and it's gonna they say, it's gonna rid all of the the apple orchards of pests. I'm just mad about apples.

And the cops laugh about this apples. But then, of course, uh, you know what's gonna happen now that they power up another one of these. Um, the inspector gets to his hotel room and the old Owl hotel, and who's there waiting for him but the reanimated Ultrasonic Corps of George to get his revenge, and and the Inspector meets his demise and gets his come up and yeah, so and it almost in a kind of like Tales from the

cryptesk nasty ending. Yeah, the most awful character in the film survives to the end but then is killed in horrific fashion, and then something is also quite fitting of eco horror in general, there's a sense that the threat is far from over, the threat is going to continue to expand it's still out there, which you know, isn't just about setting up the possibility for a sequel or something is that uh certainly would would be uh in in subsequent decades, but just kind of this idea that

like this is just the starting point and the problem is going to spread and get bigger and bigger. We're gonna keep getting zombies and keep getting rage babies. Rage babies and zombies and insects killing the apples though, are going to be amazing. We know that much. Though It's funny, I think you could probably come up with a more plausible, hard its fiction UH film just about what would happen if you literally destroyed every single insect within a five

mile radius? So that seems like that would have devastating consequences, Yeah, like taking out most of your decomposers and and so forth, just just as one example, I mean, it would be dreadful for the environment, dreadful for the apples too. I'm always pleased on a film like this shows some restraint.

Um because since this is a film where, yeah, there's some really gory moments like the zombie the probably the gory ists are the scenes where the zombies eat the cop and then the there's a scene where they tear apart a nurse in the hospital, and those are very gory sequences, but they I felt, at least for my taste, they didn't go too far. And likewise, plot wise, nobody fights a rage baby. There's not a scene where the rage babies run run wild and George has to fight

them off with his flaming acts. Uh. There's some other moments in the film too where I felt like they showed a little restraint with the premise. Um. So yeah, and I think above all as even though a lot of these plot elements are kind of laughable in retrospect, that they are presented with a seriousness uh and a in a commitment to filmmaking that that makes this probably

one of the more entertaining zombie films I've seen. Like I I the night that I watched this, I just turned it on just to check out part of it and ended up watching the whole thing. Yeah, I totally agree. I thought this was a fairly excellent zombie movie. Surprisingly compelling action and characters in situation and beautiful looking. I like the the horror design, but also just all of the gorgeous locations. Yeah, so there you have it. Let Sleeping Corpses lie a k a. The Living Dead at

Manchester Morgue. It's been a cult favorite for for for years, and I understand why this one's This one's a lot of fun, so I definitely recommend it to folks who want to a bloody good zombie movie. Now. Just reminded everyone out there here at Stuff to Blow Your Mind were primarily a science podcast. Uh, and we're we're pro science. We don't think science the enemy trying to turn out our babies into rage babies. There anything to to to that extent. Uh. In our core episodes of Stuff to

Blow Your Mind come out on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We do listener mail on Monday's short form artifact or Monster Fact on Wednesdays, and on Friday, we set aside most series concerns to just talk about a weird film here on Weird House Cinema. If you want to see a list of all the movies we've covered in the past, you can go to a couple of places for that. I blog about these at Samuta music dot com and then if you go to Letterbox that's L E T

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