Let Sleeping Corpses Lie DVD Review

Leaving Manchester and heading to Windermere for a holiday, George (Ray Lovelock) stops at a petrol station. Edna (Christinie Galbo) backs her car into his motorcycle, so she gives him a lift as his bike needs to be repaired. They soon get lost and George decides to ask for directions while Edna waits in the car. He finds some men working out in a field using an experimental machine being tested by the government that kills insects and parasites, by using ultra sonic radiation that affects the nervous systems and makes them go mental, then attack each other. Meanwhile, back at the car, Edna is being bothered by some dead fellow. They go to Edna's sister's place to stay for the night but they find her sister Katie (Jeannine Mestre) hysterical, as her husband Martin (Jose Lifante) is dead. George and Edna battle to survive in a countryside crawling with Zombies, and avoiding the police that blame them for the deaths left in the zombies wake. The action culminates in the local hospital which is overrun with the living dead.

The living dead at Manchester morgue, aka Let sleeping corpses lie, is a Spanish/Italian production set in the English countryside, beautifully shot in some lovely locations. The film is obviously influenced by Night of the Living Dead, the director openly admits it, but it has enough strengths and originality to stand on it’s own. It was one of the very first gory zombie movies and some of the effects still look effective today, a scene where one of the zombies rips off the hospital receptionist’s breast springs to mind. Giuliano Sorgini’s soundtrack is very evocative of the period and the performances are enjoyable, especially Ray Lovelock as the cocky George and Arthur Kennedy as the cranky inspector . I've long been a fan of The living dead at Manchester morgue, some 30 years on it’s still a zombie classic in my books. S.J.T.

The living dead at Manchester morgue. 1974

Directed by Jorge Grau