The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue — The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue(Blu Ray)
The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue is one of the early additions to the gore bound 1970’s-to-1980’s zombie film cycle. It mixes dread-filled unease with neck ripping ‘n’ gut pulling zombie action, all set in the lush green-yet- foreboding landscape of the British countryside. Here from the guys at Synapse Films here is a recent Blu-Ray release of the film- bringing together a new bold & crisp 4k scan of the film, two commentary tracks, and a good selection of other extras.
The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue(aka Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, Don't Open the Window, Breakfast at the Manchester Morgue) appeared in the year 1974. It was directed by Barcelona-born Jorge Grau- who had twenty feature-length credits to his name- these went from an uncredited co-directing credit on crime thriller Agguato a Tangeri(1957), onto matador drama The Rash One (1964), through to the gothic horror of The Legend of Blood Castle(1973), and gritty/ unpleasant home invasion thriller Code Of Hunting (1983).
The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue is clearly influenced/ informed by Night Of The Living Dead, but it adds its own twists to the formula, as well as some quite extreme gore in the film's latter half. We kick off in the hustle 'n' bustle of a UK northern industrial city- as we see bearded and long-haired art gallery owner George( Ray Lovelock) on a motorbike- going past the milling pedestrian crowds, smoke spewing chimneys, traffic, and running out in the road female streaker. Fairly soon he’s out into the lush green rolling hills of Derbyshire- he stops to fill up his bike, and in the process Edna(Cristina Galbó) a rather nervy tightly pony-tailed woman driving up from London, reverses into his bike. She agrees to drive George to the house he’s working on nearby…one thing leads to another, and they never get there.
Instead, Edana gets George to drive her to the country smallholding, where her sister Katie (Jeannine Mestre) a trying to kick it junky is living with her arty photographer husband Martin( played by the very Spanish-looking actor José Lifante). Along the way they get lost- she encounters a strange and sinister dripping from the river man, as he goes to get directions from a local farm, where they are killing pests with a piece of experimental radioactive farm equipment. They finally get to Katie and Martin’s place, to find the man who lunged at Edana has attacked & killed Martin, as he takes nighttime shots.
As the film unfolds, a brash-at-times rough-you-up inspector(Arthur Kennedy) appears. He suspects both George & Edana of the murder, as the mysterious man has once again disappeared. The pair encounter freshly raised from the grave corpses in & below a rural churchyard, moving onto a morgue/ hospital where the living dead are causing carnage- with the film moves towards a decidedly DC horror resolve.
The film deftly moves from its foreboding and dread-filled first quarter, with sinister purring 'n' baying synth scaping nicely amping up the atmosphere when we get our first encounters with the living dead. As we move on the unease still remains, but it is often added to by moments of ghoulish clawing hands & sudden brutality, which take in cross impalements, throat ripping’s, and breast 'n' gut brutalization. For the period the gore is well done, and at points nicely extreme- but throughout a keen feeling of unease and sinister dread is kept alive. Acting wise Lovelock is ok as George- though at times his dubbing sounds a little unintentional camp, Galbó works well as the slightly scatterbrain Edna. But I think the actor you'll remember most from the film, aside from some of the more stand-out zombies, is Kennedy who is well placed as the brash, at times using violence to get his way, middle-aged cop.
It must be a good fifteen years since I last saw this film- and it’s still most effective with its mixing of building dread, and escalating gore/ horror. The use of the English countryside is most impactful on the film's flow, giving it a distinctive flavour/ feel. Making it certainly one of the more memorable zombie films of the ’70s.
Moving onto this new region free Blu Ray release- and the 4k scan looks very good, with wonderful depth of greens, and later on brutal red & pale living dead flesh. On the extras front, we have two audio commentary tracks featuring respected genre experts- one with Troy Howarth, and one with Nathaniel Thompson and Bruce Holecheck. I played the Howarth one, and as we’ve come to expect he does a wonderful job- with loads of facts, observations, and interesting perspectives. He begins by talking about the impact of the Night Of The Living Dead when it was first released in Spain in the year 1970. He talks about the work of the film's editor Vincenzo Tomass- who landed up working on seventeen Fulci films. He chats about the two leads, and points out they are one of the more memorable and effective partnerships in genre films of the time. We find out the film had many titles during its development, with its first title being Valley Of The Dead. He touches on the film's budget, which was fairly large for this type of film- been the equivalent of half a million dollars. He talks about the first drowned zombie, who played him, and his low-key but most effective make-up. He discusses the film's interesting character dynamics. Later on, he talks about the career of Arthur Kennedy who played the films inspector- which at this point was nearing the age of sixty. He discusses the emotional involvement we have with the lead characters, and how this pulls us into the film more. He points out comparisons to Night Of The Living Dead, the film's wonderful use of cinematography, and much more. He packs in so much, that you could easily be played more than a few times.
Otherwise, we have Jorge Grau - Catalonia’s Cult Film King( one hour and twenty-eight minutes) this is a most impressive doc, discussing both the film to hand and the director's other work. It features interviews with Jorge Grau, the films make-up artist Giannetto De Rossi and composer Giuliano Sorgini. As well as a host of genre experts/ writers such as Kim Newman & Calum Waddle. This is a must-watch!. We have The Scene of the Crime(15.24) which is a stand-alone interview with effects artist's Giannetto De Rossi. Giannetto De Rossi - Q&A at the Festival of Fantastic Films, UK(42.28). With the disc been finished off with a theatrical trailer, TV spots and radio spots.
It's truly wonderful to see Synapse Films giving The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue the respect it deserves with this Blu-Ray release- with a truly great transfer, two commentary tracks, and other excellent extras. So a must-buy, even if you already own the film in another format- a real gold standard release.