Following George A. Romero's ground-breaking 'Night of the Living Dead (1968)', a whole new style of horror films arrived. This Italian/Spanish project, in which the title alone gives away its inspiration, is one of the best zombie follow-ups, notorious not least because of its array of titles (including 'Don't Open the Window' and 'Let Sleeping Corpses Lie').The main hero, the fairly objectionable George (Ray Lovelock) seems self-dubbed, and sounding like he is doing a Michael Caine impression. Edna (Christine Galbo) accidentally backs her car into George's motorbike and he has to wait a few days while it is repaired. This means she is then lumbered with his company as she visits her sister Katie (Jeannine Mestre), a struggling drug addict and husband Martin (José Lifante), who becomes the first victim of an apparently reanimated corpse.Galbo is excellent as Edna, who stoically puts up with George's over-bearing chauvinism (SPOILER – her final scene, in which she is newly 'turned' and left to burn, dead-eyed and uncomprehending, her hand held out despairingly to George, is tremendous). Yet George, for all his flaws, makes a captivating and solid lead, especially when pitted against the prejudiced police sergeant (an excellent Arthur Kennedy) – who might seem to spend his time telling everyone his force 'aren't as stupid as you seem to think', but with every utterance, appears to prove that, if anything, the claims are over generous.There are several nicely gruesome, gory moments and a genuine atmosphere of ghoulish jeopardy here, and the pace really builds towards a series of climactic highpoints. Having carefully built-up the growing conflagration involving deadly pesticides, an idiotic police force and a rapidly growing zombie community, the pay-off is splendidly grim. The first zombie is a dead ringer for actor Harry Dean Stanton, but he is soon joined by several others. Their number might be axed or burnt by the resolute heroes, but there are always more to take their place.Jorge Grau directs wonderfully. Filmed in Rome and Madrid, with extensive footage shot in Manchester (including a young lady streaking through the traffic in front of Manchester Cathedral, where no-one takes any notice), many scenes create a terrific snapshot of Britain in the early 1970s, whilst creating a world of living dead, squalid police stations and grainy hospitals. The musical score by Giuliano Sorgini is nicely minimalist and subtly sinister. Apart from the wonderful title, 'The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue' is a masterclass of growing horror and comes strongly recommended.

Often zombie movies have this apocalyptic feeling that it is all happening on big scale. Here we have one that takes place in a village, the English countryside where agriculture is an important part of life and living. Some scientists have invented a machine that makes insects attack each other so they leave the crops alone. No more need for pesticides, great isn't it? It doesn't harm the people, not the living ones. They forgot one thing though, it does affect and infect the dead. Indeed they come back to life. Like in Night of the Living Dead it starts with one, in this case a tramp. No they don't spread like flies here, it goes slow and it's up to a young man and woman who met by chance to warn the others. It's not only the living dead that are a threat but even more of an opponent is the police disbelieving their stories since they never seem to witness the "zombies". Just when you think that the macho head of Police is going to be the big hero in the end thinking there was never such a thing as dead coming back to life he is in for a surprise. Yes be careful what you wish for I thought when watching that end scene. No, wouldn't call it a classic but for a movie that looks low budget an enjoyable effort.

it felt to me like if Fulci directed night of the living dead. It is similar to most Fulci films in that the quiet somber tone makes the unviolent parts almost unwatchable to the point where i start dozing off. Then a gory moment pops in and im wide awake. Luckily the second half of this movie went at a quicker pace and kept my attention. The gore was well done although there weren't any particularly memorable moments of blood. The ending however was totally unexpected and pretty much was the part that won this movie over for me as something slightly above your average zombie movie. The characters were highly forgettable except for mayyyyybe the cop. If you are really into your Italian horror than i would guess that you would like this movie. I've never been a huge fan but thought the beyond and zombi2 were both alright, this is along the same lines as those two.

The Good News: When this one came out, everyone was trying to generate the buzz that came from earlier films, and this Spanish film is one of the better ones. The first attack, while being threatening and scary in it's own right, is a complete influence from the opening attack to those movies, and it plays out pretty much the same as well. It's very thrilling, and really gets to you. The film also contains another throw- back to another earlier film in that the subliminal themes undercurrent in the film are present in the film. The cause of resurrection for the zombies is blamed on an environmental problem, and the undercurrents gathered from it are directly responsible. We bump up the gore significantly from the previous films, and it makes it much more interesting to see. There is the usual disemboweling, a couple of amputations, and several giant blood-spurts from other kills involved. There's much more gore in here as well, too much to mention, so it doesn't need it. Also, this is the main cause from all the zombie action in this film, and we get a large amount of it as well. The entire last half-hour is completely full of action, including an entire part taking place inside a morgue. That just ups the action a lot, and it sends the movie out on a high. Which is exactly what is needed in a film like this. Even better, the zombies get a couple of creepy scenes. The first attack is one, and a later sequence about them rising up from the ground is practically dripping with suspense, and it even gets a cheap jump as well that actually works with the way the movie was heading. There is a lot more, but I can't spoil anything else.The Bad News: The film does have two things I wasn't that impressed with: the zombies, and the detective story. The zombies don't have a large amount of facial distortion to give them their look, and instead just use the standard make-on the face to create the overall look. Later in the film, they look much better, but there still are the other kind as well. They just don't look like how zombies should look. Then, the detective story is pretty preposterous, and it doesn't really gel that well with the rest of the movie. It's creative and such, but it seems weird to the rest of the movie.