Arriving at a small African community, a group of diamond searchers find the area guarded by reanimated zombies raised by voodoo and try to enlist a local couple to combat the creatures and get away alive.This is a decidedly decent early effort in the zombie genre. One of the biggest issues here is the fact that this one is clearly still unsure of the traditional zombie format yet so this one is completely off-the-mark in terms of how they're portrayed. Still in league with the slave-like behavior back then, they're unblinking nature and invulnerability in fights or weaponry tactics to guns or weapons might be too much for those looking for more familiar surroundings in a zombie movie. As well, there's the low-budget nature of the film does have some getting over as the make-up work in non-existent on the zombies beyond contact lenses, the sets are minimal and repeatedly utilized while keeping the action relegated to a few small, short set-pieces that are found throughout here. These here hold this one down a little, but not completely to off- set the few good parts to this, mostly all of which is based on the attacks and interactions with the zombies. There's some pretty fun scenes here with this one dealing with the beings in their mausoleum hideout where the scenes of them emerging from their coffins en-mass while going for their victim in the room and a second scene to retrieve a fallen comrade, while there's other fin scenes here with them attacking in the house and the attempts to repel them gives this one some rather intriguing action. The showcase here, though, is undoubtedly the underwater retrieval sequences which features not only the underwater battle with the creatures as well as the centerpiece attack on the ship itself where the creatures come on-board to force battles and barricading tactics that are far more traditionally-inspired which allows for a lot of great fun in the film. This here is enough to make this one overcome the few films into a decent-enough effort.Today's Rating-Unrated/PG: Mild Violence.

A zombie captain and crew guard the treasure of a sunken ship. A motley assortment of scavengers risk their lives to retrieve the fortune in diamonds hidden inside the vessel. Competently directed by Edward L. Cahn, this endearingly hokey low-budget horror flick moves along at a reasonable clip and offers a fair amount of creepy atmosphere. The underwater scenes are especially tense and gripping. The excellent cast of familiar 50's B-movie faces adds greatly to the silly fun: Gregg Palmer as hunky, stalwart diver Jeff Clark, Allison Hayes as the snippy Mona Harrison, Morris Ankrum as the sage, friendly Dr. Jonathan Eggert, Autumn Russell as the sweet Jan Peters, Joel Ashley as the gruff George Harrison, Marjorie Eaton as the wise Grandmother Peters, and Gene Roth as Sam the chauffeur. Benjamin H. Kline's dark, moody cinematography and Mischa Bakaleinikoff's shuddery'n'spooky score are both solid and effective. An entertaining fright feature.

There's nothing particularly remarkable about "Zombies of Mora-Tau", but it isn't the worst way to pass about an hour of your life. Fans of Eddie Cahn will see the resemblance to his voodoo-themed "Four Skulls of Johnathan Drake" which are a strong contrast to his more modern (and influential) zombie/apocalypse films "Invisible Invaders" and "Creature with the Atom Brain." This places this film in the older tradition of zombie movies, some kind of descendant of "White Zombie" and "I Walked with a Zombie" (both of which are superior to the film in question). The zombies in this film are reanimated sailors who must guard a cursed treasure (remind anyone of any recent mega-hits?). They look pretty silly in their striped shirts; it doesn't look like anyone even thought to make them look a bit aged or anything like that.The film's best asset is Allison Hayes and the scenes involving her character, including the memorable scene where she's clearly a zombie but nobody wants to believe it, so they lead her back to the house and surround her with candles at the old lady's (Marjorie Eaton) insistence. Shades of the old vampire movies and their garlic cloves here. Hayes is lovely and her acting adequate. None of the other leads are particularly memorable.There are a few scenes that will draw unintentional laughter from a modern audience but not all that many. Probably the atmosphere in the film was intense enough to scare some young kids who saw it in the '50s. We have scenes of graveyards and so forth – I think it's quite a nice effect when the old lady shows the group all those graves and when asked who they are for says "they're yours." But I can hardly imagine any person older than 5 who would be scared by this film in the 20th Century because it really doesn't even try that hard. Once you get to the scenes with the underwater treasure search you realize this is, like "Invisible Invaders", more of an action/adventure film than a horror film.It's not nearly as inept as some posters here have said, but it's clearly a movie that didn't have high ambitions. Within the scope of its own goals I would say it is reasonably successful.

Some amateur reviewers will excuse anything in a movie and give 5 stars minimum simply for the crew having been able to load film-stock into a camera without exposing it to sunlight. After sitting through all 69 minutes of Mora Tau (that I will never have back) I began to really wish that this bad movie had somehow become a 'lost film' instead of films I'd actually like to see -- such as "London After Midnight" starring Lon Chaney or the original 9 hour version of von Stroheim's silent film classic "Greed".As a devoted fan of zombie films who has seen more than 70 films in the genre from the brilliant to the downright awful, even I must admit that most voodoo zombie movies aren't very good -- aside from Halperin's White Zombie and Gilling's Plague of the Zombies (for Hammer Studios) and to a lesser extent, the entertaining if somewhat offensive 1941 Mantan Moreland minstrel show that is King of the Zombies. Even by that guideline for diminished expectations, Mora Tau is probably one of the worst of the voodoo zombie genre and might make me think better of Halperin's 1936 followup disaster Revolt of the Zombies. Zombies of Mora Tau is so insultingly stupid and lame that it almost made me long for the 'good ole days' of the 1940s when Abbott and Costello were busy ruining the Universal Monsters franchise (though A&C enthusiasts still refuse to admit how unfunny those films were). If you want a good underwater horror film from that era watch any of the three 'Creature from the Black Lagoon' films instead or maybe even (horror of bad TV horrors) the Godzilla Power Hour cartoon with Godzookie. If you want underwater zombies, try Wiederhorn's 'Shockwaves' instead. This film is a reminder that not all old black and white films are 'classics' and I can think of any of a number of cheesy 50s horror films that are 10 times more entertaining. The atomic age sci-fi silliness of Invisible Invaders is another better recommendation than Zombies of Mora Tau. Maybe the 3 stars out of 10 that I gave Mora Tau was too generous. I'm now glad there wasn't a DVD of this for me to buy and that TCM showed it to me for free.PLOT: The basic plot sounds like something the "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl" might have pilfered some basic ideas from: There is a sunken treasure of $1 million of uncut diamonds that has attracted treasure hunters for decades and lead to the demise of many a diver. It seems that the original thieves of the treasure all met an untimely demise and 10 zombies now guard said treasure (though why they live in 10 lined up coffins in a cave like Snow Whites dwarfs is anyone's guess) and will not rest until said treasure is 'destroyed' as the old lady says. The sailors dream of riches and ignore her warnings and try to get the treasure anyway...These are also among the least scary voodoo zombies I've seen in a movie. If all the reels of this film were at the bottom of the sea, I think I'd voodoo up some zombies to guard them and ensure that they were never retrieved so that movie audiences would be spared the horror of seeing this film.**SPOILERS**I have several issues with this film and its lazy writing:*The dive crew/sailors are too dumb to realize that the woman is not 'ill' but now has become one of the zombies and is exhibiting all the same traits. These characters are obviously much dumber than your average horror movie morons.*Sure the old lady claims the zombies are indestructible, but that doesn't stop the sailors from using knives and other weapons on them ineffectively. None of the sailors/divers ever thinks to try lighting a zombie aflame after they display an obvious fear of fire? You've gotta be kidding me. Maybe it wouldn't destroy them, but you'd think someone would at least try it.*Don't establish rules for the zombies and then proceed to break those rules later in the film when it seems convenient to do so.*So the diamonds must be 'destroyed' for the zombies to rest, right? So why does dumping the diamonds into a couple feet of water not 10 feet from the shore of old lady's property count as 'destroying them' and end the curse? It's as if the writers forgot that someone could just bend down and pick retrieve the diamonds 5 minutes after the 'zombies' dematerialize out of their clothes.