The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (1974)

directed by Jorge Grau

Italy, Spain

96 minutes

4 stars out of 5

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I recently finished reading a book about the history of nuclear disasters that touched on the Windscale fire. It's difficult to imagine that this film wasn't directly inspired by the fear of major accidents involving radioactivity such as that. There's been some talk recently about how horror is generational - the most prevalent subjects of horror films in any given generation reflect the fears of society as a whole at that point in time. The Windscale fire occurred in 1957, but the adults who were making horror films in the 1970s were the children who grew up hearing about things like fallout and contaminated milk; if not from Windscale, then from politicians' talk and attitude about nuclear energy in general as it gradually shifted from touting it as a miracle towards looking at it with heightened suspicion. Although this is an Italian/Spanish film trying desperately to look British, the fear of a nuclear incident happening right at your doorstep is relevant to all locales even remotely close to a nuclear reactor.

This is actually one of the most somber and serious Italian horror films I've ever seen. I'm so used to giallo, I'm so used to the lurid colors and the bad dubbing and the women in little to no clothing, that all of that was what I anticipated from The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue, not being familiar with it and not knowing what to expect. Instead I got this incredibly restrained and terrifying zombie picture. This film explicitly has the dead return to life, or at least some horrible imitation of life, dragged back from peaceful death to a state of empty-minded, instinct-driven animation that renders them into plodding abominations. That first time we see a zombie is when I knew this would be something different from the giallo I had assumed it would be. In large part the striking difference between this and other zombie films is in the masterful sound design: When we see zombies, there's no dramatic music, the only noise is a distorted rushing wind mixed with a pulse almost like a heartbeat, as well as the tortured breathing of the zombies themselves. I can't say enough about how much I appreciated this depiction of zombies as wholly devoid of anything resembling humanity; just empty vessels having air forced through lungs that should never have worked again. There's no malice, no hatred. Just a primal directive to feed.

The world this film takes place in is one that feels remarkably like the present in that it is increasingly divided: One slice of the populace is so set in their ways that they refuse to notice the changing world around them, while the other half participates in that change and continues to move with the times. The opening credits play over a scene set in busy metropolitan London where a woman strips totally nude and streaks across lanes of traffic, holding up a peace sign - but no one even glances her way, they just have on the same blank expressions as they did before her. People in this film don't want to move on, they don't want to coexist with those of a newer generation who have ideas different from theirs. They don't bother with specifics when men from the government come and say they're trying a new method of pest control, they just assume everything will be as it has always been, that the government would never do them wrong. This stubborn mindset plays a large part in the eventual disastrous ending and specifically in the fate of the main character, who is targeted for his long hair and leather clothing by the local police chief. The police are not necessarily incompetent here but are operating under an idea of competence that relies on ignorance and outright bullying, and this ultimately leads to the worst possible outcome.

The two main characters in this have a strange dynamic where they truly do feel like two people pushed together by circumstance and never really develop that awkward, forced romance that a lot of man-woman duos in horror do. They meet when the woman backs into the man's motorcycle on accident and she agrees to drive him the rest of the way to his destination as recompense. He is unfailingly rude to her beyond what is understandable in the situation, but nevertheless sticks close to her for the rest of the entire film. For her part she doesn't have much personality but does have a weird backstory involving a heroin-addicted sister being held captive by her boyfriend/husband in an attempt to get her to detox. Thankfully this does not take up much of the running time, because other than introducing some new blood to the cast of characters, I couldn't see what all it had to do with anything. But I did like the dynamic between the main two because of their lack of chemistry. They're realistic as two strangers. We're not expected to believe they develop some unspoken romance for the ages, but they obviously do become close.

You can feel the fear and suspicion that went into making this, and although it would be pushing it to truly call it folk horror, it definitely has those vibes. The sinister government men coming into the countryside with new technology that they promise will eliminate pests and benefit everyone by encouraging better food growth - you can just tell they're doing something, they've got some nebulous motive. It's never made explicit whether or not the zombies are an unintended side effect of the radioactive devices introduced by the Ministry of Agriculture or if something like the outcome of the film was their goal the entire time, but I'm leaning towards the latter explanation. It almost reminds me of Quatermass and the Pit in the contrast between normal country folk and the invading presence of sinister, unknown new technology. I really was not expecting such nuance from this movie and I'm glad to be hearing about a recent re-release of it with better mastering. This is one of my new favorite zombie films of all time, I think.