Let Sleeping Corpses Lie

In the end, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie is one of the best zombie films that no one's ever seen. It owes a great deal to Romero's Night of the Living Dead, yet it also manages to stand quite nicely on its own merits. While the film does have a few script and pacing problems, it more than makes up for them with it's excellent atmosphere and solid gore work.

There are some cheesy moments (and gaping plot inconsistencies) as one might expect. But any laughter soon turns to screaming as the screen fills with calculated gory mayhem and some fine shock moments.

Grau eschews the claustrophobia and siege mentality of George A. Romero’s film, instead playing out some of his more disturbing set pieces against the painterly verdure of the British countryside, as well as making the most of the uncanny atmosphere provided by the Gothic Revival architecture of the film’s locations.

Spanish director Jorge Grau's take on "Night of the Living Dead" is set in the English countryside and starts off slowly but has a tense last half. [27 Oct 2000]

It's a film of unrelieved blackness, from the seedy photographer who snaps his junkie wife cowering in the bath to homicidal babies, from mongol child at a petrol station to Kennedy's brutal sergeant. It's all the more absurdly fatalistic for refusing to draw political, moral or social conclusions.

Though the film looks dated it contains great use of English countryside and a couple of genuine chills.

Despite some satisfyingly gut-busting moments, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue retains a very British stiff upper lip.