Let Sleeping Corpses Lie

"Let Sleeping Corpses Lie" is cool little film that fits in nicely with the better Zombie film genre. It pre-dates "Dawn Of The Dead" and the assorted Italian rip-offs that followed, but contains gore that rivals them. Obviously influenced by "Night Of The Living Dead", it still holds a lot of it's own originality. Set in England, but actually a Spanish production, director Jordi Grau makes great use of wide-screen cinematography. The English countryside is a vast open area made extremely dangerous, with lurking Zombies ready to eat the living. This time the Zombies are being awaken by a radiation spewing device used by scientists to kill pesty ants (if you've ever lived in a home with an ant problem, Zombies seem like a small price to pay!). The ants are forced to attack each other, which kills off the race. Well, this machine triggers dead people to rise and (like the ants) attack each other. I will give them credit that at least the reason for the Zombies is somewhat original. But this time our (anti) hero comes in the form of a groovy hippie type named George (Ray Lovelock giving another credible performance!) with the help of Edna (the always pleasent to watch, Cristina Galbo), who try to survive the hungry intruders. What's great about the film, is that it also makes a lot social comments of the time. The police inspector (the always mean Arthur Kennedy) continuously harrases George, and never believes his story because he's a "long hair". While the Zombies are tearing people limb from limb, the Inspector thinks that it's George. I'm sure for the 70's this is a formulaic idea, but for a Zombie movie it's a little different. The music for the film is quite effective as well (though at times the noise that proceeds the Zombie approach, sounds like a large metal sheet being waved in the air) which contains a great opening tune. I've always been fond of Ray Lovelock, because he continues to give good performances in Italian films (see: "Queens Of Evil" and "Autopsy"), and in this film he really attempts to even clone very English like mannerisms (which made the silly dubbing less irratating). Cristina Galbo has also given great performances as well, (see: "What Have You Done Solange?", "The Finishing School", and "The Dark Is Death's Friend") plays the frightened victim role to perfection. As for it's status in the zombie genre, it ranks as one of the best.