Zombie movies that came after George Romero’s seminal Night of the Living Dead (1968) film tended to zero in on the boundaries gore and violence could push. In a sense, Romero broke down a door no one had quite managed to even convincingly open before. For the times, it was extreme, a whole other level of gruesome and macabre that gave the horror genre another tool to generate fear with. Unfortunately, a lot of those movies relied too much on that violence (especially the ones that hailed from the school of Lucio Fulci, Bruno Mattei, and Claudio Fragasso in Italy). They indulged in it so much that they forgot to also borrow from the other part of the equation that made Romero’s zombie films sing: the social commentary.
What Romero managed to present the horror genre with was a monster that carried social criticism on its rotting skin and broken limbs. This is what makes Jorge Grau’s 1974 The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue stand apart from the deluge of zombie movies that came after Night of the Living Dead. It ticks the blood and gore box, but it also makes sure the social critique box gets ticked as well. The movie understands that to follow in Romero’s footsteps you can’t have one without the other. Otherwise, it can easily become just a hollow affair predicated on blood and guts. Why go for one when you can have both?
The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (also known as Let Sleeping Corpses Lie and Don’t Open the Window) was an Italian/Spanish production directed by Grau and starting Cristina Galbó and Ray Lovelock as two hippies (Edna and George respectively) who cross paths as they head out to the English countryside only to find an experimental radioactive farming tool used to kill insects is also raising up the dead. A series of deaths leads a local inspector played by Arthur Kennedy to immediately suspect the two outsider hippies as the culprits, setting up multiple ideological clashes between conservative symbols of authority (cops) and those who question it (the two main characters).
In other words, the movie has a very potent strain of ‘Fuck the Police’ energy coursing through it. The inspector is clearly the reason why the zombie problem worsens once the undead start moving from the cemetery to the small village the movie takes place in. But, as Romero’s movies show, ignorance and stubbornness are but harbingers of social destruction, and Grau makes sure to spill the requisite amount of blood to drive the point home.
The movie takes its time presenting Edna and George before the zombies take center stage. We get the sense they are leaving the big city behind for something more grounded, if only momentarily, and more manageable. An opening montage of the chaos that is London suggests as such. The tradeoff, though, is quickly made apparent. Countryfolk are not welcoming to ‘strange’ and potentially satanic members of the newer generation coming in to disturb their idyllic peace.
The zombie violence does an exceptional job of showing how discriminating and backwards the village and its police force can be. Zombies take the form of recently deceased drunks and local lifers that lived and died without ever stepping out of the limits of their geographic bubbles. Edna and George, sporting a fashion sense that produces a worrying contrast for them against the well-mannered and traditionally clothed locals, stand out quite heavily here. They’re fish out of water and very far away from any welcoming habitat.
Grau sets an impressive pace for the story that holds back on the more gruesome bits so that they can have more impact later on. It’s something akin to how Dawn of the Dead saves its more shocking deaths for the last act of the film. Burning bodies, mass dismembering, and gut-ripping sessions are reserved for when the zombie problem spirals out of control. It becomes a marker of societal collapse, and how people choose to bicker amongst themselves past the point of no return instead of dealing with the problem at hand before it destroys them all.
Arthur Kennedy plays this aspect of the story to great effect as the conservative inspector. He wastes not a single moment dumping every ounce of disdain he has on Edna and George. In his mind, and without tangible evidence, the case was clear-cut the moment two hippies stepped into his orbit. It’s a particular kind of hatred that also brings movies like Easy Rider (1969) and Romero’s own Knightriders (1981) to mind, where trying to exist outside the confines of the system invites the possibility of things ending in tragedy. In this case, it all comes to a head in a closing sequence set in a hospital where Grau lets his zombies embrace the carnage and go for some of the goriest kills in the movie (especially one that’s met by a receptionist). It happens much like it does in Romero’s Dead movies. The best is saved for last.
The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue is a socially conscious zombie movie done right. It’s rough and angry, and it compromises nothing in the process. The violence showcased in the story serves the message, making it one of the best movies of its kind and one that fans of Romero would do well to seek out. You’ll be confronted with the dangers of small town ignorance, but you’ll also want to fight the power once it’s all said and done.
