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Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974)
By lngway2go | March 20, 2007
Director: Jorge Grau
Starring: Ray Lovelock, Christine Galbo, Arthur Kennedy, Fernando Hilbeck.
What can be said about Let Sleeping Corpses Lie? This is a serious classic of horror cinema, and particularly the Zombie sub-genre. It fits snugly between George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead (1978), as well as Lucio Fulci’s later series of gore-tastic masterpieces, specifically, Zombie (1979) and The Beyond (1981). What is interesting about Sleeping Corpses is that it predated all of these, with the obvious exception of Night, by being released in 1974; it’s a hard to believe fact. Sleeping Corpse is a must have Zombie movie, so why is it largely unknown? I’m not going to answer that, but let’s see about getting it in your library and making it a classic…
If you are hoping for an intestine time, you better just skip about the first half of this movie. There is not a lot of blood in this first half, which concentrates more on the development of the main characters. But, this first half contains just about everything that makes this movie good, well, except for the great ending.
London, England is a busy place, the air is full of pollution from the cars and factories, forcing the inhabitants to cover their mouths when they are traveling about the city. The streets are awash with litter, and animals who have succumbed to the effects of the pollution lay dead on the floor.George (Ray Lovelock) is an antique dealer, he is leaving London for an extended weekend break and a bit of business. While traveling up north to Windermere near Manchester, his motorcycle is hit by Edna (Cristina Galbo) as he waits in a gas station for it to be filled up. Having damaged his bike and not having a vehicle to get to Windermere, Edna is forced to help get him there.
George is a very quirky character. He is blunt and to the point. He is also very quick to point out his inconvenience and takes advantage of that. George takes charge of the wheel of Edna’’s mini to ensure they get to where he is heading faster, and doesn’t hesitate to snatch a newly lit cigarette from Edna. It is this ‘interaction’ between these two main characters which raises this movie to classic status. Am I really saying it isn’t the gut-munching? Yep, sure am.
Edna is on her way to Southgate to visit her sister. Edna’s sister has been living in the country for a year with her photographer husband, Martin, who has been trying to break her of her addiction to heroin. It hasn’t worked, and Martin has called Edna out to discuss putting her away to try and get her off the drugs.
When Edna become suddenly impatient to get to her sisters George is forced yield to her demands and get Edna to her destination first. When they become lost George goes to a farm close by to get directions. He finds them testing a strange experimental machine which emits ultra sonic radiation to force insects to go mad and kill one an other, thus acting as a great pesticide!
George is unimpressed with the machine, but still, the farmer agrees to accompany George back to the car to give them directions. When they arrive at the car Edna is raving about a strange man who tried to attack her. They see no one, but the description that Edna gives is of a man, Guthrie (Fernando Hilbeck), who’d died about a week before, which seems completely unbelievable; do they not go to the movies?
When they finally reach Edna’s sisters house it is dark. Martin was out taking pictures while Edna’s sister was preparing a different kind of shot. She never gets to shoot up though, because Guthrie is up to his old tricks. This time though he manages to kill Martin, while Edna’s sister manages to stay out of Guthrie’s reach. This is when Edna and George arrive, and discover the carnage.
The police arrive at daylight and secure the scene, and they instantly suspect one of the three. George is not allowed to leave no matter how he argues with the hard tongued Sergeant (Arthur Kennedy); another very important character who is very much against the youth movement and full of all kinds of prejudice.
When Edna and George are forced to stay at the local hotel in the village, their distrust of the police forces them into their own investigation in order to prove themselves and Edna’s sister innocent. This forms the backbone of the movie, as they struggle to avoid the heavy hand of the law and expose the true nature of mess they find themselves in.
The films transition takes place in a cemetery. George and Edna go to the local dead persons hotel to see if Guthrie is really a resident. The place is deserted, but once they discover Guthrie’s coffin empty it’s not long before the place is filled with the dead; and they aren’t happy about the accommodation. George and Edna quickly become surround.
The interesting thing with the Zombies in this movie is that they seem to have some intelligence. They move slowly, but they work together. They lift headstones to break into rooms and throw around, and at one point in the movie pretend to be dead while waiting for the right opportunity to feast on a hospital employee. This kind of Zombie wasn’t really revisited to any significance until Romero’s Day of the Dead (1985).
I don’t want to give too much away about the latter half of the movie, suffice to say, there is quite a bit of Zombie action, even some babies get in on the action. Oh, and enough blood and intestines to keep those gore hounds happy. The venomous intentions of the Sergeant and his almost witch hunt like persecution of George really creates a nice, and ultimately quite shocking finale, although there’s a nice payoff; something that always causes a great audience reaction when shown at conventions.
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie is a thoroughly entertaining film, which contains more than an obvious environmental message, albeit with an exaggerated outcome. But, this wouldn’t be a horror movie if it wasn’t exaggerated! Who says that horror movies can’t have a positive message?
Go buy this film now, it recently got re-released by Blue Underground so there are no excuses!
Topics: Video Nasty, Zombie Films |