Made at the same time as The Reptile, using the same sets, crew, supporting cast and plot ideas. This is the better movie – perhaps not as good as it’s supporters say (well, that’s my opinion anyway) but it’s still effective. It helps in that most of us know what zombies are, so the filmmakers don’t waste time on a silly build up as to what the Creature is, which The Reptile did.
Like that movie, this has some newcomers to town investigate shady goings on. The person behind it all lives in a house and keeps the creature in the basement – although instead of just a house with a snake and sulphur pits, there’s a big estate with a whole bunch of zombies working down in the mines… with room for religious ceremonies by voodoo priests. The climax is more believably spectacular too.
Andre Morrell plays the investigating lead – although I was expecting him to be more of an expert in voodoo than he is (he basically brushes up with an afternoon’s reading). There’s some amateur hour acting from the support cast, although John Carson is a decent villainous squire and Jacqueline Pearce is pretty in a Mina role (i.e. the first female victim, the one who dies in the first act so her friend, the Lucy character – here played by Diane Clare – can eventually live).
Apparently this did quite well at the box office, going out on a double bill with Dracula - Prince of Darkness. However, it’s not as famous as Night of the Living Dead, despite superior production values. I think part of this is because the zombies here are quite benign – they are innocent victims of the nasty squire. Only in one scene are they a real threat – a zombie attack in a cemetery, which is the scariest in the movie… and it turns out to be (boo hiss) a dream sequence. The film thus has more in common with White Zombie (which also had the baddie use zombies as cheap labour; although that also had a love story which gave things greater emotional pull than the events here).
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