Review: The Plague of the Zombies

Andre Morell plays a respected professor who arrives in a small town on the request of former med school pupil Brook Williams. It seems an unusual plague is bumping off the locals thanks to a voodoo-practising local squire (John Carson) who is creating a zombie horde for self-serving, sinister means. Diane Clare plays Morell’s bubble-headed daughter who accompanies him on the journey.

 

Sometimes enjoyable 1966 Hammer zombie movie from director John Gilling (Hammer’s “The Mummy”, “The Reptile”, and “The Gorgon”) is frankly a bit overrated. For me, I’m not much into voodoo films and it takes far too long to get its motor going, with more reliance on talk than I felt helpful. Once it finally does get cooking there are a few standout elements, but it was a bit too late for me by then. Some of the imagery is interesting and fun, the first appearance of a zombie is quite startling. The make-up is pretty good, actually and we even get a decapitation, which is quite bold for 1966. However, it needed a lot more of that early on to really win me over, the first 45+ minutes in particular being distressingly uneventful.

 

The immediately thunderous James Bernard (Hammer’s “The Horror of Dracula”, “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, and “The Devil Rides Out”) score is typically excellent, Arthur Grant (“The Devil Rides Out”, “Dracula Has Risen From the Grave”) shoots the film wonderfully well as you’d expect as well. A grumpy but heroic Andre Morell and villainous John Carson (the best thing in the film) are well-matched as adversaries here, though Diane Clare is an insufferable bubble-headed twit. A very serious Michael Ripper offers up solid support as a bobby. Meanwhile, am I the only one who strangely saw some western plotting in this? Take out the zombies, move it to America’s west and I swear this could be a western. I know it sounds bizarre on the face of it, but watch the film and tell me Carson isn’t playing the stereotypical evil rich landowner exploiting the less fortunate (zombies here) in his selfish money-making schemes.

 

Colourful, occasionally barmy, but slow and talky voodoo zombie film isn’t really my thing. There are moments, and it’s better than the overrated “I Walked With a Zombie” and “White Zombie”, but I wasn’t overly fussed overall. The last 30 minutes are good, the first 50 much less so. The screenplay is by Peter Bryan, who also scripted “The Hound of the Baskervilles” and “The Brides of Dracula”.

 

Rating: C+

 

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