The Plague of the Zombies

Inquisitive London Professor of Medicine, Sir James Forbes (André Morell) and his headstrong daughter, Sylvia (Diane Clare) visit old friends at a Cornish village after receiving a puzzling letter (his brilliant pupil, Peter (Brook Williams) is the doctor of this village, his daughter's school chum, Alice (Jacqueline Pearce), the doc's wife), with a very unfriendly citizenry suffering a plague of strange deaths, the superstitious townsfolk not allowing autopsies to be performed in order to discover a root cause for this plight. When Alice is found slain in the moors, a wound where a piece of glass sliced her arm could be the answer to the great mystery.

John Carson has perhaps the role of his career as the reprobate Squire Hamilton, the village's most powerful, influencial member, the magistrate, whose voice and authority come with having wealth and privilege. He's the chief architect behind a twisted use of voodoo in securing financial success and how the zombies and the string of deaths in the village tie into this is really quite a surprise. Also important in the plot is how Hamilton eyes Sylvia as he sees her father as a major threat to his method of operations in regards to the supposed closed-down tin mine, shut down after numerous accidental deaths to labourers. Sir James and Peter, appalled at the use of voodoo and how this method of witchcraft is being used against innocent folks, will try to put an end to Hamilton, an affliction to the citizens of the community he is supposed to protect.

Exploiting the dead for your own greedy purposes is certainly a unique twist on the zombie genre, and how the undead are forced to do the bidding of Hamilton really establish him as quite the heel in this Hammer change of pace horror outing, taking a step away for a moment from vampires and Frankenstein's Monster to try something just a bit different.

 It was nice to see Morell in a starring role, as he normally is more of a supporting character actor behind a Peter Cushing, but he has the acting chops to hold his own on screen. His character moves forward, seeing an objective of incredible importance as it pertains to solving what exactly is killing the locals in a village, and is bound and determined to solve what is ailing them. Even as his daughter's life is in jeopardy (not to mention his own life is in danger because of his pursuit of a truth Hamilton doesn't want uncovered), and the undead are missing from their caskets--even as he sees Alice rise from her own casket, coming towards him--Sir James is undetered. Brook has a lot happen to his character in the film. He watches as Sir James must behead his wife, cannot give the people in his village a reasonable answer as to why their loved ones are dying mysteriously, and must face some pretty grotesque zombies.

Two fantastic sequences stand out during the film: Alice, her face turning a slight blue/gray, rises from her casket to attempt to attack Sir James, and the zombies surrounding Peter in the graveyard during a nightmare. Both are spooky thanks to the atmospheric handling of the location, the creepy make up effects (predating the rotted flesh of the Romero zombie), and the white eyes absent pupils (reminescent of the voodoo zombies of White Zombie and I Walked with a Zombie) produce chilling results. This is a good one, my friends. Even Michael Ripper, as the chief law enforcer in the village, has a sizable role in this Hammer chiller. A cult hit that has built a solid reputation over the years could be a gem for those who are in search of a different kind of Hammer film.