Plague of the Zombies

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Plague of the Zombies – what is going on in the village, with multiple unexplained deaths … and the dead walk?

Plague of the Zombies (1966), starring André Morell, Brook Williams, John Carson, directed by John Gilling

Sir James Forbes: Someone in this village is practicing witchcraft. That corpse wandering on the moors is an undead, a zombie.

Product Description

A strange disease of epidemic proportions is invading the English town where Peter Thompson practices. In desperation, he seeks the help of his mentor to make sense of the horrible plague, amidst walking corpses, voodoo dolls and empty graves, the two embark on an investigation that uncovers a ghastly secret and leads them to the shocking truth. Stars: Andre Morell, Diane Clare, Brook Williams Director: John Gilling

Editorial review of Plague of the Zombies courtesy of Amazon.com

Anticipating Night of the Living Dead by a couple of years, the John Gilling-directed Plague of the Zombies gives the gothic treatment to the stumbling undead. André Morell plays an unassuming medical professor called by a former student, village doctor Peter Tompson (Brook Williams), to investigate a mysterious plague in a small Cornish village. They uncover an unholy plot by the devilishly decadent local Squire (John Carson), who has been using black magic to create an army of laborers to work his failing tin mine and has now infected William”s sickly young wife.

Gilling sets a spooky atmosphere, a fog-drenched village where the inhabitants live as if under a cloud of doom, dominated by the arrogant squire, who bullies his way about with his gang of cruel, aristocratic thugs. The film”s highlight is the eerie introduction of the zombies, clawing their way up through the earth and emerging as lumbering, death-masked ghouls. The film has been remastered from the original 35mm negatives in the Hammer vaults, and letterboxed to its original aspect ratio. –Sean Axmaker

Trivia

Filmed simultaneously with “The Reptile,” in August and September of 1965, using many of the same sets.
The film takes place in August 1860.
Three years earlier Diane Clare (Sylvia) plays a much more unpleasant character as Eleanor’s older sister in “The Haunting“.