For their horror, Hammer concentrated on Dracula and Frankenstein, but did occasionally stray into other areas. This is their zombie pic, several years before Romero tried it, and it stands up well. Shot back-to-back with The Reptile, using the same cast and sets, the film is set in a Cornish town beset by an epidemic of mysterious deaths, into which a London doctor (Morell) and his daughter (Clare) arrive. Does the suave-yet-sinister lord of the manor (Carson) have something to do with it? It's probably giving little away if I say, "Hell, yeah". This is an old-school zombie film: unlike later movies where the undead are a shambling threat in themselves, here, it's their creator who is dangerous.
Morell is a good central character, moving slowly from scepticism to belief after he finds a distinct lack of actual corpses in the local graveyard, while Clare faints at appropriate moments, and Carson does everything short of twirl his wax moustache. It's all a bit pedestrian, with a lack of threat which is more befitting a whodunnit than a horror movie, and there are questionable plot-holes: where do all the black voodoo servants go when they're not banging on tom-toms? However, there's one fabulously creepy dream sequence which, personally, beats anything in Night of the Living Dead. If the rest isn't particularly memorable, that scene alone is enough to make this a solid entry in the Hammer and zombie filmography.
C+
