Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti

First of all, don't scoff at a 9 out of 10 rating for this film!

Trying to say it doesn't stand up to, say, Titanic, for "quality" is ridiculous...by just rating it within the horror genre, this is a superior effort.

Anchor Bay has released this film recently on DVD with a very informative interview with director Jorge Grau (since released twice on Blue Underground, the 2nd of its releases transferred in HD under the alternate title The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue). He does admit this film was made because he was asked to do something comparative to Night Of The Living Dead. Fortunately he did something more by actually caring about the project and the result is a film that still terrifies after all these years. For being made in 1974, that's a feat indeed.

The film wastes no time in getting to the fun, and with just the right amount of setup about society's excesses whether it be pollution or morals, and then going further with the 1950s style of saying good 'ole radiation (our fault again) is stirring up trouble. Even though it was made around the same time and may only be a coincidence, the scene where babies are rebelling brings to mind Larry Cohen's film It's Alive!

Aside from a familiar face in actor Arthur Kennedy (who was deliciously grizzled in his behavior), the use of not-so-familiar faces really lets you sit back and absorb the story and thrills. It was actually nice to see a lead actor like Ray Lovelock look, as Kennedy's character exclaimed, a "long-haired hippie" instead of the squeaky clean GQ faces of today's heroes. These characters were very real, very believable, and you did care what happened to them.

Not many films date well, but this one could have easily taken place now as 1974. The locations, atmosphere, and overall look of this film is gorgeous. The acting is very competent, the score accents the mood well, and I was very pleased with the uncompromising ending. What I was probably the most pleased with was the fact that it doesn't feel the need to distract you with heavy cussing and lots of nudity (as in films like Dan O'Bannon's Return Of The Living Dead).

It also does not alienate the "over 35 crowd" like myself by pandering to MTV age boppers, the cast is mature and the characters more involved with their fate instead of being concerned with fashion and scoring some to get wasted (like the recent Idle Hands, don't get me started on THAT one). Most horror films these days just don't leave you feeling very satisfied, and I was ready to watch this one again!

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie is probably the most overlooked and underrated zombie film ever, and do yourself a favor by giving this one a look. Don't try to compare it with others, don't try to dissect the logic. It pays off with it's genuinely creepy mood and you'll find yourself watching it more often than most of any recent favorites you might have.

Corpses who seem to have risen from their graves infest an isolated piece of countryside and walk among the living again…Shortsighted and prejudiced critics might easily refer to this as another gem that tries to pick in on the success of George A. Romero's classic `Night of the Living Dead'. On top of that, `Let Sleeping Corpses Lie' is an early 70's Spanish/Italian co-production and those movies automatically get categorized as meaningless garbage. But, if you decide to ignore this movie due to these reasons, it's your loss. You'll miss out on one of the most imaginative and clever zombie films ever made! Jorge Grau's modest horror masterpiece is stuffed with ingenious findings, strong plot-twists and adorable black humor. And surprisingly great acting too, as Ray Lovelock (Autopsy) and Christina Galbo (What have you done to Solange) form a lovely horror couple. They're stuck with each other after a silly accident and continue their trip together. Ending up in a quiet little village, they discover that experiments with ultrasonic agriculture methods have disastrous effects on the nerve systems of primitive life forms, causing babies to act homicidal and the dead to live again. The dumb cops, however, have no ears for the warnings and the Inspector considers the couple to be Bonnie and Clyde-like Satanists. `Let Sleeping Corpses Lie' is an excellent horror film with a lot of style and substance. The film contains a lot less nauseating butchering than you might expect but the few sequences in which zombies are devouring their victims are pretty damn gory. The photography is beautiful and you should be prepared for a few impressive shocks that'll hit you like a ten-ton hammer. Highly recommended to all horror fans!

On the video nasties list as simply The Living Dead (it has several other titles), I watched a version called Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, it is pretty difficult to see why this was on the list to begin with. Yes it has some gory moments, but nothing that is close to the opening of people as, say, The Boogeyman (1980), which was dropped from the DPP's (Director of Public Prosecution) list of films that were prosecuted and eventually banned. But then again, there are many strange entries on the list, as we will discover over this project.

The Living Dead begins with the serendipitous meeting of George (Ray Lovelock) and Edna (Christina Galbo) at an isolated garage. Two individuals traveling up north from "that London". Already condemned when they arrive in a small village, what with their hippie looks, they would most certainly be crazy drug-addled satanists. But something more sinister is occurring, as the living come back from the dead to eat the living.

Well, of course it's a zombie flick! It's implied in the title! It's not the greatest of films by a long shot. But it is a well-made film. The "message" is ecological; the culprit behind this macabre situation is an experimental machine from the department of agriculture, that emits radiation to combat insects etc for crops. Damn you government, with your ill-conceived ideas of progression!! The film does also produce a pretty amusing line from 'The Inspector', Arthur Kennedy; "I wish the dead could come back to life. Because then I could kill you again".

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In Manchester, the owner of an antique shop George (Ray Lovelock) rides his motorcycle to Lake District in the countryside with a couple of antique pieces to a house where his friends are working. When he stops at a gas station, the driver of a Mini Copper Edna (Cristina Galbó) reverses her car and hits his motorcycle. George orders Edna to take him to Lake District to compensate the damage but she asks him to go first to Windermere since she needs to visit her problematic sister. Then she would lend the car to him. George drives Edna to her sister's cottage but they get lost in a dead end road. George leaves Edna in the car and walks to a nearby farm to ask for directions. He meets three men from the Department of Agriculture using an experimental machine to kill insects through ultra-sonic radiation in the range of one mile. Meanwhile Edna is attacked by a strange man and she runs toward George but the man disappears.

In Windermere, Edna's sister Katie (Jeannine Mestre) has an argument with her husband Martin (Jóse Lifante) and he leaves the house to take photos of a waterfall. Katie is addicted in heroin and prepares a shot while Martin is outside. However she is attacked by the same man that attacked her sister and she runs to the field where Martin is. The man hunts her down and kills Martin, and Katie flees and meets Edna and George that are arriving in their car. They call the police and the arrogant and bigoted Inspector (Arthur Kennedy) believes that Katie killed her husband. George and Edna try to find evidence that Katie is innocent and Edna discovers that the attacker is a man that has drowned in the river. George finds an absurd and heads with Edna to the cemetery to see the corpse of the man, and the inspector sends a police officer to follow them. Soon they discover that they are under siege in the cemetery by living dead. Will they succeed to escape from the group of zombies?

"Let Sleeping Corpses Lie" is a great zombie movie directed by Jorge Grau. This is the first movie from this director that I have seen and the beginning of the story shows his concern with the environment, showing the pollution everywhere in the area of London. Ray Lovelock and Cristina Galbó show great chemistry and have good performances and Arthur Kennedy is irritating in the role of a ruthless inspector. This movie was released with several alternate titles, and I bought a used collector's tin from Anchor Bay Entertainment and unfortunately is missing a couple of pages of the booklet. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Não se Deve Profanar o Sono dos Mortos" ("It Shall not Desecrate the Sleep of the Dead")

Note: On 13 September 2015, I saw this film again.

The 1971 giallo "What Have You Done to Solange?" was the film that first turned me on to the abundant charms of Spanish actress Christine Galbo, and I just had to have more. In "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie," an Italian/Spanish coproduction from 1974 directed by Jorge Grau, Galbo plays a redhead but is still oh-so gorgeous. In this one, she accidentally wrecks the motorcycle of vacationing antiques dealer Ray Lovelock in the English countryside, and before long, both of them are playing defense against the horde of reanimated corpses that has been brought to inadvertent life by an experimental, ultrasonic farming device. In one of the DVD's many extras, Grau freely admits, during an interview, the picture's debt to George A. Romero's seminal "Night of the Living Dead" (1968), and this debt is not only obvious with reference to the gut-munching zombies on display here (a fairly ugly, creepy, intelligent and fast-moving bunch, I must say), but also to the film's doubly ironic ending. Galbo is as pretty and appealing as I remembered from "Solange," and American star on the downslide Arthur Kennedy manages to score as a bigoted police officer who's convinced that Galbo and Lovelock are responsible for all the gruesome carnage. The film also features gorgeous photography, some well-done gross-out scenes, a tightly plotted story and better-than-average acting. Some of the action sequences unfortunately take place during the dark of night and in gloomy underground crypts, severely limiting the viewer's visibility, but the film on the whole is a gas, especially during its frenetic final half hour. And yes, I think I will be needing another dose of Christine Galbo very shortly....