Les Fantômes de Mora Tau

Zombies are guarding a sunken ship full of treasures in a lagoon on the outskirts of a sleepy, nearly-deserted Southern town. Cardboard screamer shenanigans; sure, some of it is fun, and the sequence where the zombies walk out of the water is skillfully done, but Allison Hayes (as the sexy bad girl) still can't act! It's reassuring to see her cast as yet another femme fatale, but her line readings are robotic--she's zombie-fied. The underwater sequences are a joke, yet the picture provides a definite nostalgia for the days when monster movies were bereft of commercial pandering and noisy, humongous special effects. It's not in the same league as, say, "Creature From the Black Lagoon", but it does have some atmosphere. Whether it was intentional or not, some minor art comes through, along with a whole lotta bad acting. ** from ****

Although slammed by most of the critics, this flick isn't a bad little time waster.A search party arrives at a plantation off of the coast of Africa. They're looking for a sunken ship with a load of diamonds. The group laughs off the warning of the 10 man zombie crew unable to rest until the diamonds are destroyed. The zombies have wiped out every other expedition to date.The laugh is on the search party as they meet face to face with the walking dead. These bad boys even get around underwater!Will the zombies or the explorers win out? You need to see this for yourself and judge it on its own merits. It easily has creepy scenes that may have influenced later zombie movies.Decent late night viewing!

One of the many plot implausibilities in this enjoyably awful Sam Katzman-produced dreck occurs when Allison Hayes, she of the killer figure, is murdered by diamond-loving zombies and becomes one of the walking dead. She's clearly a zombie; Marjorie Eaton, trying to preserve her dignity as the Maria Ouspenskaya-like hideous matron, tells everyone she's a zombie; she walks like a zombie, and her face is even blanker than when she was alive. But the rest of the avaricious crew treats her like a real live girl, vowing to get her to a doctor as soon as possible for a diagnosis. That leads to plot extensions that add on another 20 minutes or so, though the entire nonsense clocks in at a little over an hour. A pretty high body count for '50s horror, direction and production values not far above the Ed Wood level, and hilarious "underwater" photography round out this Grade Z programmer, which is inept but not dull.

For all of the critics who rated the film less than 5 stars, well... It is a campy example of 50's B movie making. It isn't supposed to be anything more than that! To its credit, the film has some atmospheric moments. The sets are pretty good and the acting is better than bad. Mona (Allison Hayes) steals the show with her good looks and crazy persona. There are not a lot of production flubs given the low budget. This film compares favorably with other B efforts of the 50's. Check out Allison in the 50 foot woman flick. This was her most famous science fiction role. My advice: watch 'Zombies' it and enjoy it for what it is...!

A bunch of people go to the island of Mora Tau. Right off the coast of it, a ship sank with diamonds aboard and they want them. There's nice guy Jeff Clark (Gregg Palmer), Dr. Eggert (Morris Ankrum), George Harrison (!!!) (Joel Ashley) and his slutty wife Mona (the immortal Allison Hayes). What they don't know is that the ship is guarded by zombies who kill anyone who tries to take the jewels.

Admittadely novel idea is almost completely destroyed by a silly script and some pretty bad acting. The "underwater" scenes are actually pretty hysterical. They're obviously shot on a sound stage with the actors moving very slow and having bubbles pour out of their diving suits! Notice how the plants on the "ocean" floor never move.

Still I have a certain fondness for silly movies like this. It takes me back to my childhood where these popped up on Saturday afternoon TV constantly. It does have a little creepy scene when the zombies attack at the end and Hayes (a seriously under rated actress) is very good in a nothing role. Also I saw a nice, clean, letter-boxed (!) version of this on TCM. Silly but fun.