|
| |
| |
DENIS
GIFFORD'S
MONSTERS OF THE
MOVIES
(1977)
|
|
Monster
#46 - The Zombie
|
|
| |
|
| |
 |
|
United
Kingdom, 1966
A Hammer Films Production
90 mins, colour
1.66:1 aspect ratio
Director - John Gilling
Writer - Peter Bryan
Cinematographer - Arthur Grant
Production Designer - Bernard Robinson
Editor - Chris Barnes
Music - James Bernard
Andre
Morell, Diane Clare, Brook Williams, Jacqueline
Pearce, John Carson, Alexander Davion, Michael
Ripper
|
|
| |
The Zombie from Plague of
the Zombies was the last monster on Denis
Gifford's alphabetically ordered list - and the
image of that last double-spread page of Monsters
of the Movies would stick with me forever.
Roy Ashton's
Zombie make-up was, with one or two exceptions,
absolutely stunning, featuring ghoulishly blue
and grey decaying skin and large, uncanny white
eyes. It was highly effective even in black and
white, as the image used in Monsters of the
Movies illustrates.
Although the
Zombies in Plague of the Zombies are of
the "classic" Voodoo variant (along the
lines of the 1932 White Zombie,
Gifford's Monster #42), its visuals are widely
accepted to have influenced many later Zombie
films, including George Romero's Night of the
Living Dead (1968).
|
|
(Carousel Books / Transworld
Publishing)
|
|
| |
| Plague of the Zombies is
a wonderful gem, a perfect specimen of true Hammer
mid-1960s horror movie vintage. Working on a budget of
around £100,000, production started in late July 1965 at
Hammer's Bray Studios on the River Thames. |
| |
Original 1966 Lobby Card
(personal collection)
|
|
In order to cut costs, the movie
was shot back-to-back with The Reptile (which
made it onto Denis Gifford's list as Monster
#38), allowing Hammer to use the same sets (a
Cornish village created on the backlot by
Hammer's production design genius Bernard
Robinson) twice. First released both in the UK
and the US in January 1966 (in some cases as a
double feature together with Hammer's Dracula:
Prince of Darkness), it was a success at the box
office and netted its producers a nice profit.
Plague of the Zombies has also been well
received by critics. At the time of its original
release, Variety called it "a
well-made horror" film, while The Monthly
Film Bulletin even declared it "the best
Hammer Horror for quite some time", pointing
out that "visually the film is splendid,
with elegantly designed sets, and both interiors
and exteriors shot in pleasantly muted colours;
and the script manages quite a few offbeat
strokes".
|
|
| |
It has aged well and
continues to receive positive reviews, mostly
focussing on the strongly portrayed atmosphere
and the twinning of Hammer's classic gothic
visuals with the Voodoo/Zombie theme. The
underlying subtle social commentary is also
praised.
I watched
this movie for the first time on Studiocanal's
2012 Blu-ray release, featuring a restoration of Plague
of the Zombies based on an original
negative. The result is a gloriously
high-definition rendition of both image and
audio. The rather ineffective day-for-night shots
(most of which clearly remain daylight shots)
have not been corrected, respecting the original
material. The Blu-ray features a number of
extras, the most exciting of those being a
documentary on the making of Plague of the
Zombies.
Plague of the Zombies is a
fantastic film for its time and easily one of my
favourite Hammer films; it deserves greater
recognition. The classic Caribbean voodoo
background of the Zombie puts it somewhat at odds
with Hammer's gothic tones and settings, but John
Gilling's direction, Peter Bryan's script, Arthur
Grant's camera work and Bernard Robinson's sets
found the perfect approach. Plague of the Zombies
would, however, remain the one and only Zombie
movie Hammer ever made - all the more reason to
enjoy it.
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
| |
|
| |
| |
| |
 |
|
Denis Gifford on Plague
of the Zombies
in A Pictorial History of
Horror Movies (1973)
"One of
the better Hammers was Plague of the
Zombies (1966), a tale of the Cornish tin
mines."
|
|
 |
|
| |
|
| |
| |
Back to main index page
|
| |
|
| |
The illustrations presented here are
copyright material.
Their reproduction in this non-commercial review
and research context is considered to be fair use
as set out by the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, 17
U.S.C. par. 107
and in accordance with the the Berne Convention
for the Protection of Literary and
Artistic Works.
All images from
Monsters of the Movies
(Carousel/Transworld) were scanned from my
personal copy purchased in 1977
All images of Blu-ray or DVD covers were scanned
from my personal copies
All images of lobby cards were scanned from
copies in my personal collection
Page created 15
February 2023
Last updated 2 September 2023
(c)
2023
|
|
| |
