Overview: A strange twist of fate brings two young travelers, George (Ray Lovelock, The Cassandra Crossing) and Edna (Christine Galbo, The House That Screamed), to a small town where an experimental agricultural machine may be bringing the dead back to life!

As zombies infest the area and attack the living, a bullheaded detective (Academy Award® nominee Arthur Kennedy, Peyton Place) thinks the couple are Satanists responsible for the local killings. George and Edna have to fight for their lives, and prove their innocence, as they try and stop the impending zombie apocalypse!

The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (aka Let Sleeping Corpses Lie and Don’t Open the Window) is a gory horror tale from Spanish director Jorge Grau and widely considered to be one of the best zombie films ever made.

Beautifully restored in 4K from the original camera negative, Synapse Films presents the film with the true original English theatrical mono mix and the real opening and closing credit sequences intact.

Blu-ray Verdict: Ray Lovelock stars as George, a hippy antiques dealer from London who encounters trouble whilst on his way to Windermere for the weekend: first, his motorbike is trashed by pretty redhead Edna (Cristina Galbó), who doesn’t know her reverse from her first gear; next, he is taken out of his way by the troublesome woman, who convinces him to accompany her to her sister’s house; and then he runs into the living dead, who have been reanimated by a piece of experimental agricultural machinery designed to kill insects!

Oh, and to make matters even worse, George is constantly harassed by a right-wing, hippy-hating police inspector who believes that the bearded biker may be a satanist involved in the murder of Edna’s brother-in-law!

Extremely atmospheric (thanks to great use of remote locales) and often pretty clever (its opening sequence takes a wry swipe at the zombie-like state of city commuters, beating Shaun of the Dead to the joke by 30 years), The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue aka it’s original, and far better title Let Sleeping Corpses Lie is a very effective example of the Euro-zombie sub-genre.

It is also a rather fascinating film: a Spanish/Italian co-production shot in England’s beautiful Lake District, featuring unusual zombies that can bring other corpses to life by anointing the eyelids with blood, and which predates George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (and its many subsequent imitators) by several years.

Unlike the non-stop gore-fests that followed in the wake of Romero’s classic, Grau’s movie takes a much more considered approach, carefully and gradually building the tension, saving most of the graphic gore (by Italian FX expert Gianetto de Rossi) for its exciting finalé.

This leisurely pace, far from being boring, not only allows the viewer to appreciate the subtleties of the script (the humor, the ecological message), but also makes the carnage all the more horrifying when it finally arrives (with a moment when a nurse is bloodily torn apart being the gory highlight of the film).

Woefully neglected for many years, it’s great to see this film finally getting some love by Synapse Films/MVD Visual here on a beautiful 4K restoration Blu-ray for all my fellow zombie fans looking for a little more than just splatter from their Euro-horror. It deserves it. Thank you. This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Features of:

Exclusive new 4K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative
New 5.1 English stereo surround remix made exclusively for the Synapse Films release
Restoration of the true original English language theatrical mono mix
Two audio commentaries featuring authors and film scholars Troy Howarth, Nathaniel Thompson and Bruce Holecheck
Jorge Grau - Catalonia’s Cult Film King (89 mins.) – This extensive feature-length documentary explores the life and films of director Jorge Grau
The Scene of the Crime - Giannetto De Rossi in Discussion from Manchester (16 Mins.) (BLU-RAY EXCLUSIVE)
Giannetto De Rossi - Q&A at the Festival of Fantastic Films, UK (43 Mins)
Theatrical trailer, TV spots and radio spots
Newly translated removable English SDH subtitles

www.synapsefilms.com