Director: John Gilling
Writer: Peter Bryan
Stars: André Morell, Diane Clare, Brook Williams
Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/2xpj711
Synopsis
We begin in the midst of some kind of ritual. A priest wears someone else’s face as a mask, and he pours blood on a small voodoo doll as natives play their drums. Credits roll. As the ritual continues, a woman wakes up screaming.
The next morning, Sir James Forbes talks to his daughter Sylvia. He gets a letter from Dr. Tompson, claiming that his village is being besieged by a strange malady; the people of the village are just dying for no particular reason. Forbes and Sylvia pack their bags to go and help investigate.
Dr. Tompson’s wife, Alice, doesn’t seem particularly happy to see them when they arrive. She’s the girl we saw screaming earlier, and she has a serious-looking cut on her wrist, which she won’t allow anyone to look at. The latest victim’s brother (who also appears to be the town drunk) accuses Dr. Tompson of causing the deaths, since there have been twelve deaths, and Tompson’s been in town for twelve months. The villagers completely refuse to allow Tompson to do an autopsy. The local leader, Squire Hamilton, won’t allow anything of the sort.
Forbes suggests going out and digging up one of the victims that night at midnight. It turns out the body is gone; the coffin is empty.
Meanwhile, Alice sneaks out, and Sylvia follows her. Sylvia gets grabbed and abused by a group of five of the Squire’s men. The squire intervenes, “rescuing” Sylvia from them. He releases her, but warns her not to fall into one of the abandoned tin mines that litter the estate. After Sylvia leaves, it’s clear that Hamilton has planned the whole encounter.
On her walk home, Sylvia spots a zombie carrying Alice’s dead body. Tompson and Forbes do an autopsy on Alice and look at the wound on her arm. They do some tests, and find that she has been splashed with some kind of non-human blood. How did she die? The town drunk says he saw his recently-dead brother roaming around near the tin mine where they found Alice.
They go to visit the tin mine, which was closed down a few years ago when too many workers died in accidents.
Squire Hamilton comes to visit Sylvia. While they talk, Sylvia gets cut on a broken glass. Hamilton sneaks out with a sample of her blood. He then goes home and opens his drawer full of voodoo dolls.
Forbes asks the local vicar if he has any books on black magic, and the vicar shows him everything. Forbes figures out that voodoo is at work. Forbes, Thompson, and the vicar go to the cemetery to watch the grave.
The vicar is attacked by Hamilton’s men in masks. Dead Alice gets up and goes after Tompson and Forbes, and Forbes cuts her head off with a shovel. After some digging, they find all the graves in the cemetery are empty. All of them.
Forbes goes to see Hamilton and accuses him of doing voodoo. Hamilton throws Forbes out, but Forbes sneaks back inside through an unlocked window. He follows Hamiton through a secret door leading into the tin mines, where all the zombies are hard at work mining tin.
As Hamilton prepares Sylvia for zombification, Forbes and Tompson close in on the mine. Will they arrive in time?
Commentary
It’s a little slow paced, but it moves along without getting boring. There’s not all the usual gore involved with a zombie film; this is more of an old-school zombies-from-voodoo kind of movie, not the modern crop of plague-based zombies.
The acting is good, the sets are interesting, and the plot is pretty unusual. All this for a zombie workforce in a dangerous mine? Sounds like a great idea from a management standpoint.
Kevin pointed out that so many Hammer films end with the building burning down. What’s worse than zombies? Flaming zombies!