12 Hidden Gem Zombie Movies You've Probably Never Seen
4. The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue
During the era in which Romero's Trilogy Of The Dead first inspired widespread interest in the zombie threat, a whole host of low budget Italian and Spanish knock-offs and imitators were released with varying degrees of quality and success.
Film fans are likely at least to be a little familiar with the works of Lucio Fulci, in particular his Zombie Flesh Eaters, which was marketed as "Zombi 2" in response to Dawn Of The Dead's local retitling as "Zombi". But the real gem of the genre is this Spanish cult classic from 1974.
Despite the title, only the opening scene of the movie happens in Manchester, with the actual body of the story happening in the English countryside (theoretically the Lake District, although much of it was shot in Italy). That's probably why the movie was released with no less than 15 other names. If you've heard of it, you may have heard it called Let Sleeping Corpses Lie or Don't Open The Window. But whatever it's called, it's called a zombie classic for good reason.
The movie features Anglo-Italian actor Ray Lovelock and Spanish actress Cristina Galbo as young Brits having to fend off both the revanent dead, brought back by shady agricultural experiments, and an aggressive local police officer who suspects them of the spate of recent deaths.
Director Jorge Grau brought a strong sense of the era's counter-culture and environmental paranoia, but also an atmosphere that is tense and macabre. If you watch any 70s zombie flick after Dawn Of The Dead, make it this one.