The Plauge of Zombies (1966)

This Hammer Horror film is an old fashioned romp with zombies of the voodoo school. Distinguished med school professor Sir James Forbes (André Morell) receives a letter from one of his favorite students Dr. Peter Thompson (Brook Williams) asking for help. For about the past year Dr. Thompson has been the town physician for a small Cornish village that has experienced a rash of mysterious deaths that the young doctor has been unable to explain. Sir Forbes goes to visit Dr. Thompson in the village and brings along his daughter Sylvia (Diane Clare) who previously went to school with Peter's wife Alice (Jacqueline Pearce). To the surprise of no one who has ever seen a movie like this Sir Forbes and company find a depressed village filled with superstitious rural folk, in fact the villagers are so superstitious that they won't let Dr. Thompson perform an autopsy on any of the deceased, and this is doubtless the primary factor in his inability to determine the cause. Note: This film is set circa 1860, I love that so many of these Hammer Horror films are set at some seemingly random juncture in the past.

Anyway as the villagers won't let the doctors examine any of the bodies the two decided they'll just have to dig one up themselves. Almost prevented from opening the unearthed casket by two constables who stop by at just the right moment, Sir James defies orders and opens it anyway reveling, surprise, that it is empty. It takes a little bit but Sir James manages to win the chief constable over, along with the local vicar and the group then digs up more coffins and low and behold they are all empty too. That same night Alice sneaks out of the house for an unknown reason and is followed by Sylvia who ends up finding her dead in the presence of a hulking, pale skinned man.

Sir James suspension begins to fall upon a local nobleman Squire Clive Hamilton (John Carson) recently returned from seeking his fortune in Haiti. After a standard expository conversation in which Sir James tries to explain voodoo to his fellows, he goes to the Squires house to confront him and is promptly kicked out, but Sir James had planned on this and unlocked one of the house windows while Squire Hamilton's servant went to fetch him. Sneaking back into the house Sir Clive finds the voodoo dolls while Peter must chase after Sylvia who snuck out on him when he was suppose to be watching her, she of course heads to Clive's place.

Now it turns out that Clive's scheme was having local's killed so he could reanimate there corpses to work in his fathers old tin mine. It turns out the mine was never safe and the local's refused to work there causing Clive's late father the economic distress that would prompt his son to go Haiti to seek his fortune. Clive came back not with a fortune, but with a mastery of voodoo and some black servants who can help him with the ritual drumming that is for some reason important to the whole zombification process. One thing I don't get about Clive's plan is how indiscriminate he is with who he reanimates, I mean I don't see Mrs. Thompson and Ms. Forbes as being particularly suited to heavy lifting. Anyway, doesn't matter, Hamilton and his cronies are burned up in the end.

There is nothing particularly distinctive about his movie but its well enough done and looks okay, though it has a ridicules amount of day-for-night shots. Cliché, but not boring. **