Review: THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES.

I grew up watching Hammer horror films on late night television, back when there was a Late Movie, and a Late Late Movie on Channel Nine. Often, thanks to the blessing of my imagination-encouraging parents, I'd set my alarm clock for 2am or some-such so I could watch such delights as Dracula A.D. 1972 or Oliver Reed in the 1961 flick The Curse of the Werewolf.

Sometimes there would be other delights from different studios: the truly trashy Billy the Kid versus Dracula (1966) was one memorable highlight, and the dinosaurs vs cowboys delight of The Valley of Gwangi (a 1969 film featuring a T-Rex animated by the great Ray Harryhausen) another. But mostly it seemed to be Hammer horror films that I grew up with, featuring Technicolour gore, blue filters and heaving bosoms aplenty.

But one Hammer film I always wanted to see, but never have until tonight, was the 1966 classic, The Plague of the Zombies. Released as the support feature to Dracula Prince of Darkness, this is a true B-movie in every sense of the word: made on the cheap with no name stars. But as horror films go, it's fascinating.

In horror cinema and literature, the vampire - with Dracula as the classic example - has often been seen as a symbol of the 19th and 20th Century's growing unease about the nobility: inbred, decadent and evil parasites who prey on the more vibrant and wholesome working and middle classes.

The zombie, conversely - while often equally the subject of class conscious storytelling - has more often been symbolic of the working class: drones and drudges that go about their lives unthinkingly and automatically, as seen in everything from filmmaker George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) to playwright Ben Ellis' play The Zombie State (directed by Daniel Schlusser for Melbourne Workers' Theatre in 2008).

But in The Plague of the Zombies, instead of being objects of fear or derision, the undead are creatures to be pitied, even sympathised with.

Perhaps tellingly, the film was made during the tenure of a Labour Government led by Harold Wilson, and tells the story of an eminent medical man, Sir James Forbes (Andre Morell) called to a small Cornish village in the late 19th century to investigate a series of mysterious deaths. Before long the finger of suspicion points towards the local Squire, Clive Hamilton (John Carson), who we soon learn is the head of a voodoo cult - by day a group of wild young bucks who ride about hunting foxes and harassing women, including Sire James' plucky daughter, Sylvia (Diane Clare).

As with many vampire films of the 20th century, the Squire is a classic example of the nobility gone to seed, surviving by exploiting those below his station. But instead of draining their blood, as his vampiric peers might do, Squire Hamilton steals their lives - and then reanimates their stolen corpses to work in his tin mine.

The Plague of the Zombies is a fascinating exploration of 'power, control, exploitation and imperialism', to quote film critic and Hammer devotee David L. Rattigan; and its already compelling subject matter is only further enforced by excellent cinematography and lighting; while its graveyard dream sequence, in which the dead rise en masse (wearing what appear to be cassocks - perhaps a coded reference to the waning power of the priesthood, another oppressor of the working class?) is a classic and much-emulated scene, which has been copied in everything from another Hammer film, The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1973) to Lucio Fulci's gorier Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979).

While flawed - the script is occasionally simplistic and not all the actors are exactly top notch - The Plague of the Zombies is a true horror classic, and will definitely reward viewers who prefer their horror films to have a social or political subtext.

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I'll post another couple of theatre reviews tomorrow, but wanted to take a moment to blog about something else close to my heart for the moment. And I should end this blog entry by acknowledging the book that first alerted me to The Plague of the Zombies, and numerous other wonderful and terrible horror films over the years.

In many ways, it's been one of the most influential books I've read in my entire life.

I'm talking about Denis Gifford's A Pictorial History of Horror Movies (Hamlyn Publishing Group, 1973), which my parents must have given me in about 1977, probably for my 10th birthday, and which fed my love of horror and the macabre for many years. A wonderful, accessible and fascinatingly detailed book, it's one that ever horror movie fan should have on their bookshelf. I still have my copy to this day.