Let Sleeping Corpses Lie

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie

Zombies, ya gotta love 'em!

Slow, gory, probably quite smelly and to top it off, they eat people! How much more fun can you ask for from a Horror film? Not much I tell you.

"Let Sleeping Corpses Lie" (aka. too many other names to mention) is a film that I have always argued with people about. Most people say it is nothing more than a rip-off of Romeros "Night Of The Living Dead". I have always said that it was not. Well, Jorge Grau, thank you for making me look like an idiot. But we will address that later on in the extras discussion.

The film starts with us taking a quick tour of an art gallery of some sort. The gallery appears to belong to a "hippy" who packs away a statue into his back-pack and hops onto a motorcycle and speeds off.

In this quick introduction to one of our stars, George (Ray Lovelock), we get an idea of the music we have in store for us. The music in this part of the beginning is a strange moaning sort of vocal thing. This is just a taste of how crazy the soundtrack is soon to get.

We leave the store with George and are lead around town on his motorcycle. The scenes cut between city life, to country life and then we get shots of pollution and death thrown in. Romero was subtle with his messages compared to the style of Grau.

In these scenes we get a great listen to the other style of music we are going to be treated to in this film. The score at this point is a great progressive rock style number not un-like what Goblin would turn into thier trademark sound just a few years later with "Deep Red". Plus in this scene we get the strange scene of a female streaker running across the road. This scene always confused me, but it is explained quite nicely in the booklet that comes with the "Tin" version of the film. I'll explain later.

George decides he is thirsty, so he pulls into a gas station. Right behind a car he parks. The car backs up and runs over his bike. This is how we are introduced to Edna, our second lead character. Edna is played by (take a few breaths) Christine (Christina) Galbo. This one film and I cast my vote for her as the greatest female EVER to appear in a Horror film. She is just the best. 'Nuff said.

George and Edna are now traveling companions due to George no longer having a motorbike. He decides Edna can drive him where he needs to go. So off they go.

The quest they are on is one of which needs to take Edna to help her junkie sister, and George needs to unload some art to some people. Only one of them will make it to the destination. They need directions to the junkie girls house, so George decides to stop at a farm where some charming men are working on a new experimental piece of equipment that kills bugs. Turns them into raving maniacs to be honest with ya. Word of warning to all of you: if you ever end up in a place where somebody is testing a machine that turns any creature into a raving maniac, run away. Simple as that, just get the hell out of there. That kind of contraption can't be good for anybody or anything!

While George is hanging out with these fine gentlemen, who we will get to see more of later, Edna gets attacked by what appears to be a madman, but that we all know is really a zombie. This scene often criticized for being a rip off of the cemetery attack in "Night Of The Living Dead". O.K., I can see it, but it still is a brilliant scene.

As of this point I am going to stop speaking of the finer plot details. Here is the rest in nutshell. We are treated to all sorts of exciting elements here. Edna's sister becomes the main suspect in a murder case, George and Edna become also accused of the murder and later become accused of being Satanists! You get walking corpses, burning corpses, edible corpses, an evil baby, and action, action, action! Well, not that much action, but it still keeps you quite interested.

My comparison for this DVD was the old Midnight Video tape that was taken from a Japanese Laser. That tape looked great when I first got it. The main problem was that the beginning and end credits were white and were impossible to read. But otherwise it was a great looking tape. All respect to Midnight Video though, this DVD blows it away! The titles are easy to read and more importantly, one of the films most appealing factors just comes screaming to life on this release, that being the rolling green hills of the English country side. I mean, it really is quite the visual picture with these scenes. I have always felt that one of the most incredible things on DVD is when you get a great shot of trees and greenery. The clarity is never more brilliant than in these scenes. Just watch the beginning of "Scream" (sorry purists, but is a decent flick) as the camera drops down in front of the tree, you can almost every individual leaf, plus the color of the green is amazing! So with this DVD, you get quite a bit of that.

The overall look of this presentation is quite nice. The colors are all strong and the picture is very stable. I didn't notice much grain or any strange picture shifts. The picture is very nice.

The sound is very nice. One of the other great things about this film is the soundtrack. The score makes more use of noises and sighs than it does straight up music. These noises come through in the surround mix very good. You really do feel the effect of the film with the soundtrack. It helps make it a creepy experience.

The main extra is an interview with director Jorge Grau. The interview is quite well done and covers all the main bases so that a commentary track, while still missed, is not a complete necessity. We find out right from him that this film is a rip-off of "Night Of The Living Dead". This fact makes me a bit upset. I always knew that it was inspired by that film, but I really didn't want to hear the director say it was his own version of it. But this is a very nice interview and the fact that it is spoken in the directors native tongue explains why this film does not have a commentary track, he simply does not speak English.

I got the limited edition tin for this release. Since this is one of my favorite films I decided to take my chances with the much maligned tin from Anchor Bay. I also needed all of the extra stuff. So what was that stuff and was it worth the extra money? Well, I bought my tin from a place where the tin was cheaper through them than if I went out to my local store and paid for the reagular edition, even with the shipping! So with that in mind, yes, it was worth it. But the extra stuff are these: a toe tag that is cute, but hardly worth the hunt of the tin; a 5 ¼"x8 ¼" original thatrical Poster Replica, of which the poster replica on the back of the chapter listings is more interesting; and a 24 page, full color collectors book. This book is almost the same as the old Midnight Media mini-magazine on this film. It is written quite well by Nigel J. Burrell. Whereas it is an updating of the old text, it really doesn't cover anything new. So if you have the old mini-mag, stick with it. Even the pictures are the same, just this time you get no black and white photos, only re-colored stills that look like they were colored in. The tin itself is nice though.

So if you like the film, you are safe with buying the normal edition of the film. There really isn't anything with the tin that you need to have. If you are a completist, then the tin is nice and if you can find it cheap, pick it up. Though my number was 4950 out of 5000, so I would guess that these are gone now. But if you want the fancy stuff, just try tracking down the mini-magazine and you will have all the good parts of this tin.

This is a film that I would recommend to all Horror fans. If you are looking for a new film, one that you havn't ever seen or one tha tyou haven't seen in a while, this is a great purchase. Buy with confidence. I was very happy with the whole presentation Anchor Bay did with this title and have since given away my Midnight Video copy. Now if I could just get ahold of "What Have They Done To Solange?" so that I could get more of Christina Galbo.


 
Directed by Jorge Grau
Released by Anchor Bay
Region 1 - Not Rated
Ratio - Widescreen 1.85:1 (Anamorphic)
Audio - Dolby Digital 5.1
Extras :
Interview with Director Jorge Grau
TV & Radio Spots
Still Gallery
Review by Carl R Isonhart
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