RoosterVision: Jorge Grau’s THE LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE (1974)

…an ongoing series of articles spotlighting movies, music, art, comics, and other assorted media that we at Rooster Republic Press find ourselves enjoying. Once a week, on Thursdays, we will showcase new and old works and, hopefully, help spread the word on great stuff you might otherwise miss out on.

RoosterVision was previously the name of our non-fiction imprint, and since those titles and that line of books are no longer, we have decided to resurrect RoosterVision for the purpose of this showcase. Enjoy!

In this, the 9th entry of our “RoosterVision” series, we turn our gaze to Jorge Grau’s exceptional zombie-horror film, THE LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE.

AKA, LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE

AKA, DON’T OPEN THE WINDOW

AKA, NO PROFANAR EL SUEÑO DE LOS MUERTOS

Look, a movie this goddamned good needs a whole bunch of titles. And for well-versed zombie fans who may not be familiar with THE LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE, we’d say it is a nice bridge between Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and Fulci’s THE BEYOND. The movie is creepy, creepy, creepy.

THE LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE is a top-shelf zombie film, one of Edgar Wright’s (SHAUN OF THE DEAD) favorites, and certainly one of ours. Not hyperbole to call this a classic, even if a tumultuous distribution history has kept it from having a much wider audience. A chilling atmosphere sets in early, and this is eventually supplemented by grisly visuals. The narrative retains Romero’s disdain for “authority” while also predicting the undead dreamscapes later used by Fulci. If you know, you know.

The film has been released in many formats and under many names through the years, but the recent home video release from Synapse is the version to spring for. A superb 4K remaster on Blu-ray and DVD, and this edition includes the incredibly creepy soundtrack on CD. Good writing music!

And Synapse really outdid themselves putting together the attractive packaging. This is up there with their earlier release of SUSPIRIA. We’d say this is a “must-have” for anyone building a home video horror library.

You can purchase this absolutely gorgeous edition directly from Synapse Films HERE.

And if the front of the slipcase is too subdued for your finer, gnarly sensibilities, then gaze upon the reverse side’s artwork, which definitely leans harder into its double-feature grindhouse roots.