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The Plague of the Zombies (1966)


This movie begins with a young woman by the name of “Alice Mary Tompson” (Jacqueline Pearce) awakening from what appears to be a bad dream. The scene then shifts to London where a gentleman named “Sir James Forbes” (Andre Morell) is handed a letter from his daughter “Sylvia Forbes” (Diane Clare). The letter just happens to come from the husband of Alice who goes by the name of “Dr. Peter Tompson” (Brook Williams) which details a mysterious ailment in the Cornish village where he and Alice live. Being a professor of medicine Sir James is intrigued and decides to travel to this village to check it out. Sylvia comes with him because she is anxious to see her good friend Alice. Anyway, when they get there they soon discover that this plague is unlike anything they have ever come across and they cannot seem to isolate the cause. Now rather than disclose any more and risk ruining the film for those who haven’t seen it I will just say that this movie was certainly quite watchable. At least for me. I say this because I typically like most zombie movies. Not only that but I especially like movies bearing the “Hammer” trademark. So this film definitely had my interest and I was not disappointed. Having said that however, I think it’s only fair to point out a couple of minor deficiencies. First, the zombies looked a bit goofy. But considering that this movie was made in the mid-60’s I suppose one has to make some allowances. The other thing I noticed was that some of the acting was a bit mediocre at times. Not bad necessarily but a bit mediocre all the same. Be that as it may, I liked the performance of Diane Clare and I also thought the story flowed very smoothly from one scene to the next.