Perhaps, a zombie film shouldn’t be judged by its first zombie, but there’s something to be said about how you how you toss your first punch at the audience. Romero’s infamous first Zombie, Bill Hinzman of Flesheater fame, lurked in the distance, creepy and dark, like gathering storm clouds at the edge of the cemetery. Jack Snyder’s little girl from Dawn’ 2004 stepped into the light to reveal her shredded face, then she unleashed hell. Day of the Dead (1985) darkened its screen with a long shambling shadow that stepped out of the glare of the blazing sun to reveal a living dead man with no lower jaw and a long rotting tongue hanging out.  

Jorge Grau‘s Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1977) first zombie is very reminiscent of Bill Hinzman’s NOTLD 68′ graveyard zombie, lurching slowly through an old graveyard in a black suit. Watching him apprehensively, is Edna,(Cristina Galbó) whose trip to her sister’s house has been plagued with delays and missteps.  She waits for her traveling companion, George, (Ray Lovelock) who while receiving directions learn that local farmers are testing a machine that shoots radiation into the ground to kill insects.

Everything seems to be in place for the typical formula to unfold. Locals messing with experimental technology, a woman left alone without the car keys, and a drunk looking man shambling towards her. The unknown man reaches for Edna and she is forced to flee to her car, but like Barbabra before her, she forgot she didn’t have the keys. She has to flee through the river, but when George returns with the farmer the zombie has disappeared.

Yes, It’s one of those  clever zombie films and even though George and Edna have a car and newly acquired directions to her sister’s house, they get lost and the “Yogi bear” of (smarter than the average) zombies beats them to her sister’s house. Back at the ranch, we learn Edna’s sister is a heroine addict and her photographer husband has asked Edna over to help him commit her sister into a rehab clinic. While waiting for Edna to arrive, the unhappy couple have a fight and Edna’s sister sneaks off to the shed to do some heroine.

In the shed, the audience is treated to some classic creepy tension building camera angles and the eerie labored breathing that marks the zombies in this film. Edna calls out, but no one replies, until an inflatable raft falls over and Edna’s zombie friend is waiting behind it. Well, that explains how he beat them, he took a boat.

Edna’s crack head sister manages to escape by breaking a window and catches up to her husband that is photographing a nearby waterfall. Yogi gives chase and attacks the couple, ultimately killing her husband. She flees in terror with the creature fast on her heel but when she flees to the driveway, headlights bleach out her face, and again, the zombie sees the car and ducks into the bushes. Yawn.

From here on out, the movies settles into an even slower pace, where it can establish its social commentary about the distrust between the post-war generations.An old school cop heading up the investigation suspects Edna and George, “those dirty drug hippies” to be responsible for the murder and everything else from drugs to satanic rituals, but refuses to believe the truth of the zombie plague. George himself has problems believing his new companion and after they discover that  man Edna saw at the river is deceased George decide to go on field trip to the graveyard so he can prove to her that he’s in his grave.

They arrive at the tomb to discover…a zombie film! The narrative and genre conventions finally pick up as they find his coffin to discover it empty and the cemetery caretaker eaten. From here, we have a claustrophobic fight scene where even though our heroes are locked in the tomb with Yogi and his super-human strength, however he seems distracted and uninterested with putting real effort into eating them. Instead, he starts placing his blood on the eyelids of the dead, but I thought the farming equipment brings the dead back? Whatever.

While he’s distracted raising re-enforcements, Edna and George slip out the back of the crypt into a newly dug grave and a cop that the paranoid detective sent to tail them arrives just in time to join the fun. Even though, they’re in the open field with their choice of vehicles a short jog away and the slowest moving creatures pursuing them, they decide to take the only course of action that will give the zombies an advantage and trap themselves in a small building. That makes sense. With creatures that have no speed and superhuman strength, you want to corner yourself.

From here, the movie becomes very episodic. From Mortuary, to mansion, to hospital wing, the zombie plague moves from location to location (and by plague I mean never more than four). The police continue to distrust the young couple and anyone else that witnesses the zombies ends up dead, leaving Edna and George running from both the undead and the law. The lack of cooperation between all parties leads up to a climax that ends in a ironic Romerian style conclusion.

While the internal logic in this piece seemed to have rotted away somewhere early in the script writing, the film still  succeeds with strong atmosphere, creepy cinematography, and clever social commentary. Despite the hokey super zombies, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie‘s message of clan mentality: Scientific community pushing forward without questioning side effects or outside criticism, Generational profiling by law enforcement, and neither groups willing to admit for a second that they may be the one that is wrong is the ultimate downfall of their society. Very rarely, outside of a Romero piece, is zombies and satire pulled off with such ease.

Zombie fans may be disappointed with this piece that deviates from a very promising and comfortable formula; the typical horde never rising from the lofty expectations that lurched onto the screen with that first zombie, but, despite all my complaints, I can’t help but coming away from this piece with the feeling that I actually watched a half-way decent zombie film that didn’t really on boobs (though one gets peeled like an over ripe mango) or gimmicks to sell tickets.

S.O.Z  RATING  23 of 30— Not the type of lost classic I wanted to find, but a  lost classic none the less.

Scary –              4 of  5 *Very tense and creepy.

Atmosphere-  5 of   5

Gore-                5 of 5* Hardly non-stop, but brutal when it happens

Camp Value-    2 of  5

Zombies Kills-  2 of  5 * only burnings