HOUSE OF THE LIVING DEAD

SPOILERS OF THE LIVING DEAD

It's an immutable law of the universe that any movie with the title ....Of The Living Dead has to be a zombie film. This one isn't: there are no living dead to be seen. Rather, it's a "mad relative locked in the attic" period piece from South Africa in 1973: a bit The Ghoul (Peter Cushing version), a bit The Beast In The Cellar, and a bit And Now The Screaming Starts except without the mesmerising heaving bosom of Stephanie Beacham.

Instead, House Of The Living Dead concerns itself with Mary Anne (Shirley Anne Field), newly arrived on the Brattling Estate vineyard on the South African Cape to marry the heir Sir Michael (Mark Burns). But the local drums carry on all night, the smell of witchcraft is in the air, the family's matriarch doesn't want Sir Michael to marry, servants are disappearing, Sir Michael's tragic brother Breckinridge stays hidden away conducting experiments on trapping the souls of the newly dead. What's really going on?

Shudder's online print looks to be from the old cinema reels, complete with scratches and the magenta tinge of faded celluloid to everything (and sometimes it's just too dark), but at least it's in the right ratio and it's blessed with a nice orchestral score; Burns gives it some enjoyable overacting welly and Shirley Anne Field does some good screaming. Personally I could have done with more of the African element and landscapes that seem curiously dialled down. It's a load of old hokum, and if you can't spot the twist coming quite early on you're really not trying, but it's fair enough fun, not too grisly, and sits comfortably with those British Gothics of the time from Tigon and Amicus. I quite enjoyed it, but don't expect a masterpiece.

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