by It’s that time of year again when streaming sites like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video push their hair-raising catalog of horror movies to satisfy our need for a Halloween scare. But if you’re looking for something a little more ‘nasty’ with a good dose of nostalgia thrown in, then one controversial horror film filmed and set in Manchester is famously the only one of its kind.
In the early 1980s, a series of disturbing films caused a national outcry over the levels of violence and hunger they contained. Known as ‘video naties’ in the UK, they were mostly low-budget horror or exploitation films distributed on VHS tapes.
Thanks to a loophole in film classification laws, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) did not monitor video releases. The uncensored videos caused a backlash and sparked a public debate on the uncensored films and their availability to children – whose exposure began to be blamed for an increase in violent crimes by young people.
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Following a crusade by conservative moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse, prosecutions were brought against people in trades who profited from allegedly obscene videos. In order to help local authorities identify so-called ‘bad videos’, the Director of Public Prosecutions has drawn up an initial list of 72 films believed to be in breach of the Obscene Publications Act 1959.
With more families owning VCRs, awareness of these films began in the early 1980s. Films such as the 1979 splatter-fest The Driller Killer and other titles, such as the 1980 Italian horror Cannibal Holocaust, caused moral outrage from campaigners, which were later adopted by sections of the media.
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Before the government introduced the Video Recordings Act 1984, the sale of films on the ‘bad video’ list was banned and purged from the nation’s shops as distributors could be prosecuted.
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie was one of the films that made the initial list of 72 ‘naughty videos’. Originally released in 1974, Spanish director Jorge Grau filmed the gory zombie flick on location in Manchester and Derbyshire.
The film begins with a fantastic montage of a motorcycle ride through Manchester city center in the 1970s. The film’s main character, George Meaning (played by Italian actor Raymond Lovelock) rides his classic Norton through Manchester to the Lake District.
During the sequence, the camera captures pedestrians and the city’s orange buses as they take in the locations along Portland Street, Bridge Street and Tib Street, to name but a few, as well as landmarks such as the Corn Exchange and Station Piccadilly bus.
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A 2004 review of the film in The Independent describes the film as a satire. The review describes the beginning of the film as a metaphorical “zombification” of the city’s population. The journalist writes: “Slack-jawed commuters stand clapping at a bus stop; a businessman pops pill bowls outside the chemist; striped belts across the road, and truck drivers don’t even notice a dead sparrow rotting in a gutter; belch steam factory vents.”
Other scenes are shown at the old Barnes Hospital in Cheadle. The magnificent Barnes Hospital dates back to 1875 and is known for its Victorian Gothic Revival architecture. Its rural location was used to help people escape the industrial smog of Manchester.
After the hospital closed in 1999, the building was derelict until 2015, when it was redeveloped into new luxury homes. Incidentally, the then-abandoned former hospital was also featured on the paranormal reality TV series Most Haunted Live in 2005.
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The film is the only ‘evil video’ set in the UK and was released in the UK under the title The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue. It was later re-released under different names and has been released under more than 15 different titles internationally.
The plot of the film is based on a new batch of experimental pesticides that have the specific side effect of bringing back the dead to bring life to human flesh. The police initially blamed the series of cannibalistic murders on two hippies.
According to the IMDB website, distributors cut the film’s 1987 UK Network release by one minute and 27 seconds and then a further 26 seconds at the BBFC.
Cuts included shots of a policeman’s rotting body, a man pulling a pole from his throat, zombies feasting on flesh, and a nurse being deflated. All beautiful things.
In 2003, the UK Anchor Bay DVD released the complete uncut version of the film, as all previous cuts had finally been waived. In 2020, Synapse Films released a limited edition Blu-ray featuring a new 4K resolution scan of the original 35mm negatives.
The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue is considered by many to be among the most influential zombie films of all time. On the film review site Rotten Tomatoes, it received an impressive 86% score from critics.
Two of the site’s leading critics praise the film. Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting calls it “one of the best zombie movies ever.” Almar Halfidason, who reviewed the film for the BBC, said: “Any laughs soon turn to screams as the screen fills with calculated chaos and some fine moments of shock.”
