George, an antique dealer from Manchester, travels to the countryside for a weekend getaway. On his journey, he meets Edna,who accidentally reverses her car into his motorbike. The two discover that a nearby agricultural experiment involving ultrasonic radiation is causing the dead to rise from their graves as flesh-eating zombies.

This Spanish-Italian production is actually shot in Britain (the clues in the title) which makes this a truly European affair. It does feel truly British however and captures the flavour of British life in that era with both conservatism on display but also a cultural shift being depicted. The word ‘permissive’ is uttered with contempt by the older characters.

The film itself also depicts a shift in horror cinema. You can tell the filmmakers had seen Night of the Living Dead and it’s not just the film’s title that conveys this. Edna reminds me of Barbara from NOTLD as she’s seemingly randomly attacked by a zombie who comes out of nowhere in an otherwise normal world. Also, the kills are gorier than horror fare of yesteryear with zombies even chomping on human entrails in one scene. Whereas it was a space expedition into space that awakened the dead in NOTLD, here it’s the radiation emitted from agricultural equipment to kill insects. How very British.

Manchester Morgue feels like a more pedestrian horror film with random acts of gory violence stitched into it and because of this feels a little awkward. It didn’t quite gel for me because of this. It’s OK but not a seminal film that is heralding in a new age of horror cinema.

The film played with much more transgressive fare both in the UK where it was twinned with Pete Walker’s brilliant Frightmare and in America where it played in 1980 with Last House on the Left. It was here that it was retitled Don’t Look Out of the Window (another film telling you not to do something!)

3 out of 5 stars