Hammer Studios decided to take a break from vampires and Frankenstein knockoffs to give us zombies — and boy, did they deliver… a half-dead snoozefest that makes the Cornish countryside look scarier than the undead.
The Plot: Cornwall Needs OSHA, Not Voodoo
It’s 1860, and the Cornish villagers are dying left and right. But not because of bad water, cholera, or, you know, living in Cornwall during the 19th century. Nope — it’s because a smarmy squire learned voodoo in Haiti and decided to turn the locals into zombie miners to work his tin mine. Yes, you read that right. The great horror menace here isn’t an unstoppable plague, but a labor shortage. Somewhere Karl Marx is screaming into his beard.
The Villain: Squire Hamilton, Colonial Cosplayer
John Carson as Squire Hamilton is your classic Hammer villain: aristocratic, condescending, and with the kind of mustache that screams, “I’ve read exactly one book on voodoo and now I’m an expert.” His evil plan? Collect villagers’ blood like wine samples, stick pins in dolls, and use voodoo magic to keep his mining operation going. Forget Dracula or Frankenstein — this guy is basically the world’s worst HR manager.
The Zombies: Tin Miners in Need of a Union
The zombies themselves? Grey-faced, slow, and about as threatening as hungover rugby fans. They shuffle around in the tin mine like they’re waiting for their tea break. Romero would make zombies terrifying two years later, but here they’re just… damp. The scariest thing about them is the makeup budget, which looks like someone smeared chalk dust and Vaseline on the extras before yelling, “Right, off you go, look dead.”
The Heroes: Two Doctors and a Damsel
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Sir James Forbes (André Morell): A pompous professor who solves problems mostly by raising his eyebrows and stating the obvious.
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Dr. Peter Tompson (Brook Williams): The kind of doctor who thinks “plague” means “maybe it’ll just go away if we keep burying people.”
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Sylvia (Diane Clare): Spends most of the movie fainting, cutting herself on glass, and being lured into the woods by zombie miners like Snow White’s goth cousin.
Honestly, the zombies could’ve won if they’d just moved slightly faster than a carriage horse.
The Horror: More Fox Hunts Than Frights
The film teases us with dread, but instead we get a fox hunt, a couple of empty coffins, and a zombie ceremony that feels like a bad Renaissance fair performance. The tension is slower than the zombies themselves, and just when things might pick up, Hammer shoves in more melodrama about aristocratic family feuds.
When the zombies finally catch fire at the climax, it feels less like horror and more like the filmmakers accidentally dropped a lantern on the set and just decided to keep rolling.
The Verdict: Hammer’s Soft-Baked Zombie
The Plague of the Zombies wanted to be terrifying, but instead it’s a colonial guilt-trip wrapped in a gothic soap opera. The zombies aren’t frightening, the villain is more creepy uncle than evil mastermind, and the “plague” is just an excuse for bad voodoo cosplay.
It’s less “plague of the zombies” and more “mild inconvenience of the vaguely sickly miners.” If you want horror, look elsewhere. If you want Cornish tourism with a side of chalk-dusted extras, this is your stop.
Verdict: The only thing contagious here is boredom.
