Zombies of Mora Tau (1957)
Zombies of Mora Tau isn't perhaps a great film, not even a great zombie film but from watching it for the first time last night it clearly is a hugely influential one.
As well as borrowing the voodoo elements of early classics such as White Zombie (1932) and I Walked With a Zombie (1943) it's a film that shows the way for zombie cinema to come...
... The idea that if you were infected by a zombie then you became one was first used in this film as were underwater zombies so perhaps Fulci recalled this as did the makers of Shock Waves (1977). Zombie sailors would then be used by John Carpenter in his brilliant film The Fog (1980). Countless times motifs from this were nicked by Italian zombie rip offs in the eighties too. You'll sit there as i did thinking "I'm sure there was something similar in so and so".
At seventy minutes the film is short and quite sweet, the decent black and white photography creating a nice atmosphere that in truth the very human looking undead were unable to deliver on. Still enjoyable though.
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