George Meaning (Ray Lovelock) runs a shop in London that sells unusual and antique items. One day he closes his shop for the weekend and gets on his motorcycle to bring some items to a shopkeeper and then spend some time with friends in Windermere. On the way his bike is damaged when Edna Simmonds (Cristina Galbo) backs into it with her Mini Cooper, at a gas station. Edna is on her way to visit her sister, Katie West (Jeannine Mestre) and her husband, Martin (Jose Lifante). Since his bike is out of commission, he leaves it at the gas station to be fixed.
Since it was her fault that the bike is inoperable, he demands that Edna take him where he wants to go. Reluctantly she agrees. When they get to a crossroads between Windermere and Southgate, Edna convinces George to stop at her sister’s place first. They end up taking the wrong road and come to a dead end at a riverbank. While George goes off looking for directions, Edna stays with the car. Edna is attacked by a zombie. The zombie is a man named Guthrie Wilson (Fernando Hilbeck), a vagrant who drowned in the river.
In the meantime, George comes across some men from the Ministry of Agriculture who are working with experimental equipment that is supposed to kill the local insect life in the fields. The men operating the machine tell him that the machine works using ultra sonic radiation to confuse the insects, making them kill each other. George returns to the car and a frantic Edna who tells him about the zombie. George doesn’t believe her.
At the West residence, Katie is attacked by the zombie Wilson, her husband, Martin, is killed. Katie goes off the deep end and is hospitalized. The police inspector (Arthur Kennedy) suspects George and Edna of the crime. George and Edna find out about the vagrant that drowned and go to the cemetery to find his body. Wilson’s body is missing from his coffin, but zombie Wilson is there and looking to kill and consume George and Edna.
George and Edna barely escape but police officer Craig (Giorgio Trestini), who was assigned to tail them, is killed. By now the machine the Ministry of Agriculture is using is starting to reanimate other dead people.
“Let Sleeping Corpses Lie” AKA “No profanar el sueño de los muertos” was released in 1974 and was directed by Jorge Grau. It is a Spanish Italian zombie horror movie.
This ended up being a lot better than I expected. Many people compare it to “Night of the Living Dead” 1968. Why not, a zombie is a zombie is a zombie. It’s still a decent zombie offering. The movie has a good story with an unusual zombie mechanism. Instead of voodoo, a virus, parasites or some kind of chemical, these zombies were created through science. A machine used to kill insects also makes newborns bite and reanimates the dead. Along with some good acting and great zombie make-up the movie is a nice addition to the subgenre.
Director Grau cast a flat-chested actress to play the telephone operator (Isabel Mestres). This way a fake chest could be applied that the zombies could tear off during their attack.