Return Of The Zombies

Year releasted: 1973

by Keith Phipps
March 6th, 2002

Haven't zombies, by definition, already returned? The seemingly redundantly titled Return Of The Zombies never gets around to addressing that issue, but it does answer other questions. For example, "Can a film set in the late Victorian era accommodate early-1970s hairstyles?" (Yes.) "Can a drunken cemetery watchman have a conversation that doesn't incorporate the exclamation 'Strewth!' several times?" (No.) "Is there such a thing as too many shots of topless corpses?" (Apparently not.) Stelvio Rosi stars as a shaggy-haired gadabout who travels to a suspiciously continental-looking Scottish town for the reading of his rich uncle's will. Along the way, he discovers a corpse hanging from a tree outside the local cemetery, setting the mood for his visit. His uncle's manor is even more gruesome; it's home to, among others, a witchcraft-loving widow (Dyanik Zurakowska) and a hunchback named Igor (Jacinto Molina), whose affections are divided between the lusty Zurakowska and the nude corpses he keeps in an underground lair. Soon, new bodies begin to pile up, but the arrival of a hirsute inspector only deepens the mystery. Rosi and his companions look everywhere for the murderer, but for some reason, they ignore the in-house mad scientist (Gérard Tichy), whose experiments involve reanimating the recently deceased. That mistake costs them in the long run, as the living (and frequently nude) dead begin to overrun the countryside. While others can do little but shout "Strewth," Rosi leaps into action, teaming up with Tichy to battle the scientist's creations and save his comely daughter. In the end, Rosi seems to have eliminated most of the indiscreet Scottish zombies, though a final shot leaves open the possibility of an extremely difficult-to-title sequel.