''Zombies of Mora Tau'' (also known as ''The Dead That Walk'') is a 1957

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

zombie A zombie ( Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in wh ...

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apo ...

directed by Edward L. Cahn and starring Gregg Palmer, Allison Hayes and Autumn Russel. Distributed by

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the multi ...

, it was produced by

Sam Katzman Sam Katzman (July 7, 1901 – August 4, 1973) was an American film producer and director. Katzman produced low-budget genre films, including serials, which had disproportionately high returns for the studios and his financial backers. Ea ...

. The screenplay was written by George H. Plympton and Bernard Gordon. ''Zombies of Mora Tau'' was released on a

double bill The double feature is a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatres would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown. Opera use Opera h ...

with another Katzman-produced film, '' The Man Who Turned to Stone'' (1957).

Plot

A team of deep sea divers, led by wealthy American tycoon George Harrison (Ashley), attempt to salvage a fortune in diamonds from the wreckage of a ship that had sunk 60 years earlier off the coast of Africa. When the team arrives, they discover that the ship is cursed and the diamonds are protected by the ship's undead crew, now

zombies A zombie (Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in which ...

, who are forced to guard the treasure until the diamonds are destroyed or the curse is finally lifted.

Cast

Gregg Palmer Palmer Edwin Lee (January 25, 1927 – October 31, 2015), known by his stage name Gregg Palmer, was an American film and television actor. Born in San Francisco, California, Palmer served in the United States Army Air Corps as a cryptographer i ...

as Jeff Clark * Allison Hayes as Mona Harrison * Autumn Russell as Jan Peters * Joel Ashley as George Harrison *

Morris Ankrum Morris Ankrum (born Morris Nussbaum; August 28, 1897 – September 2, 1964) was an American radio, television, and film character actor. Early life Born in Danville in Vermilion County in eastern Illinois, Ankrum originally began a career in ...

as Dr. Jonathan Eggert *

Marjorie Eaton Marjorie Lee Eaton (February 5, 1901 – April 21, 1986) was an American painter, photographer and character actress best known for physically portraying Emperor Palpatine in the original release of ''The Empire Strikes Back'', though her face ...

as Grandmother Peters *

Gene Roth Eugene Oliver Edgar Stutenroth (January 8, 1903 – July 19, 1976), known profesionally as Gene Roth, was an American film actor and film manager. Early years Roth was born in Redfield, South Dakota. He was the son of a German father an ...

as Sam, the chauffeur * Leonard P. Geer as Johnny (as Leonard Geer) * Karl Davis as Zombie * William Baskin as Zombie

DVD release

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (abbreviated as SPHE) is the home video distribution division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation. Background SPHE is responsible for the distribution of the Sony Pictures l ...

released the film on DVD in October 2007 as part of a two-disc, four-film set of Katzman-produced films called ''Icons of Horror Collection: Sam Katzman''. The set contains ''Zombies of Mora Tau'', '' Creature with the Atom Brain'', '' The Werewolf'' and '' The Giant Claw''.

Reception

David Maine of

PopMatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, f ...

rated the film 6 out of 10 stars and described it as "pretty entertaining overall, and enlivened immeasurably by Ms. Eaton’s feisty grandma". ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program TV listings, listings information as well as entertainment and television-related news. The company sold its print magazine division, TV Guide Magazine, TV Guide Mag ...

'' rated it 2 out of 5 stars and called it "standard horror quality for grade-B films". Writing in ''The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia'', academic critic

Peter Dendle Peter Dendle is a professor of English at Penn State Mont Alto, teaching classes on folklore, 20th and 21st century representations of the Middle Ages, Old and Middle English (language and literature), and the monstrous (in film, folklore, and ...

said, "This awkward and talentless movie is nonetheless surprisingly prescient in zombie film history, anticipating a number of motifs that would reappear in later decades". ''Zombiemania: 80 Movies to Die For'' author Arnold T. Blumberg wrote that the film is "a fun late-night creature feature, but it's prone to boring passages and a low-rent production quality that never allows it to break out of the B-movie mold", adding that the film is "almost single-handedly saved by the Maria Ouspenskaya/ Celia Lovsky stylings of actress Marjorie Eaton, who lends the film an impressive conviction as well as a wry approach to her already sharp dialogue".

References

External links