Zombies of Mora Tau (1957)

Edward L Cahn was prolific director of mostly undistinguished B-movies, often for Sam Katzman at Columbia, sometimes for AIP.  Yet, occasionally, his movies can surprise, a handful of them being atmospheric and suspenseful pot-boilers.  Zombies of Mora Tau (1957) is one such movie.  On the face of it, the film doesn't seem at all promising: directed by Cahn, produced by notorious cheapskate Katzman and featuring a strictly B-list cast, with Morris Ankrum and Allison Hayes being the most recognisable names on the cast list.  Yet, upon viewing, it turns out to be an intriguing tale combining the walking dead with a seafaring story of sunken treasure.  It opens briskly with a young girl being driven to her Grandmother's house 'somewhere in Africa' and the driver running over a shambling figure in the road, refusing to stop or go back, despite the girl's protestations.  The figure, he claims, is one of the walking dead and will be unharmed by the collision.  A story which ids backed up by the Grandmother when they reach the house.  Meanwhile, a ship chartered by tycoon George Harrison has arrived offshore, where he plans to dive on a sunken wreck reputed to be carrying a cargo of diamonds.

The diamonds, of course, are cursed, as the Grandmother explains, when the two plot strands intersect as the ship's crew arrive at her house with a dying sailor who has been attacked by a mysterious figure in the sea.  Sixty years previously, the diamonds had been stolen from a local temple by another ship's crew, captained by the Grandmother's husband - their ship sank with all hands, the crew becoming zombies cursed to forever protect the diamonds.  The curse will only be lifted when the diamonds are either returned to the temple or destroyed.  Many others have tried to recover the diamonds over the years, all perished.  A point made clear by the old lady in an eerie scene, where she leads the latest expedition to a graveyard in the house's grounds, explaining that the newly dug graves are for them, as their fate is inevitable.  This scene is particularly effective, with Marjorie Eaton as the old lady delivering her doom laden prophecies with conviction.  This night time foray, with the graves lit by lamp light feels genuinely oppressive and sets the tone for the rest of the film.  Cahn follows it up with another dead of night scene, as a zombie wanders into the house and menaces Harrison's girlfriend (Allison Hayes) - it proves impervious to fists and bullets, but the old lady calmly forces it from the house with a lit candelabra, flames seemingly being the only thing that intimidates the undead.

Another effective night time sequence follows as the ship's chief diver and the old lady's Grand daughter go back to the road, in search of the figure run over in the opening sequence.  This leads them to stumble across the temple and its complement of zombies, resulting in a tense sequence as they manage to escape with the aid of some flares.  It is these night time scenes which are the film's most effective, shot by Cahn in such a way as to conjure up a real atmosphere of dread.  Slightly less effective are the underwater scenes, where the attempts to salvage the diamonds are hampered by the zombies - these are clearly not shot underwater, with everybody moving very slowly to give the impression that they are struggling against the non-existent water.  Nonetheless, the various other set-pieces - the zombie attack on the ship after the diamonds are salvaged, Hayes seizure and subsequent rescue from the zombies and her subsequent transformation into the undead, for instance - compensate more than adequately for these deficiencies.

Aside from the doom laden atmosphere and 'late night' feel, the film's biggest assets are the performances of Eaton and Hayes.  The former's no-nonsense approach to the zombies and gloomy pronouncements help set the tone perfectly, while the latter's coarse and combative character effectively lapses into increasing unease, before succumbing to her terrible fate.  That's one of the best things about the film - the sense of inevitability which is set, first by Eaton's explanation of the situation, then by Hayes' transformation into a zombie.  Eaton also has a poignant scene toward the end of the film, when she confronts her undead husband who, she notes, hasn't aged a day in sixty years, unlike herself.  Although the film is clearly cheaply made - we're never convinced that we're in Africa, it is clearly part of a backlot set - Cahn more often than not overcomes his low budget through effective use of lighting and atmospherics.  At only sixty nine minutes, Zombies of Mora Tau never quite outstays its welcome and moves at a reasonable pace, but never at the expense of the suspense that Cahn carefully builds in the earlier part of the film.  Again, like most of the films I write about here, Zombies of Mora Tau is no lost classic.  It is, however, a surprisingly decent B-movie, providing some reasonable entertainment.