Manchester. George decides to spend the weekend at his country home away from the chaos of the city. When he stops for gas, a girl, Edna, bumps and damages his motorcycle with her car, so George asks her for a ride. Edna, who is in a hurry to meet her sister and brother-in-law, convinces him to stop by them first, but on the way they notice that the dead are coming back to life, and George pinpoints the cause in the ultrasonic machine built to eliminate pests from crops.
Released a few years after Romero's masterpiece, Night of the Living Dead, this masterfully directed film by Jorge Grau is considered by many to be a kind of sequel to the latter with an explanation of the resurrection of the dead inserted. The peculiarity that differentiates them lies in the way the zombies are killed: if in the Romero films the living dead die if hit in the head, Grau's must be burned.
The Sleep of the Dead should not be desecrated is a valuable, unfortunately underrated and misunderstood film that involves strong naturalistic themes, such as that of man-made pollution with its consequences: the return of the dead to life.
Both the setting of the English countryside, which amplifies the sense of desolation and the fate of the protagonists, and the tension, which reaches very high levels in the crypt sequence thanks in part to the eerie sighs of the zombies that provide a claustrophobic and horrifyingly fascinating atmosphere, are excellent.
A dark and intense film, definitely essential for zombie movie lovers.
