The Gothique Film Society presents Zombies of Mora Tau (1957) and The Vampire (1957)

About The Gothique Film Society presents Zombies of Mora Tau (1957) and The Vampire (1957)

Founded in 1966, the Gothique Film Society specialises in double bills ‘for the connoisseur of the macabre’.

Zombies of Mora Tau opens our ‘season within a season’ look at the world of legendary producer Sam Katzman (1901-1973), whose speciality was low-budget genre films, including serials, which had disproportionately high returns for the studios and his financial backers. (See also Creature with the Atom Brain on 19 February and our double bill of The Werewolf and The Giant Claw on 12 March.)

A typical Katzman production from the late 1950s, Zombies of Mora Tau features a group of deep-sea divers who are in search of sunken treasure. However, the ship’s crew, who had all drowned – but, hint(!), whose bodies were never recovered – are particularly protective of their valuable cargo.

The most familiar member of the cast is Allison Hayes, a former Miss America contestant who would go on to achieve lasting B-movie fame the following year as the lead in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.

The Vampire comes from south of the border, and stands well apart from the usual Mexican genre fare, which is generally characterised by Aztec Mummies and the wild, anything-goes wrestling adventures featuring Santo and his friends. It has a stateliness utterly lacking from those films, and is a particular surprise as it predated Hammer’s Dracula by almost eight months.

As with that film, the depiction of the count broke the Bela Lugosi mould, with the vampire being, like Christopher Lee, dashingly handsome and erudite. The film was a huge success, with a sequel, The Vampire’s Coffin, being rushed into production the following year.