Doctor Bloods Coffin

Plot

Peter Blood (Kieron Moore) is a young doctor who experiments with bringing the dead back to life. His early subject is the deceased husband of Linda Parker (Hazel Court), a woman he is attracted to. Hidden in a Cornish tin mine, he conducts his ghastly experiments using curare to remove living, beating hearts from undeserving people in order to bring the deserving dead back to life.

Cast

Production

Nathan Juran wrote the script and sold it to Sidney J Furie, who had it rewritten. Furie set up the film at Caralan Productions and signed a distribution deal with United Artists. It was one of the last movies to be shot at Nettlefold Film Studios in Walton-on-Thames.

The Cornish locations included the town of Zennor and the Carn Galver tin mine near St Just.

Reception

Writing in The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia, academic Peter Dendle identified the film as having one of the first representations of a modern zombie: undead, decaying, and violent. Glenn Kay, who wrote Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide, criticized the slow pacing and lack of zombie action. He concluded, "It's all pretty lame stuff."

DVD

Doctor Blood's Coffin was released to DVD by MGM Home Video on 18 October 2011 via MGM's Limited Edition Collection DVD-on-demand service as a Region 1 widescreen DVD.