The Age of Commercialism

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Simply Perfect

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

This is most definitely a B-Grade horror movie in almost every way. For that reason, it's a little bit of a surprise that the basic story isn't all that bad - ridiculous, but not bad. A group of American divers arrive off the coast of Africa to search for a ship that sunk many years before carrying a treasure of valuable diamonds. Once there, they discover that the wreck and diamonds are being protected by the original crew of the sunken ship - who are now among the undead! There was no real explanation offered as to why the diamonds are so important to the undead. It's not like they're going to be walking into the local shopping mall and going on a spree! But they are important - I guess it's a kind of "if we can't enjoy them, no one can" kind of attitude. These are typical, old fashioned zombies. They're just undead. They're not flesh eaters, walking around devouring people. That image of zombies, as far as I know, came from "Night of the Living Dead" in 1968. These guys are just dead - or, rather, undead. Or ... Well, you get the point. They're tormented souls who have no escape from their tormented life - not even in death. Five previous expeditions from around the world have come here to find the diamonds, and all of the members of all of the expeditions have been done away with by these undead guardians of the diamonds and been immediately buried so as to prevent them from also walking the earth. Can this new bunch survive? And find the diamonds? I suppose the story's OK for a B-Grade movie. The movie, however, fails on the authenticity meter, at least to me. First, this is supposed to be set in deepest, darkest Africa. It's established that the nearest police and even the nearest doctor are hours away. There's nothing here; no place to go for help - except for the extremely large and comfortable mansion like home that Grandma Peters (Marjorie Eaton) lives in, that comes complete with servants and chauffeur and a pretty fancy car. Yeah. The roads are a little bumpy. But that's about the only inconvenience to living in this extremely remote corner of the world (I mean, aside from the undead who wander around incessantly, which would be a bit inconvenient at times I suppose.)I also chuckled at both Mona (Allison Hayes) - the wife of the expedition's leader - and Jan (Autumn Russell) - who's the granddaughter who makes Grandma Peters a grandma. Why do I chuckle? Well, again, in this remote corner of deepest, darkest Africa, these attractive women (as an aside, Jan's more attractive than Mona, by the way) seem to spend most of their time wearing fancy dresses or evening gowns and running around in high heels. In deepest, darkest Africa (even outside the inexplicably comfortable mansion) where such things strike me as something of an inconvenience.One other thing. Since fire really bothers these undead, why not pour gallons of gasoline into the mausoleum (which also inexplicably exists in deepest, darkest Africa where nobody but Grandma Peters seems to live) where they spend their free time (which the undead must have a lot of) basically just lying in their coffins and set the whole thing on fire, rather than just using fire to make them back off? Seems to me that might have solved the whole problem. Of course, it would have ended the movie too quickly if anyone had been sharp enough to have that thought.As it is, this is only a little over an hour in length, and while there are a few silly elements (such as described above) the basic story's not bad. It's quite watchable, even if it isn't a masterpiece. (4/10)

A crew seeking diamonds in an African watery tomb, encounter the zombie sailor thieves who once stole it not willing to allow their treasure into others' hands even after death. An elderly woman, Grandmother Peters(Marjorie Eaton) who lives in a home nearby, whose husband was the skipper of that unfortunate voyage and her reason for relocating roots in Africa, warns the crew that death will be their only reward for removing the diamond chest from it's underwater crypt. She believes that if the diamonds are dispersed throughout(preferably over an ocean, each individual diamond separately)then the undead crew's souls will be at rest. These zombies are afraid of fire, but can not be harmed by any form of weaponry. In a hilarious turn of events, George Harrison(Joel Ashley)who is commissioning this new voyage, loses his wife, the lecherous crude beauty, Mona(Allison Hayes)to the undead. Gregg Palmer is Jeff Clark, the flawed heroic sailor on the voyage, who often goes underwater to retrieve the treasure box despite zombie resistance. He wishes to retire from the low-income position of sailor and the allure of the diamonds puts his life in often peril. He and Grandmother Peters' granddaughter Jan(Autumn Russell)fall in love during the movie..Jeff actually saves Jan from being "zombie-fied" when captured by one of the undead.This zombie crapfest has to be seen to be believed. Quite a stupid premise isn't lifted by the cast's unbelievably moronic behavior. You have this threat..if anything, burn their bodies! Eliminate the threat the only reasonable way available. How the undead crew became zombies is never explained. How the film ends with them being released from their supposed curse is laughable. And, why Mona, no matter how mad she might be(..and, really, the situation she explodes in anger about is so silly it's hard to fathom why she'd cause such a scene), could run off into the forest with the zombie threat so present is beyond explanation. Just a really terrible zombie movie..might be worth watching for a couple of isolated laughs, at the filmmakers' expense. Certain to gain a following.

There's nothing particularly remarkable about "Zombies of Mora-Tau", but it isn't the worst way to pass about an hour of your life. Fans of Eddie Cahn will see the resemblance to his voodoo-themed "Four Skulls of Johnathan Drake" which are a strong contrast to his more modern (and influential) zombie/apocalypse films "Invisible Invaders" and "Creature with the Atom Brain." This places this film in the older tradition of zombie movies, some kind of descendant of "White Zombie" and "I Walked with a Zombie" (both of which are superior to the film in question). The zombies in this film are reanimated sailors who must guard a cursed treasure (remind anyone of any recent mega-hits?). They look pretty silly in their striped shirts; it doesn't look like anyone even thought to make them look a bit aged or anything like that.The film's best asset is Allison Hayes and the scenes involving her character, including the memorable scene where she's clearly a zombie but nobody wants to believe it, so they lead her back to the house and surround her with candles at the old lady's (Marjorie Eaton) insistence. Shades of the old vampire movies and their garlic cloves here. Hayes is lovely and her acting adequate. None of the other leads are particularly memorable.There are a few scenes that will draw unintentional laughter from a modern audience but not all that many. Probably the atmosphere in the film was intense enough to scare some young kids who saw it in the '50s. We have scenes of graveyards and so forth – I think it's quite a nice effect when the old lady shows the group all those graves and when asked who they are for says "they're yours." But I can hardly imagine any person older than 5 who would be scared by this film in the 20th Century because it really doesn't even try that hard. Once you get to the scenes with the underwater treasure search you realize this is, like "Invisible Invaders", more of an action/adventure film than a horror film.It's not nearly as inept as some posters here have said, but it's clearly a movie that didn't have high ambitions. Within the scope of its own goals I would say it is reasonably successful.

Some amateur reviewers will excuse anything in a movie and give 5 stars minimum simply for the crew having been able to load film-stock into a camera without exposing it to sunlight. After sitting through all 69 minutes of Mora Tau (that I will never have back) I began to really wish that this bad movie had somehow become a 'lost film' instead of films I'd actually like to see -- such as "London After Midnight" starring Lon Chaney or the original 9 hour version of von Stroheim's silent film classic "Greed".As a devoted fan of zombie films who has seen more than 70 films in the genre from the brilliant to the downright awful, even I must admit that most voodoo zombie movies aren't very good -- aside from Halperin's White Zombie and Gilling's Plague of the Zombies (for Hammer Studios) and to a lesser extent, the entertaining if somewhat offensive 1941 Mantan Moreland minstrel show that is King of the Zombies. Even by that guideline for diminished expectations, Mora Tau is probably one of the worst of the voodoo zombie genre and might make me think better of Halperin's 1936 followup disaster Revolt of the Zombies. Zombies of Mora Tau is so insultingly stupid and lame that it almost made me long for the 'good ole days' of the 1940s when Abbott and Costello were busy ruining the Universal Monsters franchise (though A&C enthusiasts still refuse to admit how unfunny those films were). If you want a good underwater horror film from that era watch any of the three 'Creature from the Black Lagoon' films instead or maybe even (horror of bad TV horrors) the Godzilla Power Hour cartoon with Godzookie. If you want underwater zombies, try Wiederhorn's 'Shockwaves' instead. This film is a reminder that not all old black and white films are 'classics' and I can think of any of a number of cheesy 50s horror films that are 10 times more entertaining. The atomic age sci-fi silliness of Invisible Invaders is another better recommendation than Zombies of Mora Tau. Maybe the 3 stars out of 10 that I gave Mora Tau was too generous. I'm now glad there wasn't a DVD of this for me to buy and that TCM showed it to me for free.PLOT: The basic plot sounds like something the "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl" might have pilfered some basic ideas from: There is a sunken treasure of $1 million of uncut diamonds that has attracted treasure hunters for decades and lead to the demise of many a diver. It seems that the original thieves of the treasure all met an untimely demise and 10 zombies now guard said treasure (though why they live in 10 lined up coffins in a cave like Snow Whites dwarfs is anyone's guess) and will not rest until said treasure is 'destroyed' as the old lady says. The sailors dream of riches and ignore her warnings and try to get the treasure anyway...These are also among the least scary voodoo zombies I've seen in a movie. If all the reels of this film were at the bottom of the sea, I think I'd voodoo up some zombies to guard them and ensure that they were never retrieved so that movie audiences would be spared the horror of seeing this film.**SPOILERS**I have several issues with this film and its lazy writing:*The dive crew/sailors are too dumb to realize that the woman is not 'ill' but now has become one of the zombies and is exhibiting all the same traits. These characters are obviously much dumber than your average horror movie morons.*Sure the old lady claims the zombies are indestructible, but that doesn't stop the sailors from using knives and other weapons on them ineffectively. None of the sailors/divers ever thinks to try lighting a zombie aflame after they display an obvious fear of fire? You've gotta be kidding me. Maybe it wouldn't destroy them, but you'd think someone would at least try it.*Don't establish rules for the zombies and then proceed to break those rules later in the film when it seems convenient to do so.*So the diamonds must be 'destroyed' for the zombies to rest, right? So why does dumping the diamonds into a couple feet of water not 10 feet from the shore of old lady's property count as 'destroying them' and end the curse? It's as if the writers forgot that someone could just bend down and pick retrieve the diamonds 5 minutes after the 'zombies' dematerialize out of their clothes.