Supposedly, there is a Marxist subtext to this film - the souless Cornish miners being exploited without pay, etc. i really can't say, since I last saw this thing in the summer of '66 when it came out
I do remember Morrell (sp?) pronounced Haiti as "Ha - eeti". I've been to England several times and don't remember hearing the word spoken. Is this how it's pronounced?
Almost any traditiona zombie film, with a greedy overload using soulless man as workers, is bound to feel a bit Marxist, whether or not the filmmakers intended it.
shareIt's quite probable that it was intentional. The baddies in Hammer films were usually from the upper classes. One has to keep in mind that Hammer was british company and in Britain classes and class struggle are very apparent in society.
shareGordon P. Clarkson
I have never bought into the Marxist interpretation of Hammer.For one thing ,they are conservative in that in the end the status quo is always restored,and secondly,Religon and traditionalism is always seen as effective in the fight against evil.Both of these aspects are fine by me as I am a small "c" conservative in the European sense of the word.
I tend to be of the "Fairy Tales" for adults school in interpretating Hammer movies.A strong case can be made for them having plugged into Jungian Archetypes.
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Gordon P. Clarkson
As Hammer Films usualy have a rural setting, the less wealthy people featured cannot be said to be "Prolitarians" in the classic Marxist sense,i.e.industrial workers,at all.The main problem for Marxists was that this Class, which Marx defined in the narrowest of terms was only ever the barest of majorities, in the UK for a brief period,if at all, on the eve of World War One.Marx failed to forsee the rise of the White - Collar and Service Sector workers.
2/3 of the population until the gleichschaltung that began in the early 1970s is hardly a bare majority. Marx defined the working class in objective terms, your class is determined by your relationship to the means of production, distribution and exchange, not some identity political diversion.
As soon as I read about the mine I inferred that it was an allegory about slavery, like Blade Runner and Alien. How more Marxy can you get? The cop-out ending is often the price the makers pay for being allowed to flirt with the theme in the first place.
Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.