Customer Reviews

Tombs of the Blind Dead/Return of the Blind Dead

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

De Ossorio's masterpiece! Along with Naschy's werewolf movies, the Blind Dead films are the best that Spanish horror has to offer. These films have everything you could possibly want from Euro exploitation--zombies, lesbians, flesh-eating, nudity (did I mention there're lesbians?), and, of course, the Blind Dead their own bad selves.

The plot concerns the Knights Templar, executed for withcraft and their eyes plucked by ravens, raising from the dead and doing the kind of stuff you've come to expect from satanic flesh-eating zombies. What sets these skeletal dead-heads apart from the legions of walking dead that have come before and since is that they carry swords, wear monk robes, ride horses, and have no eyes (duh). They find their prey by sound alone, and then it's hell to pay, baby!!!!

This movie is lots and lots of fun. Too bad the other two films in the series aren't on DVD. A cut version of the 3rd film used to be available on video as Horror of the Zombies and can sometimes be found in bigger video stores--just be prepared to blow dust off the box. You might even find the fourth film, the great Night Of the Seagulls, uncut, under the title Mark Of The Devil 3. Good luck!!!

And if you REALLY like this movie, the heavy metal band Cathederal has a song on one of their discs called "Night Of The Seagulls" about none other than our friends the Blind Dead. "We are the Blind Dead, we have no eyes inside our head..."

If you REALLY, REALLY dig this freaky movie, check out Michael Soavi's film The Church to see more zombie versions of the Knights Templar (though with their eyes).

I caught TOTBD on Elvira's Movie Macabre back in the day and have loved it ever since. That should be all you need to know to understand how cheese-y the movie is (for you younger folks, this is the kind of movie you'd see lambasted on Mystery Science Theater 3000). Of course, it's tasty cheese and it has aged rather well.

The quality of this DVD presentation is very good; however, after paying around $30 when it first came out, I have seen this DVD offered much cheaper at brick and mortar locations in recent years. If you can't find a cheaper copy locally and absolutely must have one, I guess you'll have to bite the bullet and order here.

The movies hinge on the Knights Templar, who were actual, historical figures & the original proponents of the (European) War on Terror. Though they lost many battles throughout the Crusades, the Templars became so wealthy & consequently so powerful that they began to challenge the rule & authority of European monarchs. The monarchs eventually conspired against the Templars, charging them with heresy. Templar leaders were prosecuted & subsequently executed, causing the organization's dissolution. Though the heresy charges were largely false concoctions, the sordid allegations make for a much more interesting premise on which to build a horror movie.

To his credit, de Ossorio's decision to exploit the more diabolical aspects of Templar mythology pays off. The overall concept is brilliant, though it just begs to be remade with more money and better effects. The coolest, most unique features of TOTBD are the genuine, on-location castle ruins & the eerily undead Templars riding horseback in slo-mo. Conversely, it's most annoying & inexplicable how apparently in Spain day turns to night in a matter of about fifteen seconds and yet the dead of night looks just like noon! Watch it; you'll understand what I mean.

The movie has creep factor galore (one creep in particular being a leacherous, necrophile mortician's assistant), but few genuine scares. It's also subtitled, as I recall, so be warned.

Sadly, ROTBD is much less effective. Forsaking the castle ruins, the Blind Templars instead attack a neighboring village. The less creepy environs make for a less creepy movie. Still, if you're a fan of B horror movies (and why wouldn't you be?) this double feature is a great way to spend an evening. Even if it's an inexplicably sunny evening...

Old fashioned Euro horror absolutely dripping with wonderful Hammer-esque atmosphere. The cheesy acting only help add to the bizarre happenings on screen. There is a bit of titillation (no pun intended) thrown in just to give it that extra euro-trashy flavour....but its the Templar Zombies that rule...they are about as menacing and horrifying as Zombie's have ever been. Also outstanding is the haunting, chilling discordant soundtrack - very influential on stuff like The Omen which followed a few years later. The sequel on the flip side is a far weaker outing altogether.....now one can only hope that Anchor Bay get their hands on the next installment of Templar Terror. This is a must for genre fans......Portugal/Spain's very welcome contribution to the annals of Terror Movies. Epic Zombie stuff. The transfer is a touch hazy as can be expected of such a low budget film and one that is also fairly old. One sometimes has the impression that Elite's laser transfer was at least as good if not better.

How thrilling it is to be an Anchor Bay fanatic! The finest in poorly dubbed, overly gory European horror in gorgeous DVD transfer! So bad it's good - and it doesn't get any worse than this double feature.

TOMBS... is the better of the two films by far, with the typical heroes and heroines doing the stupid things that get them in trouble. The real stars are the Templar zombies, cursed to ride in slow motion on zombie horses. They can't see, see? So being the blind dead, they find their victims through the sound of a heartbeat. There's a great hopeless ending and then you flip the disc.

I like the setting of RETURN... better than its predecessor, but it's basically the same film. The use of some of the same actors (some of whom died in the first) makes it a bit more tedious and the use of the same slow motion stock footage of the Templars riding adds to the feeling that you've just seen this film. And you have! Hell, it's Anchor Bay - you're probably not watching it unless it's two in the morning and you've had too much to drink, so it's all in good fun. The end of RETURN is dull and disappointing, though, and not nearly as satisfying as the end of TOMBS...

In summary, the worst of the worst; and coming from Anchor Bay that can only mean five stars.

This DVD offers up "Tombs of the Blind Dead" ("La Noche del terror ciego") and "Return of the Blind Dead" ("El ataque de los muertos sin ojos"), which comprise the first half of writer-director Amando de Ossorio's four-part horror masterpiece about the undead Templar Knights that emerge from their tombs and move ever so slowly after their victims. When you watch these films you might be reminded of Richard Pryor's joke about how the mummy is coming so, "Walk away! Walk away!" But Ossorio knows how to work the atmosphere with his creations despite being handicapped by having neither the time nor the money to make better movies.

"Tombs of the Blind Dead" begins 500 years ago when the Templars were sacrificing virgins and drinking their blood. Eventually the locals attacked the Templars, burning out the eyes of the knights before burning them at the stake. Ever since then no one goes near their castle, that is until Virginia White (María Elena Arpón) hops off a train in the middle of nowhere and ends up spending the night there. That night the Templar knights, skeletal corpses dressed up in armor, rise (slowly) from their tombs and follow the sounds of Virginia's screams. The trick is to stay silent so the blind Templars cannot hear where you are, but it is difficult to stay quiet when these things are after you. When Virginia's dead body is found her friends Betty Turner (Lone Fleming) and Roger Whelan (César Burner) decide to find out what happened to her. This is where they learn the legend of the Templars and then go off to investigate the castle, thinking that maybe somebody is using the local tale as a cover for criminal activity. This explains why they drag along local smuggler Pedro Candal (Joseph Thelman) and his girlfriend Maria (María Silva), to investigate the place, which only gives the Templars more victims to pursue (slowly).

Ossorio is all about atmosphere, so what stands out here is the thought of these shuffling corpses coming after you while the young women who are about to die take terms trying not to make a sound and then screaming all the way until the end. There is usually some blood at the end, but "Tombs of the Blind Dead" is more about spooky atmosphere. You just have to remind yourself that this film was made in 1971 and not judge its slower pace by the standard of contemporary horror films. Actually, this is the 86 minute dubbed into English version of the original 101 minute Spanish film. What has been cut from "La Noche del terror ciego" is the nudity, a rather chaste lesbian love scene, the bloodier parts of the flashback, and one of the more gratuitous rape scenes of all-time. The edited flashback is actually the prologue for "Tombs of the Blind Dead."

The most interesting thing about "Return of the Evil Dead" is that while it is a sequel it stands on its own. That is because it seems the rules of the game have changed somewhat, although they are certainly still compatible. This second film begins with what happened to the Templars in 1473 when the local villagers got tired ot the knights sacrificing virgins and drinking their blood. Now it is the 500th anniversary of when the Templars were burned at the stake and the villagers are celebrating their victory, including burning Templar manikins at the stake. Barricading themselves inside a hacienda are a small group of people trying to survive, including Jack Marlowe (Tony Kendall), who showed up in town to provide fireworks for the celebration, his old girl friend Vivian (Esther Roy), and the corrupt mayor (Fernando Sancho). The mayor keeps calling the governor for help, but the governor's mistress keeps telling him that everybody in the town is drunk because of the big celebration, so they are on their own.

Consequently, this 1973 film ends up being a lot like "The Night of the Living Dead," where you have people holed up someplace surrounded by a bunch of slow moving monsters (Ossorio dismisses the comparison because it is a commonplace of horror films). In this dubbed English version the Templars simply rise from their tombs, get on their horses, ride into town, and start slaughtering the locals. However, if you see the slightly longer original version, "El ataque de los muertos sin ojos," there is a scene where Murdo (José Canalejas), the creepy looking guy in town, makes a blood offering to raise the Templars from the dead (and this time there are easily twice as many as in the first film). I found this to be the best of the four films and while none of them are great, they are pretty good when it comes to taking the relatively simple idea of the blind undead Templar knights and then creating and sustaining a spooky atmosphere on a shoestring budget.

Be aware that there is a new 5-DVD set with all four "Blind Dead" films plus a disc that has a brief documentary about Ossorio and some rare interview clips, was released this month. The advantage of the set over this one DVD is that you get both the dubbed English versions and the original Spanish versions of both "Tombs of the Blind Dead" and "Return of the Blind Dead," with the latter being preferred, even if you have to read the subtitles. These were followed by "El buque maldito" ("The Ghost Galleon") in 1974, and "La Noche de las gavitos" ("Night of the Seagulls") in 1975. Some see Jesus Franco's 1985 film "La Mansión de los muertos vivientes" as a remake of Ossorio's first film, but I think you are on safer ground if you consider it to be definitely inspired by this entire series. One of the interesting things about the series is that most of the films can stand on their own, with the second being the best of the lot.

Anchor Bay released this now out of print "double-feature" DVD in 1998. While disappointingly extras-free, it is very much worth seeking out as the disc offers one of Europe's most infamous horror titles completely uncut.

TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD (1972): In 13th Century Portugal, the Templar Knights ceremoniously tortured village girls to death and drank their blood in the belief that the ritual would grant them immortality. After years of torment and fear, the villagers murderously rebelled against the Templars, killing all of the members of the oppressive, diabolical cult. The corpses of the knights were left hanging from trees where crows ate their eyes. In 1972, a young woman stumbles upon the Templars burial ground and the living dead knights claw out of their tombs to kill her. The woman's friends investigate her death and eventually find themselves the prey of the bloodlusting, blind Templars, who are able to pursue their victims by listening to their fear-swollen heartbeats.

With skillful, atmospheric direction by Amando de Ossorio, and featuring creepy titular monsters who have deservedly become icons of contemporary horror, TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD is a diverting and occasionally frightening zombie outing. Although hampered by a haphazardly constructed narrative, with a great deal of truly clumsy exposition, the film features more than enough potent shocks to compensate. Most of the various stalk and kill sequences are nightmarishly effective. The final twenty minutes, in particular, are relentlessly gruesome and bleak.

Presented in an uncensored form for the first time ever in the U.S., the Anchor Bay DVD features a nice and colorful, if unspectacular, widescreen transfer of this much sought after film. The Spanish language soundtrack is subtitled in English. No extras, not even a trailer, are provided.

RETURN OF THE BLIND DEAD (1973): A small town is having a fireworks-laden 500th Anniversary celebration of the destruction of the Templar Knights. Shortly after the evening festivities begin, the undead knights make a surprise appearance, seeking bloody revenge for their centuries-old defeat. After most of the villagers are slaughtered, a small group of survivors desperately try to use an abandoned church as a refuge from the living dead's onslaught.

The unexpected worldwide success of TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD convinced Amando de Ossorio to write and direct this quickly filmed sequel; two more would eventually follow. Completely eschewing the creepy atmospherics and suspenseful buildup of the original, RETURN seeks its thrills by simply offering up a comparatively huge body count. Once the "action" starts (after some of the dullest expository material ever filmed), victim after victim is chased and abruptly killed by the sword wielding monsters. The film is a surprisingly dreary, crudely shot mess, an unbearably boring exercise in unimaginative and soulless euro-horror.

It may be a worthless movie, but Anchor Bay has seen fit to give it a decent DVD presentation. Unfortunately taken from a censored print that is reportedly missing the film's more extreme moments of gore, the disc offers an otherwise adequate transfer of a lackluster title, presented in the movie's original theatrical release aspect ratio, poorly dubbed in English.

Typical Eurotrash cinema,Throw in bad acting and lesbianism and you have a European Movie,I wonder what would have happened had it been Moslem Barbarians as the Undead? The only thing worth it is the gregorian chant and music.
It reminds me Of The Blatant Anti-Catholicism in City of The Living Dead and that filmmaker's other movies which also have the same recurring theme.Knights Templar were only in trouble at first due to the Pressure of Phillip The Fair and then later The Church admitted such,But what is the most easiest Religion to Pick on?
You Certainly won't see Night of the Living Calvinists coming back from the dead and burning the altars and killing priests and nuns nor the Night of the Living Secular dead of the French Revolution doing the same thing,These Enlightened Euros,Liberals,Marxists and Anti-Clerical snobs are too busy giving us Great fiction.

Just for the record, for those of you who read the review by Chris, these are of course Spanish films, not Italian. By the way, they are great !

Zombie movies, what's not to like? This one is an underrated classic. Elegantly shot with some great lighting and camera angles. For my mind, the undead Templars, resurrected Occultist murderers who where put to death in real life, are the coolest zombies by far. Yes, even more so than Romero's blue people and Fulci's walking cadavers. Romero's zombies had traces of character. Fulci's zombies looked completely dead. But the Templars themselves have a mummy-like legend and effect. They're ancienct, and rise every night on their own accord. They ride zombie horses, hunt their prey by sound, did I mention they pack swords to make sure people don't get away? Yup, sword wielding zombie knights. Oh yeah, another fine touch; they are completely silent. No silly moaning or staggering around somewhat intoxicated for these bad boys. They stand almost with a prowess. These are the things we fear about most, the classic zombies in a true sense. The way they close in on their cowering victims before biting the hell out of them is pretty chilling.

Must have.

tombs is one of the best 'stoner horror' films iv`e seen.the atmosphere here is just unbelievable! the low budget everything just adds to the films charm for me.incredibly poor acting,unlikeable characters but the templar knights save this one.the slo-mo scenes on horse back will send shivers down your spine! return is much the same! anyone putting these films down is completely missing the point.these films have character.turn on,tune in & freak out.pure gold!