Many great horror flicks are made in other countries. The Italians
and the Asians get most of the credit and their movies are eventually remade in
America. The Ring and the Grudge are prime examples.
There is however a series of Spanish Horror flicks that I
would like to talk to you about at this time.
In the 1970s Spanish filmmaker Amando de Ossorio presented a
series of Drive-in classics that followed different sects of the undead Knights
Templar as they returned from the grave to seek revenge on their killers.
First off I want to talk about the Knights Templar. A order
of Knights working for the Catholic Church the Knights Templar were fighters during
the crusades that amassed massive quantities of wealth and power and invented
the base for our modern day banking system. The king of France Philip IV who
was deeply in debt to the Knights brought them up on charges of Blasphemy and
Satanic practices as well as charges of homosexuality to seize their assets and
have many of the knights arrested and executed.
The Knights Templar were arrested on Friday, October 13 1307
which is one of the primary reasons for the superstition of Friday the 13th.
Many of the Templars were executed and their Grand Master Jacques de Molay before
being burned at the stake shouted a curse on his accuser including the king and
the Pope who were both dead within a year.
To many the Knights Templar are viewed as innocent victims of
the greed and corruption of both the government as well as the Catholic Church
and have taken many positions in popular culture in both movies and Video Games
like Assassins Creed and Dante’s Inferno.
To others the Knights Templar are viewed as more villainous
and satanic particularly the followers of the church.
It makes sense that in Portugal that the Templars would be
viewed as more villains than the heroes.
The first film in the series La Noche del terror ciego aka Tombs
of the Blind Dead follows Virginia who is in vacation with Roger the man that
she loves but is not with. While in the pool she encounters an old classmate Betty
that she was once friends with and she is invited to come along on a camping
trip with them.
Annoyed with the obvious attention that Betty is being shown
by Roger she jumps off the train which refuses to stop and help her because
they don’t stop there especially at night.
Deciding to spend the night in the ruins of an old castle that it turns
out is the resting place of the Templars and that every night the knights rise
from the dead and seek the blood of the living to feed on.
Virginia is chased down by the Blind Dead on undead horses
and killed with her body being discovered the next morning by the train.
Betty and Roger ask around the hotel that they are staying
about their Virginia however at the mention of where the she disappeared at
they are met with fear and superstition from the locals eventually discovering
Virginia’s fate from the local police.
Roger and Betty investigate further and learn from a historian
about the Knights and that there committed human sacrifices and were killed by
the villagers who hung their bodies in the trees and allowed the birds to peck
out their eyes explaining why they are blind.
Virginia’s body is taken to the morgue where she reanimates
and after killing a mortician she then targets Betty. Going to Betty’s place of
business Virginia tries to kill Betty’s assistant however he body is burned in
a fire.
Roger and Betty decide to investigate the ruins with a smuggler
that Roger knows and his girlfriend goes with them and that night the Blind dead
arrive and kill all except Betty who manages to make it to the train tracks
where the train stops however the blind dead also manage to board the train and
massacre the engineers as well as the other passengers and the train still
manages to depart and the next morning the train arrives at the station and the
only left alive is Betty. While Betty is taken into the station by an attendant
the doors to the train are opened and the screams are heard and the movie cuts
to a still shot and the movie ends.
What I like the most about Tombs of the Blind Dead is the low
budget. Yes some of the effects are super cheesy especially the use of fire in
the film but I think that it works for the film. The budget was clearly spent
on the creation of the Blind Dead but that was where the movie needed to spend its
budget.
Tombs of the Blind Dead was reedited before it’s American release
as an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the Planet of the Apes movies by
adding a new origin and re-titling it Revenge from Planet Ape that made it look like man had evolved from
the Apes and that the blind dead were the reanimated ape zombies.
Needless to say that didn't go over too well.
I was actually first introduced to this film by none other
than Elvira Mistress of the Dark in the late 1980s. The film was released by
Anchor Bay in 1997 and It was released in a coffin shaped box set with all of
the sequels in the early 2000s.
El Ataque de los Muertos Sin Ojos orReturn of the Blind Dead is more of a direct sequel and I
feel the flick is just as good.
The movie also features some returning cast members that are
however playing different roles.
Return of the Blind Dead also features a
more complex plot and like the Living Dead series the problems are both
consisting of the Blind Dead themselves as well as the human’s inability to
work together.
This flick changes the origin of the Templars in the fact
that when they were killed their eyes were burned out and not eaten by the
birds.
This flick follows the main character Jack who is hired by
the mayor of a small town near the Templar’s lair to provide fireworks for the
town’s celebration of the execution of the Templars centuries earlier.
Jack as it turns out is the ex-lover of Vivian who is now
engaged to the Mayor however she quickly rekindles her romance with Jack.
Returning to the ruins Jack and Vivian encounter Murdo (My friend Slick and I
nicknamed “Crazy Unibrow Man”), the local village outcast who as it turns works
in the graveyard. That night Murdo raises the Blind Dead from their Graves to
seek revenge on the town that celebrates their deaths.
The Blind Dead while on their way to the town make many
stops on their way killing people that they encounter however they do leave
survivors who manage to arrive in town to warn the mayor who dismisses the
claims as a drunken dream. When the Blind Dead are proven to the Mayor he
contacts the governor who also dismisses it as a drunken claim.
The Blind Dead soon arrive in the town and begin massacring
the citizens and the few survivors seek refuge in the church.
What soon deteriorates into Night of the Living Dead
situation where the Blind Dead are outside the church waiting for the People to
try to make an escape while the survivors, including the mayor, his assistant Dacosta, Vivian, Jack, Murdo, Moncha a woman,
and a Married couple with a young daughter, begin to disagree with each other
resulting in their demises with situations such as the Mayor using the young
girl as bait for the Blind Dead while he tries to make an escape which
backfires and the Mayor is killed by the Blind Dead and the death of the girl’s
mother in an attempt to rescue her daughter.
Dacosta tries to rape Vivian only to be impaled onto a spear
by Jack. Murdo and Monica try to make an escape in an underground tunnel alone
only to be killed by the Blind Dead waiting for them on the other end of the
tunnel.
Morning arrives and Jack and Vivian try to make an escape
with the young girl and upon seeing the Blind Dead she screams but the Templars
give no response and soon they begin to collapse to the ground since the day
has come and they are no longer reanimated. The survivors soon depart as the
movie ends.
Many scenes with the Templars are made reusing stock footage
from the previous film this was done due to budgeting reasons which was a recurring
problem during the series and often angered Ossorio as he felt that the
productions suffered from these issues.
Another aspect of the series like so many other non-American
Horror films is the bleak view of society in the film. Elements like Rape
scenes are common where in an American film they will be addressed more or the
scenes will be dropped all together. The use of far more violence, gore and the
murder of children are shown more in these films as well as the fact that in
many of these films the villains win and the heroes are the ones that die.
The Return of the Blind Dead is one of the few films in the
series to have a happy ending where the survivors manage to escape their
deaths. Many of the films end with the survivors being surrounded by the
Templars and seemingly unable to escape.
The best example of this is in the 3rd chapter in
the series El Buque Maldito aka The Ghost Galleon.
Following a young swimsuit model Noemi that is looking for
her roommate Kathy who was sent on a publicity stunt to be seen on a speedboat by
a passing ship, however the ship that they encounter is a mysterious ship that
the girls go and investigate and they disappear.
Noemi, their agent Lillian, as well as the boat company’s
owner Howard Tucker, his henchman Sergio and a scientist Professor Grüber go
and investigate where they also find the Ghost ship and they board looking for
the missing model only to discover that the Blind Dead are on board.
Noemi is the first to fall victim to the Blind Dead in one
of the best sequences in the film.
The development of the film is that while the characters are
on the ship it is always night and that when the moon is covered up by the
clouds the Blind Dead are unanimated and the characters decide to take this opportunity
to drop the bodies into the ocean but after accomplishing this task the ship
catches fire and all but Professor Grüber jump off the ship and the only survivors
make it to the beach where they collapse from exhaustion and then the clouds
clear and the moon is out and the Blind Dead appear on the beach surrounding
the survivors where the movie closes.
The Ghost Galleon despite having the best plot was one of
the least liked entries of the series with the illogical plot holes as well as
the continuity errors.
One of the new developments as well as the fact that the
Blind Dead now run from crosses and the question is that considering that they
are blind how can they even see the crosses?
The effects were also the worst in the series in
particularly the finale there the ship is burned and clearly a cardboard model
ship in a pool.
The Ghost Galleon also features the first real satanic
aspect of the series.
The final entry of the Blind Dead series was La Noche de Las
Gaviotas aka Night of the Seagulls.
Following a Dr. Henry Stein and his wife Joan as they move
to the seaside town where they are met with hostility from the locals.
The Doctor and his wife soon meet a young girl who is then
taken by her family and the other members of the town and chained to a rock
which as it turns out is an attempt to appease the Blind Dead who appear for
seven nights every seven years and will not kill the town if seven virgins are sacrificed
to them around this time.
After rescuing the young Lucy from the Blind Dead the
Doctor, His Wife, Lucy and the village Idiot Teddy find themselves trapped in
their home with the Blind Dead trying to hack their way into the house.
In the end of the film Lucy and Teddy are killed by the
Templars and Dr. Stein and his wife destroy the totem that the Blind Dead use
as an altar in their church and they all crumble.
Night of the Seagulls was the final film in the series as Amando
de Ossorio eventually retired from the business.
He was filmed in a documentary titled Amando de Ossorio: The
Last Templar that is included in the Blind Dead collection before his death in
2001.
There has been quite a few recreations and tributes over the
years but any of the Blind Dead Movies have received the Remake treatment as
many of its’ horror brethren.
I honestly feel that The Blind Dead owes much of it’s resurgence
to the Internet as well as Horror Magazines like Fangoria and Rue Morgue.
The series is definitely worth checking out.
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