Wednesday, June 26, 2013

The Films of the Blind Dead


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.  

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Texas Chainsaw 3D


Those of you that know me knows that I am a supporter of the Texas Motion Picture Alliance.
Now you are asking What is that. Well Kiddies I’ll try to explain it to you.

The Texas Motion Picture Alliance aka TXMPA is an advocate for the film, video, commercial, interactive and digital media production industries in the Lone Star State. TXMPA is committed to building a strong community of industry professionals. It is charged with creating competitive economic incentives to present to the state legislature during sessions. TXMPA is also committed to educating the general public about media industry businesses and how they impact lives by pumping millions of dollars into the economy.

All of that information came from the TXMPA website www.txmpa.org

What they are trying to accomplish is they are trying to get Texas to offer the film incentives that are being offered by other states to bring productions to the state.

Now you ask what does this have to do with anything.

The new Texas Chainsaw Massacre film was shot in Louisiana. Now I have a big problem with that.
THE FILM HAS TEXAS IN THE TITLE!!!   

Three franchises that need to be filmed in Texas is DALLAS, Walker: Texas Ranger, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Well Knowing me when I hear these rumors I go straight to the horse’s mouth and I spoke to one of the Officers of the TXMPA and I gave her a piece of my mind.

It was there that I found out that the flick wasn't turned down for the incentives and that they would have loved to have the film shot here in Texas.

So after I apologized profusely for putting my foot in my mouth I had a much longer conversation with the woman about the incentives that were offered to them.

The truth is that states like Louisiana and Georgia offer far better film incentives that the other states can’t do better than at this time. The truth is that Texas needs to realize the benefits that a film’s production can bring to a community.

I’ve seen it myself in many other film productions that I have been part of over the years.

Now I did end up having dinner with a member of the original cast in 2012 and we did discuss the new film.
He did point out that the film was shot just 15 Minutes from the Texas border and that the film as a matter of fact did look like Texas.

He also pointed out his opinion of the Benefits that are offered to filmmakers in the state of Louisiana.
Now that being said I was able to finally check out the Blu-Ray release of Texas Chainsaw 3D.

Now first off this flick ignores all continuity of the previous sequels and this flick is not a sequel to the 2003 Reboot of the Franchise.

This is instead a direct sequel to the original 1974 film which picks up right where the TCM left off.
After Sally Hardesty’s escape form the House the town sheriff heads to the Sawyer family’s house where the remaining members have all converged to defend their family.

Including Boss Sawyer played by The original Chainsaw star Gunner Hanson and Grandpa who is once again played by John Dugan.

 The role of Drayton Sawyer since Jim Siedow had passed away is now played by Horror star Bill Moseley who took on the role of Choptop in Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2.

The sheriff demands that they turn over Leatherface and the family replies that he was just “Protecting our Home”.

With the urging of the rest of the family they agree to release Leatherface into custody in exchange that he receives a good lawyer for his defense to which the sheriff agrees.

At that point a band of locals appear as a lynch mob with their shotguns who proceed to open fire on the family and burn down to the house. A lone man finds a young mother who escaped the flames and she has her baby girl with her and the man kills the woman and takes the baby and gives it to his wife since they were looking to have a child. The rest of the family burns inside the house and unknown to the mob is that Leatherface is safe inside the cellar of the house.

The baby Heather grows up and moves away where she works as a butcher of the local market with her boyfriend and her best friend and then she learns that the ones that raised her are in fact not her real parents and, for the record they don’t have a good relationship.

The reason that she has learned this is the fact that her biological grandmother has passed away and that she has inherited her entire estate since she is the last relative.

Naturally she takes off to the house in Texas and she discovers that the house is a giant mansion and she is given a letter that she conveniently forgets to read.

On the way to Texas the group consisting of Heather’s boyfriend Ryan and her best friend Nikki, which you findout are having an affair with each other, as well as Ryan’s friend Kenny pick up Darryl a hitchhiker. It figures in a Texas Chainsaw film that they would pick up a Hitchhiker.

However Darryl is in actuality is looking to rob the estate and when the group goes to town to purchase supplies Darryl goes throughout the house stealing whatever he can get his hands on and goes downstairs in the cellar where he finds a locked steel door with a small hole with a tray of eaten food that has been slid out and he figures that this may be a vault with all of the money.

What he instead finds is that the room contains Leatherface who promptly takes Darryl out with his trusty sledge hammer.

Eventually the gang comes back to the house and what we get is the basis one by one takeout until Leatherface chases Heather into town and into the own carnival (Hilarious scene where leatherface meets face to face with a haunter with a chainsaw dressed as the killer in the Saw franchise) where he is stopped by the local deputy.

The movie then takes a new direction where we find out that the Sheriff from the beginning of the flick is still the town sheriff and the leader of the lynch mob is now the Mayor who upon learning that Heather is the last remaining of the Sawyer family decide to kill her and Heather learns the truth of what happened to her real family.

Heather is eventually captured and in the real twist in the flick Heather and Leatherface join forces to fight the Mayor and his minions and the real bloodbath begins.
The direction of making Leatherface into the hero of the film is a interesting step. Actually I liked that direction.

The fact is that this film takes Leatherface’s point of view in the fact that in the first film he was just protecting his family home and the people that he killed were all trespassing in his home…and that was true. 
The fact that the lynch mob attacked and killed his family also points the character in that direction especially in the truth us that the killers are all the authorities in the community.

Many people will take offence to making Leatherface the hero of the series but the truth is that it works with the character. That direction has been taken by both the Frankenstein Monster and Leatherface himself took a similar direction in Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 as well.

Despite my earlier rant about the film not being made in Texas the crew did an outstanding job in recreating the original Chainsaw house.

The original House I did attend a screening of in 2011 and the House definitely was similar in a recreation.
My issues with the recreation is that it was not explained what happened to the truck driver in the original that we are always asking what happened. The truck remains there but the driver is nowhere to be seen.
Another Texas rant that I have is the use of basements in the film. Anyone who lives in Texas knows that basements are not common here in because of the foundations in the ground going back to the Basement in the Alamo joke.

The only other issue that I have with the flick is Heather’s age. I estimate that her age is in her early 20s and If you do the math that doesn’t add up to the time that has passed since the first flick and that is just something that I feel the need to let go but it is a issue.

As I had stated earlier the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise means much for me and I feel that this movie was a great entry to the series however for a direct sequel I’ll watch Chainsaw Part 2.

The Blu-Ray is loaded with some good Special Features including 3 commentaries which one of them features the Texas Chainsaw Massacre Alumni with Marlyn Burns, Bill Moseley, and John Dugan. Also included is Behind the scenes documentaries including one that shows the recreation and destruction of the original Chainsaw house and a special look at Dan Yeager who takes on the role of Leatherface as well as a look at the making of the kills in the flick.

I would like to see all the future entries to be filmed here in the Great State of Texas and I would like anyone reading this entry to contact the TXMPA on the website that I gave you earlier in this review.

14 Dead Bodies
0 Breasts
1 Beast
1 Car Chase with a crash but no burn
Sledge Hammer to the Face
Hatchet to the temple
Chainsaw to the Belly
Body Grinding
Body Halfing
College kid Fu
Redneck Fu
Sawyer Fu
Chainsaw Fu
2 Stars (One star subtracted for not being filmed in Texas)
Check it out