Pros: Nice atmosphere and visuals, as well as Ossorio's assured direction make this Spanish zombie flick worth checking out
Cons: a bit exposition heavy in spots, the Knights should have been in the film more, a weak modern zombie subplot, and a surprising lack of gore keep this one from being a classic
Mike_Bracken's Full Review: Tombs of the Blind Dead/Return of the Blind Dead
Tombs of the Blind Dead: Plata Films S.A./ Anchor Bay Entertainment Rating: USA: Unrated
Thanks to the recent explosion of Euro-horror releases on DVD (with a special thanks to Anchor Bay, who’s gifted fans with superb DVD releases of countless Dario Argento films as well as more obscure titles like Sergio Martino’s Torso) American horror film fans finally have easy access to some of the more impressive (and rare) movies to emanate in Europe. No longer do fans of directors like Jess Franco, Lucio Fulci, or Mario Bava have to make do with bootlegs or heavily edited video releases from the 1980s. No, now fans can run down to their local Suncoast Motion Picture Store (where they’ll gouge you on the cover price) and pick up movies like the one we’re discussing today—Amando De Ossorio’s groovy 1971 zombie flick, Tombs of the Blind Dead.
Opening up with some great footage of the desolate ruins of an ancient Abbey, the film tells the story of the ancient Knights Templar—a group of mystic crusaders from the middle ages who were eventually excommunicated for dabbling in the black arts in a quest to gain immortality. These knights stole women from the nearby villages, using them as sacrifices in their black rituals—at least until the townspeople got fed up. The knights were sentenced to death, hung from trees (where crows ate their eyeballs), then later buried at the Abbey.
Our story opens in Lisbon, where young and comely Virginia (Elena Arpon) runs into an old acquaintance, Betty (Lone Fleming), at poolside in some posh resort. Betty and Virginia reminisce about the good ol’ days a bit before Virginia’s psuedo-boyfriend Roger (Cesar Burner) arrives. Roger’s one of those macho 70s style studs, and he goes to great lengths to make it clear that he and Virginia are ‘just friends’ (much to Virginia’s dismay. Finally, he even invites Betty to go camping with them the next day.
The next day comes, and Betty shows up at the train station without a date. She and Roger flirt pretty seriously, while Virginia gets ticked. Eventually (after Ossorio treats us to a flashback sequence where we learn that Betty and Virginia did some sexual experimentation with each other), Virginia hops off the moving train and sets out for some deserted looking ruins.
Apparently, her traipsing around disturbs the Knights’ slumber, and soon, they’re alive (well, as alive as you can get in the zombie sense) and kicking—and chasing young Virginia through the ruins while mounted on their trusty steeds. Roger and Betty later discover that Virginia has been found murdered—her body savagely mutilated. They then learn that the ruins are called Berzano, and that the locals refuse to talk about it. Of course, our two intrepid heroes decide to investigate the happenings at Berzano, which eventually puts them right in Knights Templar central, late at night (along with a studly smuggler and his catty wife/girlfriend), with the undead Satanists rising to launch a zombie holocaust.
This was the first film in the four installment series chronicling the Knights Templar, and this is probably the best (I say probably because I haven’t seen the fourth film). Amando de Ossorio (who passed away in 1996) demonstrates a keen sense of pacing with his handling of this film—and a keen eye for some intriguing visuals. The movie is a largely ponderous affair, with minutes of screen time filled with no dialogue as a character goes about their routine (this is particularly noticeable in the sequence where Virginia explores Berzano). However, while this would play as boring in most films, Ossorio manages to fill these down moments with an almost palpable sense of menace and dread in this film. Little things, like the way the camera prowls over the landscape, or the static long takes of the characters’ surroundings all contribute to the heavy atmosphere that permeates almost every frame of this film.
Still, perhaps the most brilliant thing Ossorio has done is filming his undead knights on their horses, clip-clopping after their victims in slow motion. Normally, I think the effect would be laughable, but here, it works—mostly because it gives us a chance to actually see these really cool looking zombie knights riding horses.
As far as zombie flicks go, the blind dead knights here are actually pretty inventive. They rise from their tombs, shrouded in their dirty and tattered tunics, their shrunken flesh pulled tight over their skulls, and look fairly convincing (this was 1971, after all, and while the effects are pretty laughable by today’s standards, the knights look good for their time). In fact, one can almost make a connection between the appearance of the undead knights in this film, and the dead, zombified, leprous sailors who populate Carpenter’s The Fog. Unlike Romero’s zombies (who still could see), these blind zombies have to rely on a super-tuned sense of hearing in order to track their prey—which is pretty inventive, when you think about it.
The acting is credible, particularly for this kind of film. Burner and Fleming are decent and likable horror film leads. They’re not award winning actors by any stretch of the imagination, but they manage to actually emote in the scenes where they need to emote and never resort to hysterical melodrama.
The gore and FX work is a bit of a disappointment, though. Several scenes where the blind dead rise are absurdly cheesy—with skeletal hands (that are about as realistic as the ones you’d see at a YMCA Halloween funhouse) pushing the lids off of crypts. Equally unimpressive is the film’s one modern zombie—this character (who rises from the dead despite the fact that we’ve been given no impression that dying at the hands of the knights would cause you to become a zombie) simply looks like an actor in some bad make-up. In fact, the whole newly risen zombie subplot blows and appears only as padding for the film.
In another sequence, we see the knights back when they were alive. They tie a young woman to several planks of wood, then ride around her, slashing her open with swords, before dismounting and sucking the blood from her wounds. This scene is surprisingly decent—until you watch the knights suck the blood from what is obviously a latex dummy torso. At any rate, there’s not a lot of gore here…but the Knights are cool enough that gore fans should still find the film worth seeing.
Anchor Bay has released this film, along with its sequel, Return of the Blind Dead on a single DVD. The film features nothing in the way of extras (not even a trailer), but the picture is presented in it's theatrical aspect ratio, and it looks much better than the old cut Elvira video version that had been floating around for years.
All in all, Tombs of the Blind Dead is an original entry into the zombie canon from the Spanish horror contingent. The idea of the zombies being undead knights is an appealing one—one that really adds to the overall cool factor of this movie…I mean, c’mon, when was the last time you saw zombies ride horses? Ossorio’s direction is confident and assured, and ultimately, it serves as a testament to how a filmmaker can create tension through camerawork and slow pacing as opposed to using cheap scare tactics and bucket loads of gore. If you’re a fan of zombie flicks, or European horror, then Tombs of the Blind Dead is well worth a look.
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