Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971) review

TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD aka LA NOCHE DEL TERROR CIEGO 1971

Lone Fleming (Betty), Cesar Burner (Roger), Maria Elena (Virginia)


Meeting up with a childhood friend for a weekend getaway, Virginia leaps from the train they are traveling on when it appears her female friend has some romantic interest in the man she is accompanying. The train conductor refuses to stop because of satanic legends permeating the area. Virginia makes her way to an old abandoned temple deciding to stay the night there. As night falls, zombie-fied, skeletal creatures arise from their tombs and attack the young woman. She manages to escape their clutches but the zombie monks climb atop undead horses, give chase and eventually kill her.


Later, her two friends, Betty and Roger, go looking for her and uncover a terrible legend. The Templars were Knights of Christ who were ex-communicated for blasphemy. They were hanged and crows ate out their eyes. Centuries later, they occasionally arise from their graves awakened by the hauntingly loud boom of a ghostly bell to seek new victims for their blood sacrifices. During the finale, Roger, Betty and a couple of seedy bandits are cornered in the temple. One survives and boards the passing train as the Templars give chase. The bloodthirsty knights manage to board the train where they systematically slaughter the passengers.


Amando de Ossorio's first entry in his popular quadrilogy was a big hit when first released. At the time Spanish horror was frowned upon and seldom attempted mainly because of the censorship laws in Spain. The one man who initially got the Spanish horror boom in motion was Paul Naschy and his Universal /Hammer homages. These films, amazingly, were not as popular in their homeland but more so in America and other countries.


Ossorio's movie was a bit different from Naschy's approach. Instead of using popular horror movie creatures as a template, he chose the historical Templar Knights who were soldiers of Christ. Their exploits are well documented and they were feared by the King who believed that their growing popularity with the common people would bring about dissent. Inevitably, the Templars were hunted down and executed as heretics.


Ossorio plays with the facts a bit as well as changing the mythology from film to film. Ossorio even incorporates some vampire lore with a hint of Romero's slant on zombies from his NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968). After Virginia's body (the young lady from the beginning) is delivered to the morgue we see an eccentric morgue attendant playing with a turtle in a bowl. In the background you see Virginia's slashed and chewed corpse lying covered on a table. The sound of the eerie church bell from the monastic Templar burial site can be heard in the distance.


Shortly after, you see the sheets move as the corpse rises in the background as the attendant is unaware of what is transpiring behind him. The now undead Virginia gets closer and closer until she puts the bite on the careless man. The scene is very creepy as is a similar scene soon after as the revived Virginia attacks a woman in a mannequin shop. A blinking red light adds a sinister ambiance as she casually stalks the young woman inside the locked warehouse filled with ominously spooky mannequins.


In regards to this scene, it's interesting to note that earlier in the film when Virginia stayed overnight inside the temple, there is a shot of her undressing in front of a fire. The flames heighten as she undresses; her body barely concealed by the licking flames. Later during the mannequin shop attack, the girl sets a dummy on fire and knocks it into the zombiefied Virginia. We see as she is burned to death, the flames consuming her body much as they did in the earlier, symbolic shot. I'm not sure if it was intentional, but the scene is a striking piece of foreshadowing.

As for the Blind Dead themselves, they are one of the most memorable and original creations in all of fantastic cinema. These monsters are blind so they find their prey through sound alone; even the sound of a heartbeat can alert them to a potential victims location. Their centuries old cloaks, their bony hands reaching out with swords drawn to slash, stab and skewer their victims before sucking the blood from their bodies. The long dead horses they ride, whose scenes are shot in slow motion, stick in your mind as they are quite a striking image. The Templars even have small tufts of hair dangling from their bony chins for added effect. The soundtrack from Luis Anton Abril is desperately in need of a CD release. It is one of the most frightening horror movie scores of all time. It is questionable if Ossorio's movie would have the same effect with a different, less surreal score.


One of the oddest aspects of Ossorio's four Blind Dead films is the inclusion of rape. Each film has one. In the first film, there is a lesbian sub-plot involving Virginia and her girls school friend, Betty (played by Lone Fleming), who now seems to enjoy the company of men. This is what leads to Virginia jump off of the train when jealousy overtakes her senses.

However, this is really just a deception. Betty has no interest in men but yet prefers to pretend she does. Just before Virginia jumps from the train, Betty tells her she has never forgotten her and that she hopes Virginia feels the same way. Betty then says, "You remember what I taught you?" just as a flashback begins and reveals the time that Betty had seduced her friend while they were in a girls school together. It's not really made clear just why Virginia jumps from the train; could it be that she was shunning Betty's advances wishing only to have relationships with men? It would seem so since she was upset when it appeared that Roger was very much attracted to Betty.


Later in the film, Roger and Betty enlist the aid of a group of small time criminals that know the area around the temple since no one else is foolish enough to go there. During the conclusion, the leader of the gang shows interest in Betty. She says she has never been able to enjoy the touch of a man. Then, the hoodlum forces himself on her, slaps her around a bit before finally stripping her naked and raping her. Afterwards, he nonchalantly hands her a cigarette! Each succeeding film features a scene like this. It is not known (to me at least) why Ossorio included such bits. Did he have some kind of emotionally destructive altercations with the opposite sex? Or was it just crass exploitation?


The films plot is nothing special. There really isn't any plot to speak of. The film is mainly just a series of drawn out set pieces--The opening bit involving Virginia exiting the train, her exploration of the decrepit temple followed by her death from the Templars. The middle portion is a brief search followed by two scenes of Virginia claiming victims and the explanation of the history of the Templar Knights. The final bit involves the cast making a trip to the temple to see if the legend is true. The train conductor that refused to stop earlier in the film because of the strange occurrences and frightening legends indigenous to the area, gets his final comeuppance. The violence isn't limited to the conductor as the Templars board the train and lay waste to the many innocent people aboard.


The imagery, the atmosphere, the outrageously spooky music and the Templars themselves are the reason to watch TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD (1971). Ossorio wrings every bit of tension out of the set pieces he can and pushes the terror to the max. There are also numerous scenes of illogical behavior. During the final bit at the end, Betty takes an incredibly long time to get on the train (even with help). The slow moving Templars have, by this time, reached the train and dismounted their steeds. It could be said that she was nearly frozen with fright but nonsensical behavior is a mainstay in horror movies so it's nothing to really fuss about.


The US release had some of its scenes shuffled around and some of its violence excised. The film was trimmed down from around 100 minutes to just under 80 minutes. The film was a mainstay on the popular syndicated show ELVIRA'S MOVIE MACABRE during the 80's. Strangely, the bloody train massacre finale was shown intact on the Elvira program but was cut from the Paragon video release!


Ossorio followed this success with three sequels each one lesser than the one before it. It should be noted that John Carpenter must have seen the second and third films before he made THE FOG (1979). That film, about the ghosts of wrongfully murdered lepers returning on a ghostly vessel inside an ominous fog to get revenge on the tiny seaside town that lured them to their death a century before. The idea of a 100 year celebration of the history of the town is similar to Ossorio's second film RETURN OF THE BLIND DEAD (1972) in which a small township celebrates the 100 year celebration of the execution of the Templars by the townspeople.


The ghostly fog enshrouded ship features in Ossorio's third film, THE GHOST GALLEON (1973). A seriously lackluster affair whose only points of interest are several well done atmospheric sequences and a nicely done, but downbeat ending. By the fourth film, the quality returns somewhat to the first and second entries but the ending feels a bit rushed. The film, NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS (1975) has modern day Templars in addition to the dead kind, sacrificing the daughters of a frightened fishing village to their fish God.


All four present wonderful ideas and hauntingly surreal imagery involving the Knights Templar. Ossorio had planned to re-visit his most famous creation but died before he was able to do so. The Templars would later feature in a few other movies including the rarely seen John Gilling movie CROSS OF THE DEVIL (1975) and in Jess Franco's pornographic MANSION OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985). The Knights Templar will forever be remembered as one of the most original and frightening of Europe's heritage of cinematic horror.

This review is representative of the US DVD box set.

DVD availability: Blue Underground