The Blind Dead Collection

Spain / 1971-75 Directed by Amando de Ossorio Starring Lone Fleming, María Elena Arpón Tony Kendall, Frank Braña Maria Perschy, Jack Taylor Color / Not Rated TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD: 97 Min.* RETURN OF THE EVIL DEAD: 91 Min.* THE GHOST GALLEON: 90 Min. NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS: 89 Min. *Spanish version Format: DVD (R1 - NTSC / 5-disc set) Blue Underground

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Tombs     6 Return     5   Galleon     2 Seagulls     5       7   SNEAK PREVIEW | DVD Release Date: Sept. 27, 2005

There are ruins at a place called Berzano That fill local peasants with dread Stick around... but don't make a sound The Tombs of the Bli-ind Dead! — Sung to the tune of "The Man With the Golden Gun"

Now that I've got that bit of self-indulgent silliness out of the way, I'll get right to the issue at hand: Blue Underground's release of all four Blind Dead films in a deluxe limited edition box set. The first two titles, Tombs Of The Blind Dead and Return Of The Evil Dead, had at one time been available on a double feature DVD from Anchor Bay (the latter under the alternate title Return Of The Blind Dead), but that disc went OOP almost five years ago, in the interim fetching ridiculous sums on eBay. Now, Blue Underground not only presents these films in their definitively remastered, uncut form, but also brings the third and fourth Blind Dead chapters to DVD, The Ghost Galleon and Night Of The Seagulls.     The Blind Dead movies have nostalgic significance for me. A review of that Anchor Bay Tombs/Return double feature disc was the very first I ever wrote for this site, way back in March 2001. You can read it by clicking HERE — that's why I won't be delving too deeply into those films, as the review contains a full synopsis for each (too full, really) and some brief analysis. I liked the first film, Tombs (1971), impressed by the atmosphere conjured by Spanish writer/director Amando de Ossorio despite his penchant for padding and an unnecessarily mean-spirited misogynist streak. His uniquely European monsters — the mummified, bloodsucking revenants of long-dead Templar knights from the 13th Century — are truly iconic. Skeletal monks silently gnawing on people... They're just plain creepy. To quote from my original review: "The Templars make virtually no sound. No growling or groaning like most zombies. They just shuffle towards you, bony hands outstretched, relentlessly closing in, thirsting for your blood." Elemental to this creepiness is composer Antón García Abril's dissonant score; its dirge-like medieval chanting serves to enhance, rather than conspicuously embellish, the Templars' silent attacks. Effective as they are it's not surprising then that these same musical themes are repeated throughout the series. Similarly, the same chilling shots of the Templars rising from their graves in Tombs is recycled in two of the three sequels. Director Ossorio obviously stuck to the credo of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" — why film similar scenes anew? (Besides, it's cheaper that way. Just write the subsequent scripts with Tombs footage in mind.)     Some comments on Return Of The Evil Dead (1973): Seeing the uncut Spanish version causes me to reconsider my evaluation of the second Blind Dead film. While it contained a few things of interest (and the Templars are always cool regardless), I didn't care for the American version (Return Of The Blind Dead) as seen on the old Anchor Bay disc. However, the original Spanish dialog isn't as dumb as that found in the dubbed English script. Also, Return is actually the best paced of the four films, even with the addition of almost four more minutes of footage in the Spanish version — happily this includes some additional skin and gore. A plot point involving the retarded character Murdo, trimmed from the U.S. print, reveals the true catalyst for the Templars' resurrection. In general I had a better experience with the Spanish cut and, while it still isn't any great shakes, am thus rating it a notch higher.     Now on to the third and fourth films in the series.     The Ghost Galleon (1974): Easily the worst of the Blind Dead movies, which thanks to distribution by Sam Sherman's Independent International (under the title Horror Of The Zombies) was perhaps the most widely seen here in the States. The ridiculously contrived story has to do with two models being lost at sea when a publicity stunt to promote sporting goods equipment goes horribly wrong. The company president (Female Vampire's Jack Taylor) leads a rescue operation to search for the missing girls, mainly in hopes of avoiding scandal in the gossip pages. But they're never found. At the girls' last reported position the rescue party finds a centuries-old sailing ship drifting abandoned, enveloped in a vortex of fog. The goofy professor with them theorizes that the ship and the surrounding fog bank really exist in a different dimension! Although there may not be a crew aboard the rotting vessel, this doesn't mean it's unoccupied... In the hold below are the coffins of the Templars, who arise at night to stalk the decks of this "Flying Dutchman" in search of blood.     Extremely cheap looking and padded with pointless backstory, Galleon makes the double mistake of taking the Templars out of their element (stuck aboard ship, they can't mount up for any signature slo-mo horseback rides) while relegating them further to the background. There are some neat close-up shots of them but otherwise they don't do much. (One kill scene, however, in which a character is slooooowly dragged into the bowels of the ship to her doom, seems to last an eternity. Another notably different tableaux is a shot of the Templars emerging from the surf a la the Nazi 'aqua-zombies' in Shock Waves, a much better known film made two years later.) Wisely, though not successfully, Ossorio tries to camouflage his threadbare sets and special effects by shooting the film as darkly as possible. The result is rather a murky mess. Of course, you can always flip your TV to Sports mode (i.e., jack up the brightness) to see the legendary Ghost Galleon in all its dime store glory — a sorry-ass plastic model floating in a bathtub. I'm talking Viking Women And The Sea Serpent level effects here... Embarrassingly awful.     The Night Of The Seagulls (1975): The Templars' last cinematic go-round borrows a page from H.P. Lovecraft's Shadow Over Innsmouth. A young doctor (Víctor Petit) and his wife (María Kosti) arrive at his new posting in an isolated fishing village, where in less than five minutes it's quite obvious that the tight-lipped locals are hiding some kind of dreadful secret. Eventually it's revealed that every seven years the villagers must ritualistically sacrifice seven virgins to the Templars, who emerge from their tombs (in footage from the first flick) and gallop down the beach to claim the nubile young victims. The girls are drained of blood, their hearts cut out and fed to the stone idol of a god-monster worshipped by the Templars; the corpses are chopped up and left for the crabs. And so it has been for 600 years — if the sacrifices are not made the Templars have vowed to raze the village and butcher its inhabitants.     While again their appearances are somewhat limited here the Blind Dead are definitely back in the groove in Seagulls; the dilapidated fishing village makes for a nicely atmospheric location and the (brief) instances of gore are the best of the series. Unlike the previous films the cardboard characters aren't saddled with soap opera storylines we care nothing about. Ossorio finally dispenses with the ugly sexism, too. Still, the film drags in spots, features poor day-for-night photography and has the lowest body count of any of the movies. In the end the dreaded Templars prove remarkably easy to defeat. Even so, at least they didn't end their reign of cinema terror aboard that crappy plastic boat!     With a fresh appraisal of Ossorio's Blind Dead tetralogy I can now look upon the series, in toto, as a genuine cult classic. The Templars are undeniably unique and memorable movie monsters. They transcend the varying quality of their individual films, fully deserving the international fandom they've spawned over the decades.

It's a well-worn cliché but an appropriate one in this case — Blue Underground's limited edition 5-disc Blind Dead Collection is destined to become a collector's item. The set is attractively packaged in a sturdy, coffin-shaped cardboard box with embossed silver lettering. It holds four regular-size DVD keepcases containing the individual films (each with cover art taken from lurid European posters) and a "slimline" case housing the bonus disc, Amando de Ossorio: Director. A 40-page booklet of liner notes, lavishly illustrated, is also included. Written by Nigel J. Burrell, it sketches the historical background of the real-life medieval Templars in addition to providing critiques and detailed synopses of each film.     The Tombs disc offers a choice between the longer Spanish cut (with optional English subtitles) or the dubbed U.S. version, which is shorter by some 13 minutes. Likewise for Return, also presented here in both versions. Galleon and Seagulls are represented by their international cuts but with the option of playing them in either their native Spanish or dubbed English. Visual quality of both Tombs and Return (either edits) is significantly improved from the old Anchor Bay DVD, and I have nothing major to complain about in regards to the other two. (It should be remembered that Galleon is overly dark and murky on purpose; all of the flicks look grainy to begin with.) Each film is anamorphically letterboxed in its correct aspect ratio. The mono audio tracks are all quite acceptable with the Spanish language ones generally having the qualitative edge, Galleon's fuller-sounding dubbed English track being the exception.     Extras for the four movie discs consist in the main of trailers and sizable image galleries. Ghost Galleon additionally features the U.S. TV spot and radio commercials for the film under its Horror of the Zombies title. Tombs comes with one bizarre extra of note: a prologue added to a videotape release which, via incredibly stupid narration, tries to disguise the film as — believe it or not — one of the Planet Of The Apes sequels. (The dead Templars are supposed to be the reanimated skeletons of intelligent apes who practiced occult rituals!)     The fifth disc contains a DVD-ROM essay and two featurettes about Ossorio's career. The Last Templar (25 min.) is a Spanish-made doc (with English subs) giving a general overview of the man and his movies, while Unearthing the Blind Dead (11 min.) is a sit-down with Ossorio himself, the last filmed interview he gave before his death in 2001. (He readily admits that the special effects in Ghost Galleon are utter shite.) 9/17/05

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