TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD (1972 - HORROR / ZOMBIE FLICK) *** out of ***** OR 6 out of 10
(Man, these are some really underfed-looking zombies....)
CAST: Lone Fleming, Cesar Burmer, Maria Elena Arpon, Jose Thelman, Rufino Ingles, Veronica Limeira, Simon Arriaga, Francisco Sanz, Juan Cortes, The Blind Knights Of The Dead Table
DIRECTOR: Amando D'Osorrio
IT'S LIKE THIS: Sometimes, American and British horror flicks can eventually get tiresome - no matter how great some of them are - because of how, well, normal they can be. Sometimes, you just need delicious shots of "weird" and "bizarre" that only horror flicks from across the Atlantic can give you. Dear readers, I'm talking about the absolutely batshit-crazy sub-genre of fright flicks called... "Euro-Horror."
EuroHorror Sub-Genre movies are, as they sound, horror flicks from Europe that are, shall we say, a little quirky. Alright, alright, I'll take the gloves off: they're downright fucking strange, folks. But often in a good way. Sometimes, they're so outlandish that they start to make some sort of rational sense - while still also retaining their thoroughly "WTF?" quality. Kind of the way a babbling crackhead hopped up on some second-rate shit starts to sound like Moses after awhile.
By the way, please don't confuse the Italian Giallo Sub-Genre with the EuroHorror one. Gialli are exclusively Italian thrillers that are part of the Thriller Genre and, while still being markedly more weird than the American and British counterparts they influenced, are first and foremost suspenseful mysteries that only occasionally deal with the supernatural. EuroHorror is part of the Horror Genre. In this section, you will find such Halloween mainstays as vampires, ghosts, witches, and zombies - but all done with a distinctly, um, offbeat European style. In other words, they're weird as hell, folks.
A prime example of the EuroHorror Sub-Genre is our next "31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN REVIEW", the delightfully odd Spanish flick, TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD, which starts off from scene one on a note that will make you realize that no matter how bad your day might be, the people in this movie are clearly having worse ones.
We open with a hot, big-titted chick stripped half-naked and tied to a cross in the middle of some isolated Spanish castle. Then a bunch of dudes in what looks like Klu Klux Klan knock-off robes gallop around her on horseback, slicing at her with swords as they pass. After what seems like three years of circling and slicing, the dudes get off their horses and all surround the chick. Before you start to think that this is some fraternity party gone very, very awry, let me add that the dudes don't disrobe and fuck her. Nope, they just start drinking the blood from all those open wounds - as the chick moans and moans and groans and writhes in ecstacy.
And you thought I was just fucking around when I said this was one weird flick. Don't worry - it gets weirder. This is actually the most normal part of the movie. Yes, be afraid. Be very afraid.
Next, we segue to, I guess, Lisbon in 1972. There, we meet over-mascaraed Portuguese chick Betty (Lone Fleming) who is swimming at some local pool. Wouldn't you know it, she looks up and who should she see across the way but her old high-school pal, Virginia (Maria Elena Arpon). The two chat and catch up, and soon it becomes clear that these two might have been more than just, uh, buddies in high school. I say this because Betty wickedly says to Virginia: "I remember everything." With the kind of lurid emphasis on the word "everything" that usually suggests something other than, um, cutting class. Sure enough, Virginia turns away abruptly with her hands folded across her breasts. Either she's really embarrassed by what Betty said - or she's trying to hide the fact that she's really, really flat-chested. I've seen mosquito bites that were more prominent, folks.
Unfortunately, before we can further ponder this intriguing frisson between our two tramps, some studly dude named Roger (Cesar Burmer) ambles up to them and introduces himself as Virginia's boy-toy. Without wasting a single nanosecond, Roger begins putting the moves on Betty right in front of his girlfriend. Not cool, Rog... To make matters more awkward, Roger tells Betty that he and Virginia were planning to take a train ride through the countryside, and wouldn't it be nice if she could come with? "Not really," says Virginia's glare. But that's okay - Roger wasn't asking her.
And so the Three Stooges board a train the next day, intending to spend a lazy afternoon exploring the Portuguese countryside. Unfortunately, Virginia gets a little tired of Roger playing grab-ass with Betty - so she goes out to the last car's balcony to pout like a champ (a flat-chested one). Betty, sensing she might've pushed her luck and may never be allowed to go down on Virginia ever again, goes after her erstwhile fuck buddy and tries to make amends. This results in a flashback sequence so utterly demented, it borders on the sublime. You have to see it to believe it - then you will never be able to un-see it again.
With early-70s lounge music oozing in the background, and a dreamy haze hanging in the foreground, we see Virginia and Betty as they were in high school. They look exactly as they do now (haggard 40-year olds, quite honestly) but are wearing white baby doll nighties and girly pigtails to signify that they're supposedly still in their teens. This sight alone is enough to make one cringe with fear - but then we are also treated to the wacko sight of Betty showing a picture of some random married couple to Virginia, and then putting one of her pigtails across her upper lip and pointing to the mustachioed man in the picture, and then pointing back at herself. Virginia nods enthusiastically, then points at the woman in the picture - and then points at herself. Signifying, I guess, that Betty is the "butch" and Virginia is the "bitch." If the writers wanted to imply that these two were banging each other in school, couldn't they have come up with a less insane and fucked-up scene?
Anyway, cut back to the present (1972) on the train's balcony, where Betty is desperately trying to get back into Virginia's good graces. Sad to say, it doesn't work, and Virginia goes off to pout in another train car. Eventually, she decides she can't stand to be on the same moving vehicle as Betty and Roger - and jumps off the train. If you folks were worried about Virginia possibly getting hurt, don't. That train looked it was moving slower than a sixth-rate elevator trapped in molasses in the middle of the next Ice Age. However, please do worry about the fact our dumbshit Virginia chose to jump off the train in the middle of nowhere.
Fortunately, Virginia espies a large castle-like building in the distance. She heads to it, hoping to find some shelter. Imagine her dismay (and our delight) when it turns out to be the very same castle that those white-robed douchebags gang-sucked that chick from centuries ago at the beginning of our movie. It's all run-down and decaying now, but still creepy as hell. Not that this matters to our stupid Virginia, though, because she decides to camp out right there and blast her radio next to a roaring fire. Let's just say that all that noise and heat awakens something in the graveyard. Lots of somethings... And let's just also say that it definitely doesn't turn out to be a quiet night for our dear idiotic Virginia.
A week later, Betty and Roger are starting to get worried about Virginia's disappearance. Finally. They trace her movements to that run-down castle and begin to investigate its origins. Soon, they find out from some cranky librarian named Professor Candal (Francisco Sanz) that an evil group of blood-drinking jackasses called the Knight Templars used to live in that castle centuries ago - which is named Berzano. It also turns out that the Knight Templars were punished for their inhuman crimes by having their eyes gouged out. The legend goes that they roam the area around Berzano at night on horseback - stalking their victims by sound and then drinking their blood. Damn. Wouldn't it have been great if Virginia could've, you know, gotten all of that vital info BEFORE she decided to camp out there? Maybe she should've bought a guidebook - or just kept her ass on that train to begin with.
So... are the Knight Templars real? And will Betty and Roger find out what happened to Virginia? How can they fight the Blind Dead? What information can Professor Candal give them? Are the cops right when they say that there are no Knight Templars, but rather a gang of thieves who are hiding behind the legend in order to exploit the locals? And what happens when Betty and Roger join up with the professor's thief son, Pedro, to help uncover the existence of the Knight Templars by camping out at Berzano - just like poor, dead Virginia did? Will they all end up like her? How will all this end?
Hopefully, not with Virginia and Betty mimicking that wedding picture again. I still haven't recovered from that last scene.
BUT SERIOUSLY: Sometimes you have to review a horror film according to different criteria than a non-horror film. The most important barometer for assessing a horror movie is... did it scare you? Even if the movie has some cheesy elements and other factors that might make it less than ideal, it still has merit if it actually creeped you out and even frightened you. Such is the case of many EuroHorror Sub-Genre entries. And that case is also certainly true of our latest review, the unconventional and often eerie TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD.
TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD is part of Spanish horror director Amando De Ossorio's quadrilogy from the early 70s that includes THE GHOST GALLEON, RETURN OF THE EVIL DEAD, and NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS - which all give a distinctly European take on the Zombie Sub-Genre that NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD started in the U.S. in 1968. These flicks all revolve around the blood-thirsty Knight Templars, who practiced devil worship and sacrifice and were punished severely for their crimes - only to return from the dead to stalk more victims through their uncanny sense of hearing.
The best of the bunch is RETURN OF THE EVIL DEAD, which pre-dates by several years John Carpenter's THE FOG (my favorite horror movie) from 1980 with its tale of a modern town with a dark history that comes back to extract supernatural vengeance, for a long-ago crime perpetrated by the town's ancestors, with the payback ironically coming during a celebration. THE GHOST GALLEON is probably the weakest, but was still influential to future American "ghost ship" flicks like DEATH SHIP and GHOST SHIP. Meanwhile, THE NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS is the capper to the quadrilogy that shows how village superstition can be stronger than modern skepticism as a city couple moves to a small town that is still controlled by the myth of the Templars.
TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD is second to RETURN OF THE EVIL DEAD in quality. It's not as kinetic and exciting as the latter, but it is probably more eerie. Yes, this film is, like the other three, very much of its time and is saddled with the same flaws that plague most EuroHorror flicks: bad dubbing, stiff acting, and some chintzy special effects. But what the BLIND DEAD flicks lack in technical finesse, they make up for in sheer atmosphere and creepiness. This particular entry (the first) is filled with solid setpieces starting with Virginia's highly ill-advised choice to jump off the train adjacent to the cursed castle of Berzano - all the way to the edge-of-your-seat final chase between the Templars and the last surviving character. The best sequence, though, is a short but very effective chase scene set in a mannequin warehouse.
The actors are, for a EuroHorror flick, neither particularly good nor especially bad - they just get the job done. They're aided by a surprisingly dense plot that functions as a kind of detective story, as Betty and Roger try to piece together what happened to Virginia - and whether her death is due to supernatural causes or earthly ones pretending to be supernatural. There is a good amount of twists and turns as our protagonists chase down leads, and the story never gets boring.
However, the real stars of this flick are the Knight Templars themselves, who make for a scary sight as they gallop on horseback in slow-motion as the chase their victims. Horror flicks, like Thrillers, are only as strong as their villains, and these guys are strong enough to raise this movie above the average mark.
All in all, TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD is an entertaining first entry into the EuroHorror Sub-Genre that opens the door for the unique and often scary BLIND DEAD series.
