Die Nacht der reitenden Leichen

I had seen only one film from the blind dead series (part 2 aka Return of the blind/evil dead) in the late 80s on a rented vhs. Although this film is the first in the series, i saw this for the first time recently. The story is about 2 girls n one guy who goes on a weekend trip. Sounds erotic huh. Don't get your hopes high. On the train ride there, one of the girl is overcome with jealousy and jumps off the train, deciding to spend the night in some nearby ruins. Wtf? It is a horror film n so the ruins are home of the blind dead knights who were into some satanic rituals until angry villagers killed them n left them for the crows to peck their eyes out. Some decent cinematography. It is an effective atmospheric film. The locations were really good. The abandoned n ruined village in the middle of nowhere, the endless fields, the only single train running n always passing by the ruins n the best part- the slow motion shots of the knights riding their horses in pursuit of their victims. When the knights r on the foot, they r slower than the snails but suddenly out of nowhere they get their horses n once they r on their horses, they ride faster in slow motions. Very creepy though. The skeletons, with their dark, odd beard hair features, actually look as if they've risen from their graves. Good effects.

The story is about a renegade band of crusader-priests that turned from the Church and embraced the black arts. The opening sequence takes us back to the living Knights Templar and their cruel and graphic killing of a scantily-clad young female sacrifice. We then move up to the 20th century and the churchyard is nothing but a ruin, however, at night when females wandering about in the middle of nowhere chance upon the ruin, the knights wake from their crypts to feed on the blood of such passersby. Interesting story and one that has many problems of belief. These knights rise from the ground one moment, and in the next they are galloping on horses. Where did the horses come from? I couldn't find an answer....perhaps you can. The acting is passable, and I concede that grudgingly. But do not think I hold only contempt and despair for this film, because I really heartily recommend it. It is scary. It is very atmospheric. It is very intense at times. These dead knights are wonderfully made-up and really create frightening moments in the film as they walk toward their victims screaming. The knights were blinded after death and now when they rise from their earthy chambers they can only hear their way toward their victims. That is a very inventive concept. The director, Amando de Ossorio, knows what to do with lighting, set creations, and pacing the plot. There were three sequels to this film and that in itself shows it has SOME merit. The film also set the trend for mixing sex and gore. There is a good bit of both, more on the sex side, and what the female leads lack in acting ability they certainly make up for some of it in their...well how shall I put it....their physical presence.

I am shocked to see the comments on this film by the users of the IMDB. Shocked and saddened; Amando de Ossorio's BLIND DEAD films are the quintessential viewing experience for 1970's Eurohorror. This particular film is nothing short of a masterpiece, though brain cell count and attention span deficit disorders that run rampant amongst the youth of today could account for SOME of the negative comments logged. Still ...

The first BLIND DEAD film does NOTHING to set it's scene, other than to show you Goya-esque views of a crumbling Spanish citadel ... One of the problems in assessing the cultural significance of a film that is 33 years old is related to how it is marketed, and by marketing the BLIND DEAD films as "Zombie Flesh Eating Gore Fests" is to miss Ossorio's point. Therefore the distributors themselves might be as much to blame as any one factor -- by trying to cash in on Zombie gorehounds and their easily parted with money, companies like Anchor Bay took a beautiful little movie and turned it into an instant reseller's nightmare. If plot is something you look for in your films, the BLIND DEAD movies will fall short. They will also fall short on the gore factor, since Ossorio was using the gore effects as ways to color his pallete of moods [see the first ten minutes of NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS/NIGHT OF THE DEATH CULT for the most vivid example]. Ossorio was very much a director of moods and visuals rather than a strict, trudging story line that plods from A to B to C and then you're through. Like most European horror from the early 1970's, the stories are actually rather unimportant next to considerations like lighting, texture, color schemes and movement. If you watch a BLIND DEAD movie for a lightning fast paced blood soaked zombie fest OF COURSE you are going to feel like you wasted $15.

Ossorio was making parables about his time: I see this series as being very subversive commentaries on the Franco regime, with the Templar Knights summond from the grave at the start of each film as a way of representing the old values of Spain finding a voice amidst the artistic repression of their time. Spanish art has always been filled with images of horror & suffering, so it would make sense that an artist like Ossorio would choose the medium of his time -- film, rather than oil & canvas -- with which to bring forth his vision, and fill it with images of horror. But that doesn't mean that his objective was to make a mind numbing splatter film that would beat it's audience into submission with a meathook. If thematic relevance could be found for allowing a pretty supporting actress to be torn to shreds by vampiric Templars in a death ritual, well so be it -- that kind of stuff sells, and was permissable under Franco's dictatorship where straight out sexual content was not.

TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD [as we know it today] stands as one of the watershed films in mixing horror with eroticism: before Ossorio, the erotically tinged horror flick tended to be softer edged, not confront the viewer with TOO much carnage [though torture films were huge during the 1970's, especially in places like Italy and Germany where film makers were free to make films about whatever they wanted], and tended to end "happily". Ossorio's work changed all of that: we see graphic amputations, decapitations & other forms of bloodletting right next to the boobs, bikini lines and Go-Go boots. Ossorio had a great eye for beauty too, and packed his films with a bevy of gorgeous, beautiful Eurobabes who would have the most apalling things happen to them right on camera but were never "exploitational" -- the sexual content in Ossorio's work is treated as a plot element itself, not just inserted into the storyline to keep the attention of the jaded from slipping.

Several of the commentors are correct when pointing out that this movie is "slow", but I contend that it is slow in a way that emphasizes the poetic nature of his visions -- events transpire in a deliberate manner, with the action taking place almost like a walz or ballad. Is this a cultural sensitivity issue? Probably -- American consumers want MORE, FASTER, BIGGER and they want it NOW. To require an audience to sit through 25 minutes of a film before even learning why any of this is happening was apparently so unbearable that the original distributor of this film -- Paragon Video -- actually took it upon themselves to restructure the film so that the middle came at the beginning, and the film opens with a death ritual/blood sacrifice of a sexy woman to assure brain-dead Americans that they were going to get to see the boobs & blood that the films were marketed as delivering. And by doing so they not only did a dis-service to the movie, but shot themselves in the foot, since the action never again reaches that frenzied peak of luridness.

Anchor Bay Entertainment and Video Treasures did better with their "remastered" widescreen presentations, but still failed to grasp how to adequately market the films to what audience, and as such you can go to Amazon & score this tape for about eight bucks from a reseller [the out-of-print DVD containing both this and the second installment usually runs $30 - $50 and is considered tres collectable] and not even have to put up with a prior rental, since AB was marketing to consumers for home sales, not rental outlets. If you are interested in finding the pivotal moment of 1970's Eurohorror when art & entertainment met head on and brought forth one of the most widely respected series of the genre, this IS it.

If you are looking for a gut munching Zombie fest with splatterings and disembowlings, I am delighted to report that this isn't it. You don't check your brains at the door when you watch a BLIND DEAD movie, you use them.

If that is beneath you as a film consumer, you are indeed well advised to look elsewhere.

A young woman stumbles upon an abandoned monastery and thinks it might make a good place to spend the night. She settles herself in beside a fireplace and gets ready for bed. But a strange noise keeps her from sleeping. Unknown to her, the graves in the monastery's courtyard are rumbling. The Templars have risen from their long sleep to find another blood sacrifice. Can the girl escape from the Tombs of the Blind Dead?

What a wonderful, one of a kind film with some genuine scares. Very few horror movies can claim to have truly unique plots and characters. Horror is a genre that feeds off itself and constantly recycles ideas. That's one of the things that makes Tombs of the Blind Dead such an interesting and refreshing movie. De Ossorio created a new mythos for his film. De Ossorio's zombie like creatures, the Templars, come complete with a fascinating backstory - Crusaders from the 13th Century who were put to death for practicing black magic, their eyes plucked from their sockets by birds. It would have been very easy for the movie to follow the zombie mold set out by Romero in Night of the Living Dead. But the Templars are not the mindless, stumbling brand of zombie. Instead, they move, hunt, and kill in an organized fashion. It means the Templars are even more deadly than your average zombie.

Tombs of the Blind Dead has so much going for it. The movie just drips with atmosphere. It's aided by a wonderful soundtrack featuring haunting music and an assortment of odd, creepy sounds. The crumbling monastery has to be one of the best sets I've ever seen. I can't imagine spending the night in this place. There are some places that look spooky in the daylight and this is one of them. The eyeless Templars are some of the most frightening creatures I've ever seen. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul - so what does that say if your eyes have been plucked out. And, the ending is marvelously down-beat. I really wasn't expected such an apocalyptic finish.

Oh, it's not perfect. There are a few things that bug me. For example, where do the Templars get their horses? Is there a horse graveyard somewhere? Also, the whole bit where the dead girl comes back to life. It's wonderfully creepy, but it feels like padding. But these things are minor in comparison with everything that works in Tombs of the Blind Dead.

Despite a slow start, Amando de Ossorio's Tombs of the Blinddead soon picks up and morphs into the exploitation highlight that you were no doubt expecting going into it. Naturally, it's full of plot holes and dubious character decisions; but it doesn't matter, because it's Ossorio's story surrounding the knights, along with the terrifying spectacle of the Templars rising from their tombs that makes this film what it is. The intro to the film gives you an impression of what you're in for, as we glide through an ancient monastery. This creepy sequence is very much coherent with the style of this film. Amando de Ossorio seems more concerned with making sure that his creations, the knights themselves, look as decomposed and disgusting as possible - and he truly succeeds. The gore takes a backseat, therefore, but it doesn't matter at all. The plot follows three friends on a train, one of which decides to leave that safe haven and spend the knight in the deserted town surrounding the monastery. Unbeknown to her, that's the same place where Templar knights were left to the crow's years earlier - and they're still mad about it.

When you think of zombie movies, it's always George Romero's gory classics that spring to mind - and that is another thing that is great about this movie. Tombs of the Blinddead has completely made it's own style, and originality is something that the horror genre could use more of. Of course, similar plots to this one have been used before, but never in exactly this way. Another thing I admire about the director is the fact that he's obviously more concerned with the horror of the story than anything else. Exploitation flicks like this tend to show a lot of nudity or other things that aren't really relevant - but this flick has made a real effort to stay away from needless elements as much as possible. Fans of intellectual cinema wont find much to like here - the dialogue is trite and the acting is rubbish - but there's no denying that this film has at least something resembling a respectable status within the horror genre. The fact that it's been remembered over thirty years on shows that - and if you're a fan of this sort of film, then you should definitely make sure you see Tombs of the Blinddead!