By
Todd Garbarini
Would
you go see a horror film billed as “Makes Night of the Living Dead Look
Like a Kids’ (sic) Pajama Party! Scream so they can find you!!!” Somebody did.
Released in New York City on Wednesday, March 7,1973 as the second feature on a
double bill with Mario Bava’s R-rated 1971 film Twitch of the Death Nerve
(the U.S. title of A Bay of Blood), Amando de Ossorio’s The Blind
Dead actually was given a theatrical release in a watered down, PG-rated
version minus blood, gore and nudity. It is also a tighter cut of the original
(known as Tombs of the Blind Dead) as it also dispenses with some
prolonged meandering that gets old real fast. Does the truncated Stateside
version triumph over the longer original Spanish cut of the film? That depends
on the viewer. As a purist who prefers a director’s original vision, I applaud
the efforts of the uncut version.
Lensed
in 1971 in Spain and Portugal at some truly creeping locales, Tombs of the
Blind Dead, clearly influenced by George A. Romero’s aforementioned highly
successful Night of the Living Dead (1968), is one of the better Spanish
horror films to come out of the 1970s, so much so that it spawned no less than
three follow-ups all written and directed by the original’s writer/director: Return
of the Blind Dead (1973), The Ghost Galleon (1974), and Night of
the Seagulls (1975). The madness begins when Virginia White (María Elena
Arpón) encounters her old college lover Betty Turner (Lone Fleming) at a public
pool. Their congenial attitude quickly becomes strained when Virginia’s friend
Roger Whelan (César Burner) shows up and immediately takes a more-than-platonic
liking to Virginia, inviting her on a train ride that he is taking with Betty.
Female resentment ensues and Virginia takes it upon herself to jump off the
train midway, baggage in hand, and goes off into the ruins of a town named
Berzano that the train deliberately bypasses due to an unsavory past. Making
creepy and effective use of the Monasterio de Santa Maria la Real de
Valdeiglesias, Pelayos de la Presa, Madrid, Spain, the director follows
Virginia through the decrepit structures and, unbelievably, camps out solo
overnight! Her presence awakens the buried corpses of the Knights Templar from
their crypts who attack and kill her, her body found by the train conductor the
next morning when on the return trip. Betty and Roger look for Virginia in
Berzano, and out of nowhere, two police detectives emerge to question them about
their relationship to Virginia. It’s a peculiar entrance into the scene, as
though they were standing “stage left” and issued in front of the camera by the
offscreen director. Betty and Roger make their way to the requisite
know-it-all, The One who comes in at the eleventh hour to explain the goings-on
to them, in this case Professor Candal (José Thelman), who explains to them
(and the audience) who manipulates them into finding his son, and the this
leads to a showdown with the Knights and sets up the film for a continuation.
Spanish horror films of this era were on a par with their Italian giallo
counterparts as both genres flourished with exemplary outings from both
countries. Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s La Residencia (1969), aka The
Finishing School and The House That Screamed, while not a zombie
film, is beautifully lensed and ends with a creepy and original denouement. Francisco
Lara Polop’s La Mansión de La Niebla (1972), known here as Murder
Mansion, boasts beautiful artwork that belies an otherwise pedestrian
thriller. Jorge Grau’s The Living
Dead at Manchester Morgue (1974), known also as Let Sleeping Corpses Lie
and here in the States as Don’t Open the Window, is, on the other hand,
a key zombie film from this era and is generally regarded quite correctly as
one of the best, and has received stunning Blu-ray treatment from Synapse