Night of the Seagulls - review

1975 (Spain)

2005 Blue Underground The Blind Dead Collection DVD R(1) 

Contains mild spoilers.

It all started so well. Amando de Ossorio's Tombs of the Blind Dead was an original creepy and atmospheric euro-horror masterpiece with intelligent characters, a surreal yet coherent narrative, and enough exploitative scenes to satisfy and shock even by today's standards. Unfortunately for de Ossorio, whether it was from over reaching, with Return of the Evil Dead, or from having to work with cripplingly low resources and money the sequels never came close to reaching the same height. Night of Seagulls, the final chapter, marks the end of long, tumultuous, yet not entirely unpleasant low budget euro-horror journey. Like The Ghost Galleon, it's a tight, often ponderous story full of cliché and some unnecessary repetition imbued with a feeling of forced financial temperance, but it would also appear that de Ossorio has finally come to terms with the hand he's been dealt presenting a film that's self contained with a less audacious story that's at once more coherent and believable. Gone are transdimensional ghost galleons, contrived one-dimensional villains, and forced obligatory rapes, instead we almost return to where it all started with simple yet deep characters, a non overly convoluted set-up and a rounded complete story with a beginning, a middle and a satisfying end.

By now you'll be aware the other than the back story of medieval templars returned from the East with new found occult knowledge and a willingness for baring and slicing into the breasts of nubile young virgins to consume their hearts and flesh, all in order to gain undead immortality, de Ossorio has never felt the need for continuity between the films. Each film has it's own setting, it's own rumours and superstitions, and an all new set of modern heroes and anti-heroes with which to play with in an all new sandbox. All that we can be sure of is at some point the blind undead wispy chinned knights will rise from their rest and people will be killed in as gratuitous and exploitative a way as de Ossorio can get away with.

Dr. Henry Stein (Víctor Petit) and his wife Joan (María Kosti) have travelled to a run down isolated fishing village to replace the old doctor (Javier de Rivera). On arrival they are met with blatant rejection and dismissal from a community that makes it clear outsiders aren't wanted, an aging anxious doctor who's only to happy to be getting out as soon as possible and Teddy (José Antonio Calvo), a handicapped and bullied young man who fresh from a recent beating is treated and given refuge in their loft. That night Joan is woken by the ringing of strange bells, which Henry dismisses as a necessary aid for passing boats in thick fog, and the cries of distressed seagulls, which neither can explain, but it puts them on edge and suggests there's more to the village than meets the eye.

Come the morning and ignoring all the demands to not pry and not leave, Joan befriends a young village orphan Lucy (Sandra Mozarowsky) who agrees to come work with them and she also takes in Tilda Flannigan (Julia James) a young girl from the village who is clearly quite scared. After a rather confrontational visit from the village elders, the mystery is slowly unravelled with Teddy finally spilling the beans. "Corpses, rise up out of the sea, take pretty ladies, one each night for seven nights, the pretty girls that die, they become the seagulls; they're the damned spirits of the sacrificed girls."

It's the same costumes, the same models and the same adorned horses; also nothing has changed cinematically with how the blind skeletal crusty old corpses pull themselves out of their tombs, ride, dismount then ponderously shuffle towards their prey stabbing and slashing their swords as if they're waving their white sticks. What's different is the very specific nature of the curse, which requires them to rise every seven years, to take seven fresh female victims on seven consecutive nights, and how they're not doing this to appease Satan, but as an offering to some Lovecraftian-esque sea god / demon they have a large statue of.

The tighter smaller story and ensemble allows the templars to shine in a way they probably haven't since the first film. They're intransient, yet unreal, menacing and for the first time in three films believable and not distractingly amateurish. Pretty virgins in white linen gowns tied up to rocks by a terrified village folk, to appease a curse isn't new, and Andromeda tied up for the Kraken to appease Thetis immediately came to mind, but de Ossorio manages to make the scenes his own and doesn't squander the opportunity with stylish cinematography and restraint. It's clear that Night of the Seagulls feels more at one with itself; it's story is rounded and complete, the narrative and dialogue is confident and understated, characters are exposed slowly and subtly, and pacing never feels harried or forced.  

Not perfect, Night of the Seagulls at least bows the Blind Dead out on a high and reminds us that Amando de Ossorio when push comes to shove can fashion quite a moody, eerie atmospheric horror that can stand the test of time. It's still undeniably misogynist, where girls are demarcated by how pretty they are and women who show undue concern are labelled hysterical and in need of sedation but at least finally the obligatory shoe-horned in rape is absent and really, if it wasn't for de Ossorio's track record, I probably wouldn't be making such a big deal of it all for a film of its time and place. Competent, coherent, de Ossorio's Night of the Seagulls is a fine 70s euro horror and a nice reward for getting through parts 2 and 3, 7/10.

Steven@WTD.

The Ghost Galleon (Horror of the Zombies) - review

1974 (Spain)

2005 Blue Underground The Blind Dead Collection DVD R(1)

Contains spoilers.

I'm starting to think Spanish horror film writer and director Amando de Ossorio was a bit of a misogynist. Twenty minutes into The Ghost Galleon, the third entry in his Blind Dead tetralogy we'd been privy to a bikini photo shoot, the idea two young pretty models could be persuaded to sail far off shore in the North Atlantic on a publicity stunt in, you guessed it, skimpy shorts and bikini tops and then had to endure one of his trademark obligatory and totally narratively unnecessary rapes. I may be a bit of a new man out of touch with my inner caveman, but I can still let the odd bit of masculine posturing slide, especially recognising the time some films were shot, but honestly with three rapes in three films now, all of which felt tacked on, it's getting a bit weary. Anyway... The Ghost Galleon or Horror of the Zombies as it's called in the US.

Amando de Ossorio was interviewed in 2001 for a documentary of his life entitled Amando de Ossorio: The Last Templar, which is included on the five disk Blind Dead collection released by Blue Underground. In it he bemoaned the pitiful budgets he was forced to work with and how the finished films never resembled his original vision and, three films in now, I'd argue The Ghost Galleon is the most indicative of all this. If anything Return of the Evil Dead was slightly too ambitious; the sets were expansive, the action large and the characters numerous and it suffered for biting off more than it could chew. There was a lack of attention to detail, sequences didn't flow and the effects and prosthetics were a total hodgepodge.

Everything about The Ghost Galleon feels tempered and restrained in comparison. In many ways it's a return to the tight and tense moody claustrophobic atmosphere of the first, and this was certainly not a bad move, though even against this it feels significantly reined in. From start to finish every scene is laboriously and painfully dragged out; whether it's climbing ladders, exploring the galleon or being dragged by the blind dead Templars to one's death, there's never any snappy editing, or skipping showing the excruciatingly obvious or ordinary. It wouldn't be all bad if there was a pay off at the end of each repetitious and long winded appetiser but more often than not it was simply followed by something equally as trite and bland. I'll admit the story is fairly coherent and the characters and acting competent, and it certainly never offended me the same way as Return of the Evil Dead did, but it all can't make up for the fact there's just a sheer lack of content.

Take the story. Noemi (Bárbara Rey) a swimsuit model confronts her boss Lillian (Maria Perschy) about her room-mate Kathy (Blanca Estrada) who's been missing for a few days. Threatening a missing person report Lillian takes Noemi to a disused quayside building to meet business man Howard Tucker (Jack Taylor) who tells her she's on a top secret publicity stunt out far out in the North Atlantic ocean where she, and actress want-to-be Lorena Kay (Margarita Merino) will pretend they're lost, get rescued and everyone will talk about his new sturdy boat. They do get lost, though it's in a swirl of hot mist and fog and they do get rescued though, again, it's not good as it's by our friends the 8th Century (I swear this changes every film) undead blind blood thirsty warlocks.

All this is really to get two girls in swim wear out in the water and another gang out to look for them. It doesn't really make much sense when you think about it, though with the idea of transdimensional 8th century zombie devil worshippers on a 16th Century galleon magically held together picking on stray small vessels in our dimension, I guess it doesn't matter too much. Howard Tucker and Lillian, concerned how the loss of the two girls will look on their resumes put together a rescue team including the now captive and raped Noemi (who's still happy to wear her bikini), Howard's dirty right hand man Sergio (Manuel de Blas) and meteorologist cum scribe of ancient Atlantic ghost vessels Professor Grüber (Carlos Lemos) and they set off and successfully find the galleon with surprising ease.

There's not a lot to add. The team board the boat, find signs the girls had been there and decide the best course of action is a long nap. The Knights appear, Noemi gets her head chopped off in the single scene of blood or gore (it really hasn't been her day), the knights disappear, the gang have another look around and find some material that tries to make sense of it all, the knights reappear again and people get chased ponderously about by an enemy that moves as slow as the narrative.

They're still the blind dead warlocks, excommunicated for devil worshipping occult practices they brought back from the East and they're still the same skeletal mummified lethargic hairy chinned cadavers. It's a boat though so this time there's no horses and there's only a handful of them to fend off. One thing is new though. Professor Grüber is the first character of the series to not only successfully identify them for what they are, but to have an idea of how to defeat them. The pact with the devil that granted them immortality, of a sort, he presumes also makes them susceptible to exorcism. He also notes as they only come out at night, perhaps they're harmless during the day and suggests they throw them overboard. I'll be honest I'd have thought in five hundred years someone else would have thought of this. Are they zombies? There's definitely a bit of cross vampire genre fusing going on with the flaming crucifix, sleeping in coffins during the day and Satan as the ever agreeable soul taking enabler, but the shuffling, flesh eating and out stretched arms paint another picture. The transdimensional gubbins, with the boat existing magically outside our reality is certainly new to the series but the whole thing's got so ludicrous by now I'm not going to argue.

The Ghost Galleon is, as Amando de Ossorio stated some odd twenty-six years later, a victim of its own devices. I believe him when he says the Blind Dead films could have been something quite special as despite all its flaws there's at times an quite exquisitely suspenseful unique yet pervasive atmosphere to the films, even here. The stories are also always reasonably coherent with touches of original vision and there's always an attempt to make the characters real and complicated with flaws and depth; even if it more often than not doesn't quite succeed. I can't gloss over the cracks though. The Ghost Galleon is not a good film; ponderous, cheap and severely lacking in action, content and good sense, 3/10.

Steven@WTD.

Return of the Evil Dead - review

1973 (Spain)

2005 Blue Underground The Blind Dead Collection DVD R(1)

Contains mild spoilers.

Knock, knock? Who's there? 14th century zombie warlocks risen from the grave seeking revenge on the decendents of those who blinded and killed us. No, that's actually the first thing they did and it's also one of the main criticisms I have with Amando de Ossorio's sequel to the moody continental Tombs of the Blind Dead; for as much as it wants to be a serious tense horror it can't help but unintentionally come across a bit amateurish and silly on more than a single occasion.

First, there's something we need to address. Remember the iconic final scenes of the first, where the blind dead knights escape the confines of their isolated ruins to arrive by train at the first populated town ready to start their world slaughter tour. It didn't happen. The ancient legend of knights found guilty of heinous crimes hung up with their eyes pecked out to deter others. Nope, all gone and all unnecessarily different; this time, we're told, they had their eyes burnt out and they weren't put on trial, they were killed by 'the angry mob'(tm). There's no narrative connection, no reuse of the location or characters. It is a sequel, in truth, in just having the same blind dead horse riding warlocks slicing, dicing and massacring another set of unfortunate European misfits.

The knight/templar/warlocks we discover again, were granted immortality (of a sort) through drinking the blood of a sacrificed virgin; though I'm convinced this was repeated, only as an excuse to reshoot the same ripping the shirt, exposing the boobs scene with a new pretty face. This time though we're in Bouzano, Portugal and this time the citizens of the town not only openly talk about the old myth but hold an annual celebration complete with knight effigies. Mayor Duncan (Fernando Sancho) who runs the town like a Mafioso boss has called in hero of the hour Jack Marlowe (Tony Kendall) to provide the fireworks for the towns festivities. On arrival he's confronted by the Major, several of his goons and his fiancée Vivian (Esperanza Roy) who it turns out is Marlowe's old flame and has secretly engineered him winning the contract as she feels there's unfinished business between them.

This turns out to be the least of their problems though. Murdo (José Canalejas), who, I believe the politically correct way of putting it, suffers from severe spinal curvature, is tormented and bullied by the towns children and adults and has decided his only course of action is to resurrect 700 year old murderers who can be his friends. Not only has he worked out what's necessary to bring the knights back but he seems quite happy to kidnap and murder a local innocent damsel (in the same boob out, knife in manner) to put it into action; his character is quite contrived and implausible, and making the only person with a physical defect the monster responsible for the shitstorm is never mind clumsy and easy, it's more than a little un-pc.

I commented that the characters in Tombs of the Blind Dead were complicated and deep with a little irrationality and European je ne sais quoi, that made them quite likable and believable. Like Mundo, the ensemble of Return of the Evil Dead all feel flat with little depth or complexity, like convenient one line caricatures brought in to play one particular horror trope. Whether it's the dastardly mayor or doting mother, their descriptor is their single role in the film dictating motivation and behaviour. They always appear obvious and trite, and the complexity of the relationships which worked so well in the first is completely absent; interactions that do take place feel amateurish, inauthentic and far too like that of a bad soap-opera.

This convenience and lack of complexity spills out into the narrative too with a story obvious from the get go lacking any confidence to be original or imaginative. Scenes that seemingly worked before are stolen and shoe-horned in and de Ossorio who has now obviously taken notice of Romero's Night of the Living Dead which came out just before or around the time Tombs was getting going, obviously desperate for material has lifted the siege of the farm house straight out without trying to hide it. It's all forced, pedestrian and uninspired.

One of the reasons the dead knights worked in Tombs was the tight claustrophobic nature of the film meant, if we're honest, that they weren't in shot a great deal and when they were there was plenty of shadow to hide them. On paper bringing the story out of the ruins and into the town has plenty to go for it but unfortunately the bright lights of the bustling town don't do the animatronics any favours.

The undead Templers always appear in one of two states. They're costumed actors, dark, menacing, lifelike and quite effective as they ride horses and throw swords about. The problem is, de Ossario is quite fond of their second form of appearance; that of quite shockingly bad and obvious wooden skeletal puppets. The main problems come, not from their wooden behaviour and appearance, though this is bad, but from moving back and forth between these and the actors often in quick succession. One minute Marlowe is fighting for his life in the market square against a well costumed foe, the next he throws some fireworks at an obvious effigy a quarter the width and depth which topples over like a scarecrow. It's jarring and so obvious to be almost insulting that the audience is supposed to not notice or care.

It's not all bad though. I won't spoil it but many of the unlikeable characters meet their end in full b-movie blood spurting glory and it flows generally quite well. Somehow de Ossorio has also managed to maintain a kind of cohesiveness, albeit with many quite questionable narrative decisions meaning you do have to suspend disbelief fairly regularly for the film to retain any credibility and not come off as an excruciating and mediocre farce. The actors do a pretty competent job too, filling the scenes between the carnage with contrived small talk, but with such average material they were never going to be in a position where they could shine.

Return of the Evil Dead isn't a bad film, it's just not that good, its fault amplified by comparison to the brilliance of its predecessor. Languid and all too obvious and easy, the film fails in all ways to rise above average and mundane, and I'm really not sure why de Ossorio didn't just make a proper sequel following the events of the first. Return of the Evil Dead fails when compared to its predecessor in every way and the lazy manner in which it's all been put together quite nearly pushes it into full bad b-movie territory. A confusing missed opportunity and all quite the disappointment, 4/10.

I was also a little unhappy in this Blue Underground transfer, especially as I came at it with high expectations after the masterful crisp and clean Tombs of the Blind Dead. I watched the uncut Spanish version included on the disc which runs about four minutes longer than the original English dub but found the picture quality quite severely lacking and several scenes had quite unnecessarily camera shake.

WTD.

Tombs of the Blind Dead - review

1971 (Spain/Portugal)

2005 Blue Underground The Blind Dead Collection DVD R(1)

Contains spoilers.

  

Betty Turner (Lone Fleming) has had a bad week. Her best friend and old school roommate with benefits is murdered and mutilated, her new male friend without benefits gets his arm chopped off and dies in her arms, she's chased and harried for miles by an army of immortal medieval undead horse riding knights who want to drink her blood inadvertently bringing the whole zombie gang with her to the local town where they'll probably start their brutal slaughter and oppression of the whole planet, and if she does eventually get to return to her mannequin business, she'll find that burnt to the ground too. As I said, bad week; oh, and I didn't even mention she was raped.

Tombs of the Blind Dead or Revenge from Planet Ape, yeah seriously as distributors tried to spin it to a US audience that a) seemed to really like monkey apocalypses and b) they thought were really quite gullible, is a 1971 Spanish horror from esteemed director Amando de Ossorio and the first of four films all focused on the same blind dead knights, and it's rather good. Virginia (María Elena Arpón) bumps into her old roommate Betty, introducing her to her friend Roger Whelan (César Burner) who suggests they all take a trip out the city get some fine county air for a day or two. Things turn sour on the train ride though as Roger's amorous and reciprocated moves towards Betty unnerves and upsets Virginia. She concludes that as two's company and three's a crowd, the best thing to do, obviously, is throw herself from the moving train and to take up residence at the local ruined medieval town and graveyard of Berzano.

It might sound a bit ridiculous when put like this, but it never comes across as such. Victoria, like all the characters are successfully presented as complex multifaceted individuals with depth and back story, and her actions leading her to spend a night in the dilapidated spooky abandoned fort, whilst from the comfort of the sofa seem ill-advised, does manage to avoid appearing unduly convenient or contrived. It's this ability to present the far fetched and implausible as coherent and authentic that elevates Tombs of the Blind Dead above other low budget hammy horror films of the time. Yes, the pacing is slow, the dialogue thick and the makeup and effects a tad weak if we're honest, but the atmosphere is constantly brooding and the narrative always interesting.

Are they zombies though? De Ossorio didn't think so going so far as objecting to the use of the word. He saw them more like mummies with intelligent malevolence rather than shambling reanimates without reason or sense. I personally think there's enough room to manoeuvre; yes they're skeletal and yes I recently said reanimated skeletons like those in Jason and the Argonauts, didn't really count, but these guys aren't magical boney puppets controlled by the will of another, they're reanimated long dead corpses, reacting and moving independently. Heck it's dangerous ground I know; one could argue that zombies originated as the puppets of their voodoo master and I'll have to write some thoughts down on zombies and control at some point. Anyhoo...

There were these knights, you see, that six hundred odd years ago returned from the East with treasure, a new found interest in the occult and witchcraft and the whimsical notion that sacrificing virgins and drinking their blood could give them immortality. The powers that be didn't think much to any of this so they captured and executed them, leaving their bodies hanging from trees to dissuade others from thinking it was a good idea. The story goes that whilst dangling some crows took a particular interest in their eyes hence the idea of immortal blind dead knights and the tagline/original-quirk for the franchise. Unlike Romero and Fulci, de Ossorio provides a clear origin-story and ok it's far fetched and sacrificing virgins is by today's standards all a bit cliché and silly, but yet again it all manages to come across authentic and plausible. 

So are they zombies? Well they're definitely dead and reanimated and they still like the taste of fresh blood. Ok, they can ride horses, but they were trained riders and even Romero isn't against letting that bit of residual muscle memory remain as seen in Survival of the Dead. We also have undead Virginia to think of too, who's up and about because she's been bitten. I understand de Ossorio decided not to repeat this more western Romero style zombiefication of victims in later films but he did here and while there's certainly a bit of zompire ambiguity with her going for the neck and blood I do think it's all leaning quite hard towards the Z as she shuffles about arms out front.

Tombs of the Blind Dead is a brooding, moody intelligent horror full of 70's continental European flair, surrealism and eccentricity. Complex characters are allowed to take centre stage in an intelligent creepy and extremely atmospheric horror film that oozes macrabre style and atmosphere. It also contains several, even by today's standards, quite shocking and disturbing scenes without ever being overly exploitative. With constant great scene composition and the ambition to mix it all up with slow-mo de Ossorio has crafted a brilliant undead film that really stands the test of time. As if things can't get any better it's also all accompanied by a hauntingly good score. There really is very little to complain about and I'd recommend this without hesitation, 8/10.

I managed to get my grubby mitts on the Blue Underground coffin box collectors edition and the quality of the transfer is nigh on perfect and if anything might actually be slightly too good showing the low budget 70's effects and animatronics up somewhat. With both the original Spanish with excellent English subtitles and English Dub version on the disc this is the version to get.

WTD.