Tombs of the Blind Dead is the first of four films by Spanish director Amanda De Ossorio featuring some of the creepiest,most effective living dead in horror film history. None of the films are brilliant,but when the skeletal,hooded Blind Dead are on screen,moving in slow motion to the chilling accompaniment of religious chanting and weird clicking sounds,they really soar. This first episode has many flaws,but still deserves minor classic status,because when it's good,it's very good.
De Ossorio shows tremendous skill in the build up and execution of the Blind Dead sequences. Especially good is an early scene of a girl camping for the night near where the Blind Dead sleep,the tension is dragged out and dragged out in a masterful way. However,only having it's title creatures only in the first and last half hour,and hardly anything resembling plot,means that Ossorio feels obliged to make some unnecessary diversions,including a tame lesbian flashback and a somewhat gratuitous rape scene which leaves a bad taste in the mouth. A flashback scene showing the Templars 'jousting ' at a poor female victim has a real Sadean quality and is hard to watch but is at least more important to the story.
Acting is rudimentary and one gets the feeling that the filmmakers only really cared about the few Blind Dead sequences {although one unexplained episode in the middle featuring a zombie girl is well handled}. Nonetheless,those sequences make the film well worth watching for horror fans.
De Ossorio shows tremendous skill in the build up and execution of the Blind Dead sequences. Especially good is an early scene of a girl camping for the night near where the Blind Dead sleep,the tension is dragged out and dragged out in a masterful way. However,only having it's title creatures only in the first and last half hour,and hardly anything resembling plot,means that Ossorio feels obliged to make some unnecessary diversions,including a tame lesbian flashback and a somewhat gratuitous rape scene which leaves a bad taste in the mouth. A flashback scene showing the Templars 'jousting ' at a poor female victim has a real Sadean quality and is hard to watch but is at least more important to the story.
Acting is rudimentary and one gets the feeling that the filmmakers only really cared about the few Blind Dead sequences {although one unexplained episode in the middle featuring a zombie girl is well handled}. Nonetheless,those sequences make the film well worth watching for horror fans.