Forget Don't Breathe... Here's The Blind Dead!

A look at the classic Spanish sound-centric Blind Dead film series

With director Fede Alvarez’s white knuckle horror thriller Don’t Breathe still strangling the tail-end of the summer box office, we thought it appropriate to flash back to series of modestly budgeted Spanish horror films that similarly traded in the film’s central conceit.

In Don’t Breathe, a gaggle of young, thrill-seeking Detroit thugs break into a blind war vet’s home to rob him, well, blind. But what they don’t know is that said veteran is totally unhinged and totally deadly and can hunt his victims by sound alone. Hence the title. Many sweaty scenes follow featuring main characters attempting not to breathe, lest their vengeful vet assailant hear them and end their miserable lives.

In director Amando de Ossorio’s beloved 1972 cult zombie horror film Tombs of the Blind Dead (aka The Blind Dead), unlucky wanderers end up in a crumbling Templar crypt, only to awake the moldering, skeletal and blind ghouls that sleep within. Armed with swords and riding spectral horses, this horde of horrible, bearded and blinded monsters stalk their victims, following the rasp of their breathing and the pitch of their screams, then cut them to pieces and drink their blood.

Hell, even not breathing doesn’t help, as de Ossorio’s Templar’s can hear your heart beat too.

Often dismissed as a Latin redux of George A. Romero’s groundbreaking zombie shocker Night of the Living Dead, Tombs of the Blind Dead is something richer, darker and ripe with atmosphere. Ossorio’s signature opus would spawn three more Templar companion films: 1973’s Return of the Evil Dead (aka Attack of the Blind Dead), 1974’s The Ghost Galleon (aka Horror of the Zombies) and 1975’s Night of the Seagulls. This unholy quartet were anomalies at the time, due to their loose mythology stemming from the real life Templar Knights and the fact that the track their victims audibly.

Let’s look at Ossorio’s wonderful Blind Dead films and pay respect to the sound-driven killers that arrived a good 45 years before Stephen Lang used his ears to help enable harm those that dare cross his path.

Blind Dead

Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972)

The first and best in the series sees a sect of blood-drinking Templar knights, executed and blinded for their crimes, shambling from their tombs to slaughter the living who dare disrupt their rural Portuguese burial ground. Ossorio's film is frightening, with ominous experimental chanting music by Anton Garcia Abril bleeding all over the soundtrack and nightmarish imagery of the blind ghouls on horseback moving in slow-motion. The climax, in which heroine Lone Fleming tries not to breathe while the Templars hone in on her heartbeat (see the clip above) is visionary. Butchered for U.S. release to get a PG as The Blind Dead, the full Tombs cut is strong stuff. Also hilariously released as Return to the Planet Ape in some markets, due to some crass distributor trying to tie the film into the venerable 20th Century Fox franchise and trading on the fact that the Templars bear a passing resemblance to undead versions of John Chambers' chimps!
Return of the Evil Dead (1973)

Ossorio's second Blind Dead film (also known as Attack of the Blind Dead) is an eerie effort though not as effective as its predecessor, due to the narrative settling into a typical post-Night of the Living Dead, ghoul-siege formula. Here, in the opening credits, we actually see the human Templars tried and executed, with hot pokers wedged into their bloody, burning eye sockets. Plenty of scares and a good cast (Fleming returns in a different role) but there's too many characters and plot threads that don't resolve. Still, the sequences with the Blind Dead and their horses are as chilling and surreal as ever. Great decapitation gag near the end too.
The Ghost Galleon (1974)

Considered by many to be the least in the series, this third film is certainly the one with the lowest budget. The film stars Spanish horror legends Maria Perschy and Jack Taylor and sees the Templars haunting a ghost ship that lures young models to their deaths. Fans cite the movie's slow pace as a detriment but there's no denying the weird power of the phony, mist-drenched ship set itself (actually only half a boat due to limited funds!), with the ghouls ripping apart their prey on the high seas. Amazingly creepy and nihilistic climax too.
Night of the Seagulls (1975)

The final "official" Templar movie from Ossorio (though many, including Jess Franco, have tried to revive their presence) is the most atmospheric and Gothic. It's sort of an amalgam of The Wicker Man and a Val Lewton film, but with blind, aurally motivated cannibal ghost zombies. This time, the action is set (none of the Templar films are true narrative sequels, rather they are companion films) in a coastal village where the townsfolk sacrifice their children to the monstrous Templars, much to the horror of the new doctor. Slow, surreal, gory and often unbearable tense, this is a solid fantasy horror film.