Spanish director Amando de Ossorio’s Blind Dead movies are classic undead horror films, in part because of the low-budget inventiveness that defines every aspect of these films. Seething with atmosphere, packed with kinky action, and boasting the truly iconic Blind Dead Templars themselves, the original Tombs of the Blind Dead spawned three highly profitable sequels.

While most sequels continue the story or exist in a timeline of events, the Blind Dead movies are stand-alone episodes. The only links are recycled footage, namely the graveyard rising scenes (which recur in three of the four movies), the opening mythology scene wherein a ritual involving a topless village woman is enacted, the costuming, and the soundtracks.

The soundtracks are non-stop cacophony of howling winds, crickets, screech owls, babbling monkeys, and crashing waves. None of which is reflected on screen.  To listen only to the soundtrack, the viewer might think that there was a terrible storm whipping about, yet the trees are still and the characters untouched by any gusts or gales. This in addition to a stampeding musical score that rocks back and forth in wild incongruity with the action. One wonders if perhaps the blind dead scored these movies along with starring in them.

The gore in these films is trivial, even by1970s standards. It appears that most of the special effects budgets was spent on other things, possibly the soundtrack.  The films all seem to have been conceived around locations rather than plot. The great ruins of Tombs, the winding village streets of Return, the pirate ship set of Gallons, and finally the crumbling seaside hamlet of Seagulls.  All are authentically uncomfortable and creepy even before the fog machine coats them in an ankle-deep layer of atmosphere. The settings are among the best features of these movies, one of the few things worth appreciating non-ironically.

The Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971) sets the tone for the following three movies. It features perhaps the slowest undead attacks in the zombie canon.

There is a running subtext of lesbianism in this episode. Virgina, the first victim, storms off after her boyfriend cozies up to her college girlfriend. She ends up in a sleeping bag, listening to a transistor radio after taking a sleeping pill.  While she’s smoking a cigarette, she is attacked by the Blind Dead. She manages to get away on one of the dead horses.  She appeals to a Trotsky-lookalike station agent before being chased down and stabbed by the zombies as the train conductor watches from the safe distance of the railroad tracks.

Then, a sadistic coroner’s assistant who is ambushed by Virginia’s reanimated corpse while torturing a frog in the morgue. Throw in some cops, a forlorn boyfriend investigating his girlfriend’s death, and a group of smugglers lead by a rapist who fights the Blind Dead with nothing but a tight tee-shirt and a switchblade. He loses. If a coherent plot is what you’re after then you may want to abandon this genre entirely; however, the gotcha ending may satisfy.

Return of the Blind Dead (1973) This time the blind dead thirst for revenge more than blood. This film wastes no time nor sentiment.  The cast of victims are plain jerks: pyrotechnician, his ex-girlfriend, the slimy mayor, his henchmen, a bumbling governor with a hot secretary, and a mom, dad, and little girl. And of course the unibrowed groundskeeper, who is stoned by the town children and delights in the Templar’s bloodbath. None of them are particularly worth saving, and one finds oneself rooting for the Templars.

A lot of the footage of the blind dead was simply cut from the first flick and spliced into this one, incorporating even the improbable horse chase.

The primary cast holes up in the church, waiting impatiently, for the blind dead to finish their rampage.  In the movie’s only truly shocking image, we watch the little girl walk slowly through the horde of dead, crying as she calls for her dead father. The finale is more upbeat than the first one, a decision I would quibble with, but which is in the end effective.

Ghost Galleon (1974) I am not even sure the dead are blind in this one. They might just be nearsighted and riddled with arthritis. They live on a ghost ship that appears in a twilight zone of treasure and fog.

One of the great mysteries of this movie, for me at least, is why a meteorologist from the weather bureau is an expert in the occult.
Once again, there is a lesbian couple, a rape, jerks being jerky, and slow-moving victims who could easily escape if they just stepped a few feet out of the way.
Plot conventions are even more ludicrously flouted in this installment.
I would recommend Galleon for the horrible dubbing and the stunning Blanca Estrada, who makes a few delightful appearances. The ending, the image of our favorite Deadites slowly emerging from the ocean is surprisingly well done..

The Blind Dead series does Wicker Man/Shadow over Innsmouth in the brilliantly titled Night of the Seagulls (1976).  Just try telling someone that you are really excited to see this horror movie called NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS and see how they respond.

Outsiders arrive in a truly awful seaside fishing village to find the town caught up in a terrible seven-year ritual sacrifice of pretty girls to the blind immortal knights. If that sentence does not entice you, I do not know what would. My question is this, aside from the bared boobs, why do the undead knight need pretties? Send in the crones.

I can’t say I was disappointed at all by the fact that the graveyard rising scene reappears in Seagulls. The ending is even more stupid than in the first three films - the solution to the zombie invasion seems so obvious that one wonder why the townspeople never thought to try it.  Still, the dialogue is, as usual, priceless.

Overall, the Blind Dead do not have that much to do in this one,  just riding in slow motion up and down a sunny afternoon beach that is presumably midnight since the church bells ring ominously. And that is sort of a shame, since the Blind Dead are really the heroes of these things.