TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD 1972
“Tombs of The Blind Dead” was released on April 10th, or April 11th, 1972. A Spanish/Portuguese film, the setting is at the medieval town of Berzano, which is on the border of the two countries.
The movie starts off at a public pool, where two women meet up with each other, turning out to be old schoolmates, Betty and Virginia. Betty owns a mannequin shop next to a graveyard, and Virginia is with her boyfriend, Roger. Roger shows up and clearly seems interested in Betty, and invites her to come with them to a cabin he and Virginia were going to, and Betty agrees to go. Virginia seems to already start getting jealous, as she can see that Roger finds Betty attractive.
The movie has these odd cuts at the beginning, where scenes are just quickly chopped together during the first 30 minutes or so. It was strange, but I suppose that the creators of the film didn’t really have the time to recreate scenes or fix small errors such as this. Some of the audio in the beginning of the film seems to be de-synced, but that may be for the English dub. Some of the dialogue would be in Spanish, for a line or two, but not much else. I only bring this up, because it reminded me of how the move “Black Sunday” was filmed in English, but had to be dubbed over because many of the Italian actors had such thick accents. I wonder if all of the actors in this film were able to dub over their own characters. According to Wikipedia, the film was originally recorded in Spanish.
Back to the film, Virginia, Roger, and Betty meet at the train station and not long after we see a flashback scene. Back when Virginia and Betty were in school, they had a lesbian encounter. Betty is a lesbian, and had found herself attracted to Virginia, and it seemed implied that Betty would even marry Virginia if she could. The flashback shows the two dancing together, and Betty quickly goes in for a peck. She kisses Virginia, and this shocks her, Virginia being straight only. Even though this movie came out before Alucarda, this scene reminds me a bit of the relationship that Alucarda had with Justine. It’s interesting to me how lesbianism was shown in movies from the 70’s. Strangely, it feels like Lesbians were shown more in 70’s movies than in the ones from the 80’s and 90’s, but perhaps that is just how it appears to me.
According to film lore, the actresses that played Betty and Virginia had to drink some wine before the lesbian scene, to loosen up. They hadn’t ever played lesbians before.
The lesbian point to the movie isn’t that major to the story, though it appears near the end. To me, Betty was the lesbian, and not Virginia. The way Virginia acted towards Betty’s advances, they were unwanted. What’s interesting, is that in the movie, Betty and Roger seem to get friendly when on the train. It was like as if they already knew each other. For awhile, I thought that the plot to the movie was going to be something like Roger and Betty running away together, because they secretly already knew one another. Maybe that’s how the directors wanted to trick us? I’m not sure. And truly, Roger’s relationship with Virginia isn’t clearly made known either. We just assume that they’re together.
Virginia gets jealous with how friendly Betty and Roger are towards each other, and despite Betty clearly being into Virginia in the past, the latter decides that she’s going to hop off the train and go wherever.
Virginia originally asks one of the train workers if they’d stop at the next village so she could get off, but they refuse, saying there’s nothing near. But Virginia grabs her bags and hops off anyway, walking into the countryside.
It’s not made clear what her plans are, or where she was going. It seemed like a small minded plan, that wouldn’t have gotten her very far. And in a way, I was right. Virginia walks towards an old ruined castle-like building, abandoned. We see beautiful shots of the countryside, and the stone work to the main setting of the film. I really enjoyed just how beautiful the movie looked with its shots of nature and architecture.
As said before, I don’t know what Virginia’s plans were, but she finds a nice abandoned building to spend the night in, lighting some brush on fire in a hearth. Laying in a sleeping bag, she reads from a pocket book, while her portable radio plays some jazz; then, we see the graves surrounding the abandoned area move, and the “Blind Dead” start to emerge.
The Blind Dead are partially human actors in costumes, while some are dummies dressed up. Both are fantastically creepy, and even funny at times. It’s clear that dummy “dead” hands were used to creep through the doors and windows, and it would make me laugh, seeing such silly props. But it was good in a way too, because I really appreciate the practical effect used here.
The Blind Dead aren’t really scary, as they just chase after Virginia, slowly, but I still found them creepy. Even though they would walk slowly through the building to come after her, they’d even ride horses as seen throughout the film. I found the horse riding scenes to be especially, but cool, almost like the literal depictions of the “Death Card” in Tarot. That’s what the imagery reminded me of.
Virginia runs away from the abandoned building, and gets on a horse, but as she rides away, two of the Blind Dead catch up to her and knock her off her horse. She’s then surrounded and they kill her.
The movie goes on to follow Roger and Betty, who are concerned for Virginia, as she never showed up to the camping area nor called. They try to ask about the abandoned building she was seen walking to, but are denied info because it’s against the local code to talk about such a cursed place. The two end up renting horses to check out the area, and find her shoe, but are greeted by police who tell them that Virginia was murdered. It was funny, because Roger asked how the police even found him and Betty, and one of the cops said something along the lines of “We may be a little behind here, but we do have telephones.”.
Roger and Betty are taken to the morgue to identify Virginia, and for some reason, the first person revealed under the white covers was the wrong person?! This made me laugh. Virginia was then revealed, and she had all these sores and bite marks all over her body. I believe it was 12 different sets. The police think that it’s potentially a gang of ruffians in a village 7 kilometers from the abandoned building, but Betty and Roger end up learning that it was the old Knights Templar who haunted the place, that likely killed Virginia.
The movie goes on to show that the town of Berzano was once a site for the Knights Templar, who had once gone on a conquest in the East, then came back practicing Black Magick. They would sacrifice virgins and suck their blood, for apparently eternal life? I don’t remember them saying “eternal life” specifically in the movie, but that’s what most summaries state. In the movie itself, it seems more the spirits of the Knights Templar would basically suck the blood of anyone that would trespass their property, like vampire landlords.
What’s interesting, is that there is a historical connection with the Knights Templar, Black Magic, and even the whole “Baphomet” symbol thing. If you look it up on wikipedia, apparently Baphomet may be a mis-hearing of Mahomet. There is a lot of backstory you can read about The Knights Templar, and ironically, I read a lot about them as a teenager. For whatever reason, I had an interest in the Templars, because I remember reading a little bit about them and their search for The Holy Grail. What’s funny to me, is that not once during that time as a teenager, did I come across the Black Magic thing. The Templars and Black Magic are also mentioned in the book “We Are Satanists”, which provided an interesting historical perspective to me.
What’s interesting is that, in the original Spanish version, the Blind Dead are referred to as “The Warriors of The Orient”. I think that this is some sort of nod towards the whole going east and coming back saying “Baphomet” thing. I wondered if the creators of the movie knew about the Baphomet/Mahomet connection, or if this was coincidence.
The movie paints the Templar revenants as much more ghosty, than zombie-like. I like the costume design to the creatures, as stated before. The faces of the Blind Dead have this long decayed to them, not the rotting dead faces in other zombie films. Though this movie came out before “Dawn of The Dead”, the looks to the dead in that movie in this one are distinctly different. It should be noted though, that “The Blind Dead” was inspired by Romero’s other film, “Night of The Living Dead”. The decayed centuries old look to the Blind Dead fits perfectly with the movie in my opinion. They didn’t use very much blood at all in the movie; and there wasn’t any offal in the shots either. I do give them props for creating something so creepy without throwing around things like animal remains.
What’s strange, and not really explained, is that after Virginia’s death, she comes back to life. In this sense, she really is a zombie, and kills a guy in the morgue, chomping on his neck. She then makes her way to the mannequin shop that Betty owns, and tries to eat Betty’s assistant, but the assistant sets Virginia on fire, and the latter burns to death. The effect used here was really funny to me, because the scene shows the actress wailing in pain, while a cell of fire is placed over the film. A very clever way to use fire, without actually having any in the room. Still though, what was the point of Virginia coming back to life? Did it mean that she could convert people into zombies too? The Templars were to be referred to as revenants, and not zombies, but would Virginia be revenant too? This is never addressed.
While Betty and Roger get more information about the Templars from a college professor, the police show up, and inform the professor that they found his adult son, who left home 2 years before. The police suspect that the son, Pedro, and his gang were the ones to potentially kill Virginia, because they were the ones 7 km from the abandoned village. Roger and Betty decide to go check out the area, and see if Pedro knows anything about the area Virginia died at.
Roger and his girlfriend Maria join Betty and Roger at the abandoned village, like as if they’ll be able to find and beat up whoever killed Virginia. But of course, this isn’t the case. Interestingly, Pedro takes an interest in Betty, and he tries hitting on her. She tries to reject him, trying to tell him she wasn’t interested in men, after having a bad encounter with one in the past. This doesn’t stop him though, and he rapes Betty in another scene.
Meanwhile, Maria and Roger are alone, and they kiss, but Maria thinks that Roger and Betty are more than just friends. It’s strange that this is brought up, because one: it has nothing to do with the plot of the movie, and two: it’s not until now, the end of the movie, that Roger seems to only say that Betty was a friend. It’s never made known whether or not Roger knew that Betty was a lesbian, and had-had a crush on Virginia in the past. In general, there really wasn’t any fleshing out of the characters in the film. I feel like the only character that had any actual backstory was really Betty!
Pedro ends up being eaten by The Blind Dead, and Betty runs into the building that Maria and Roger were inside. Roger goes outside and sees Pedro being eaten, and he completely unloads his gun shooting at them, which is, of course, useless. The Blind Dead then make their way towards Roger, who is stuck outside of the building, because the door was locked, and Maria wouldn’t allow Betty to open the door. Maria and Betty get into a fight, because Maria was jealous that Betty obviously had sex with Pedro. Just dumb shit, really. Maria is one of the reasons why they all die.
Roger’s arm gets cuts off, and FINALLY they open the door, and drag him in. This also allows The Blind Dead to come in, and their attention is immediately turned towards Maria, who screams in terror. They eat her, and while Roger is dying in Betty’s lap, he tells her not to make a sound or else they’ll hear her. Though an interesting point to make in evading them, I felt like it was pretty dumb to bring this up last minute in the movie. If brought up before, this could have made for some school sneak scenes or something.
Betty tries to stay quiet, but the Blind Dead end up hearing her heartbeat, and she runs away. She runs far, and ends up making it close to the train tracks from the start of the film, collapsing on the ground. The train workers from earlier in the film see her and stop the train, one getting off to help her up. But the Blind Dead were still chasing Betty, and they end up getting on the train killing everybody there, except Betty, ironically. She hides in the coal on another cart in the back.
The train makes its way into town, and basically, it’s implied that a cycle of worldwide domination by The Knights Templar is possible, thanks to Betty’s selfishness, really. The movie ends with Betty screaming, as she sees that the Templars ate everyone on the train.
What was funny, was how the movie ended not with film, but photographs. I guess they took actual pictures and just used that instead.
I found the film funny, in a cheesy way, but overall good. Surprisingly, I gave the movie a 4/5 stars, not because it’s “super amazing”, but more for the filmography and costume design. I really, really, love the way the Templars are made in this film! When it comes to the creepy factor, I think that the film makers got this right. Of course, there’s issues with the movie, such as the editing errors in the beginning, but I still think it’s a good film. If you like horror, especially movies like “Dawn of The Dead”, I think that you should check this one out!
4/5 stars
My video: https://youtu.be/Gy27OrWCcHg
