Reviews: Tombs of the Blind Dead for Fantasia Fest 2021

Final Rating: 3/5

Not only is Fantasia Fest home to the most exciting new genre releases that get World and Canadian premieres, they also showcase films that are newly restored. At this year’s festival there are two such films, The Unknown Man of Shandigor and Tombs of the Blind Dead. Tombs of the Blind Dead, or La Noche Del Terror Ciego, is a 1972 film directed by Armando De Ossorio that is a Spanish/Portugeuese co-production. It is an early modern zombie film that came out only four years after George A. Romero’s landmark film Night of the Living Dead, but a few years before the zombie craze really went off. Due to the film being made in Europe, for a subgenre that was brand new, the filmmakers were free to make their own rules and not follow any set tropes that currently exist. 

The film tells the story of three people, Virginia (Maria Elena Arpon), Roger (Cesar Burner), and Betty (Lone Fleming) who are taking a train through rural Spain to go to a secluded resort. On the way Virginia gets into an argument with Betty after it is revealed in flashbacks that they were lovers and roommates back in private school. Virginia still harbours feelings towards Betty, while the latter is more interested in Roger. Virginia in a fit of anger decides to jump off the (relatively slow moving) train after she spots what looks like a tiny village. When she gets to the village, it turns out that it is abandoned with nothing but ruins there. She sets up a little fire and plays her pocket radio until she falls asleep in one of the few standing structures. 

After the sun goes down, all the  tombs suddenly have their lids slide open, revealing skeletal hands. Large cloaked figures climb out of the graves as horses appear. These blind monsters proceed to start listening to see if there are any potential targets in the area when they come across Virginia’s makeshift campsite. Her screaming causes all the creatures to surround her as they devour her flesh.

The next day Roger and Betty go looking for Virginia in the abandoned town and come across two inspectors who had found her mutilated body. They bring it to a nearby town to be given an autopsy where Virginia eventually comes back to life and eats the night guard before escaping. It is up to Betty and Roger to figure out the secrets of how Virginia died and if the stories about the old town are true. Rumours were that during the crusades the town was overrun by the knights who started doing black magic ceremonies where they would eat live people in order to attain eternal life. Eventually they were “killed” and put into tombs, where they now rise from the dead to feast on humans.

From there we get a dual storyline of zombified Virginia haunting the town by finding victims to eat, while Betty and Roger must team up to investigate the mysterious skeletal knights. But in the end, the reason to watch the film was to see the restoration. I’m not sure of the original quality of the print, but the folks over at Synapse Films located in Michigan were able to upgrade the film from the camera negative. They colour corrected it, cleaned up any imperfections and digitized the original audio to improve the sound while better syncing it. Despite the movie being a low budget horror flick, it looks and sounds like a modern blockbuster. 

In the end, this is an exploitation horror film, one complete with gratuitous violence and gushing blood, nudity, a lesbian sex flashback, plenty of innuendo and a nonconsensual sex scene. The movie’s plot doesn’t always add up, but like most exploitation films, it is more about getting a rise out of people and the creatives behind the scenes having fun. This film does deal with some interesting catholic mythology using the crusades and the Knights Templar to set the stage for an early “undead” film. 

It also features two stunning sequences, the first being when the knights come back to life for the first time and there are shots of them riding on horseback in slow motion. They are wearing giant billowy black cloaks with skulls for faces and long bony hands sticking out. The shot seemed to be a direct inspiration for the Ring Wraiths in Fellowship of the Ring, with this film seeming like something Peter Jackson would have been well aware of. The second great imagery is of zombie Virginia, wearing only a few choice pieces of gauze to cover her up, slowly walking down a hallway with a random assortment of plastic body parts strewn about as she is stalking a potential victim in a mannequin factory. 

There is definitely a market for over the top horror flicks like this to be treated in the same vein as Citizen Kane and The Red Shoes, two films just announced to be getting a 4K Ultra HD release from the Criterion Collection. It is important to preserve all kinds of films, not just ones deemed important by canonizers.

Tombs of the Blind Dead was seen during the 2021 Fantasia Festival. Thank you to the festival for the screener. Tombs of the Blind Dead does not have a North American release date at this time.