Tombs of the Blind Dead is a 1972 Spanish-Portuguese horror film written and directed by Amando de Ossorio.
[2][3] Ossorio has stated that Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer's Gothic horror legend El monte de las ánimas (1862) and George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) both influenced the creation of his film.
Legend has it that in the abandoned medieval town of Berzano, at the border between Spain and Portugal, the Knights Templar (a fictionalized version of the real-life order that was dissolved in the 14th century following charges of witchcraft and heresy) leave their tombs at night and come back from the dead as revenants.
Roger immediately takes a liking to Betty and invites her along for a train journey, provoking Virginia's jealousy, as the two women had a romantic relationship years prior.
In the latter, a flashback of the living Knights Templar torturing and drinking the blood of a female victim was moved to the beginning of the film, and most of the sex and gore (for instance, the scene depicting the lesbian relationship between Betty and Virginia, a scene in which Pedro rapes Betty and the sequence on a train in which the Knights kill a woman in front of her child) were removed.
Rather than reshooting, location footage from the film was edited together, the Templar flashback sequence was removed, and a narration track explaining the premise was produced as an introduction.
[10] The film was released on DVD on 20 October 1998 by Anchor Bay Entertainment as a double feature with Return of the Blind Dead.
[18] TV Guide awarded the film two out of four stars and called it "a slow and lackadaisically plotted thirsty-corpse movie distinguished by terrific music and locations, and genuinely eerie zombies".
gave the film a positive review, stating, "Tombs of the Blind Dead is a slow moving Spanish classic that is a must see for all fans of creature features with ample amounts of all the things that make horror great.
[22] Adam Tyner of DVD Talk wrote, "Although Tombs of the Blind Dead isn't a particularly gory film, several of its sequences are deeply unsettling".
[23] The Blind Dead (Knights Templar) villains were unofficially resurrected in the 1975 entry La cruz del diablo, directed by John Gilling.
[12] More recently, the Templar appeared in the unofficial, shot-on-video sequel Graveyard of the Dead, also known as El retorno de los templarios (2009).
[25] and in supporting roles in Don't Wake the Dead (2008) and Unrated: The Movie (2009), two films by German director Andreas Schnaas.
[26] The short comic story "Ascension of the Blind Dead" appeared in the 2010 Asylum Press graphic novel Zombie Terrors Volume 1,[27] written by David Zuzelo with artwork by William Skaar.
It has received some critical acclaim, with Film Threat calling it “a gorgeous art piece that has much to offer the nightmare choir.”[citation needed] In 2020 publisher St. Rooster Books released an anthology of stories based on the Blind Dead Series entitled "The Blind Dead Ride Out of Hell" [33]