Historical Horror! – RETURN OF THE BLIND DEAD (1973)

If your 500-year-old skeleton is too slow, just get yourself some extra horsepower!

What happens when you strap cloaked skeletons on horses, give them swords, and let them occasionally nibble on hapless Portuguese folks? You get a novel drive-in classic and an international audience eager for a second helping, that’s what! 

Written and directed by Amando de Ossorio, TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD (1972) sketched a tantalizing tale inspired by the Knights Templar, a powerful, skilled, and innovative Catholic military order that burgeoned in the Middle Ages. All good things must come to an end, though, and the group collapsed a few hundred years later in a grand frenzy of political fuckery that included the requisite torture and death.

Turning the maligned knights into undead avengers, rising from their graves each night to snack on tourists, de Ossorio positively ran with the concept. The result was an irresistible mix of questionable acting, rape, murder, and cool, slo-mo skeletons on horseback that became a global hit. Afterward, there was only one thing left to do: crank out some sequels. 

Like its predecessor, RETURN OF THE BLIND DEAD exists in a number of versions, but the most complete ones begin the film with the original persecution of the Knights Templar. Their distinct, white mantles are toasted a crispy black as each knight is sentenced to be set afire, but not before they have their eyes burned out first just, you know, for good measure…and to reiterate the whole *blind* dead thing.

Hell hath no fury like a templar scorched, and you can’t keep a good ghoul down for long. When a crazed hunchback offers a human sacrifice to the knights, they’re soon poppin’ up all over the place again! You can only imagine how pissed off the Templars are once they find out the townspeople are actually preparing a 500th anniversary shindig celebrating their defeat. Ooo-wee!!! 

De Ossorio has cited fellow drive-in touchstone, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968), as one of the main inspirations for his franchise. Never has the influence been more obvious than his first sequel: A group of townsfolk hole up before inevitably double-crossing one another to keep from being shish-ke-babbed by the galloping undead. 

Despite the expected limitations of its budget and era, I was surprised by how effective RETURN OF THE BLIND DEAD was more than 50 years after its debut. For quite a while, I had purposely avoided it, making the admittedly small-minded assumption that there wouldn’t be much left to drink after a second trip to the Templars’ well. But if ripped-out hearts, hacked-off limbs, and decapitations are your bag, then this little number could slake your nagging thirst for the macabre. Even better, it might get you second-guessing whether you’ve been sleeping on de Ossorio’s other works, as well.

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