TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD

Spain/Portugal, 1972, 86 minutes, Colour.
Ceasar Burner, Lone Fleming, Joseph Thelman, Helen Harp, Rufino Ingles.
Directed by Amando de Ossorio.

Horror films have to be original and/or very well done to make an impact. The various veins have been overworked. This Spanish-Portuguese? film is not always well-made (nor well-dubbed) and has several loose ends. However, for connoisseurs of the genre, it has some arresting features? especially a gruesome medieval prologue concerning Satanic rites of the Knights Templars. These imaginatively reappear as living, but blind, dead, riding their ghostly horses with moulding cloaks and habits pursuing 20th century victims. An unnecessary lesbian sub-plot hinders what could have been simply a gory story. The ghastly ending might put tourists off travelling on Portuguese trains.

1. Why do people enjoy horror films? What insight into the unknown do horror films give? Where does the skill of horror films lie? In plot, in conventions, in variations on conventions, in cinema styles? Where was the main value of this horror film? Its main strengths? Its weaknesses?

2. The film was made by Spaniards and Portuguese. was this evident? What insight into these nations did the film give? Their approach to horror films in the modern world?

3. How well did the film link the Middle Ages and the modern world? This background of superstition and the influence of the past, in such countries as Spain and Portugal? As living in the imaginations and memories of the people?

4. What was the impact of the pre-credits sequence? The satanic rites of the Knights Templar? The horror, the cruelty, the evil? The film's presupposition that such evil could not rest? How good a basis for a horror film was this sequence?

5. Comment on the effective appearance of the 'blind dead' during the film? The make-up and decor, the music and the slow-motion, the aura of mystery around the 'blind dead', their blindness. their evil, the atmosphere of mould and decay? What overtones of evil did this communicate? How successful as a horror convention?

6. How frightening and ugly was the ending with the 'blind dead' on the train? Realistically? As an ending to a horror film?

7. Were the humans in the film of any importance? How trite were their personalities and their story? Was there any value of character in the presentation of the husband, wife, the lesbian flashbacks with her friend, the role of the friend with the husband, the professor and his explanations, Pedro and his smuggling, his vicious cruelty and lust, the fact that several of these people were killed?

8. The vampire overtones of the film - how effective, Virginia's rising again, the murder in the office, etc.?

9. What particular effects were the best? Besides the 'blind dead', the night in the monastery, the vampire overtones etc.? What effect do such horror films have on audiences? Do such films have any human values?