Amando de Ossorio's Tombs of the Blind Dead is a good old-fashioned atmospheric zombie flick. It sometimes gets billed as Spain's answer to Romero's Night of the Living Dead - i.e. a moody, suspenseful, first-generation zombie film, before things got gonzo in the late 70s. And it's an apt comparison. Night is a lot stronger in the story department, but both manage to generate a ton of tension and dread with their slow, lumbering dead. Although I would say Tombs does so more cinematically, whereas Night depended on a more gritty realism.
My Synopsis: "Zombie" Templars go after whoever gets near their temple, which has been in ruins for centuries. This includes a young woman trying to avoid a potentially awkward camping trip, and then her friends that go looking for her. The locals have always thought the temple is capital-h Haunted, because whoever goes there seems to get capital-m Murdered!
Elaborate Genre: Moody Zombie Film
Overall: Solid - a really good watch, with iconic zombie designs and a great atmosphere - the ruins they shot the film in are fantastic, and de Ossorio really knows how to create tension.
I've said zombie about 10 times so far. But are the guys in Tombs actually zombies? The overall vibe is certainly like a zombie film, and they move together in a lumbering mass like zombies, but they also rise from the grave (seemingly only at night) and drink the blood of their victims through a number of small bites. But they're not rotting flesh either - they are really more magical walking skeletons in ratty old shrouds than anything. No muscle, no skin. So they are really kind of a zombie / vampire / Army of Darkness hybrid. If you're gonna get all nitpicky about your zombie science, this may not be the film for you. But the mood is decidedly zombie, so there you go.
And what a mood. There's lots of Gregorian chanting, freaky lighting, and dilapidated sets. And the zombies look tremendous. It's not even great makeup or anything, but the overall concept and feel of these guys is great. The nasty, tattered rags they are wearing give them a uniform look, and makes them feel even more like one big mass coming at you.
Oh yeah, and they ride horses too. Although I guess you just aren't supposed to wonder where their horse buddies come from. Like I said, it's the kind of film that you don't want to pick apart too much.
It's nicely paced too - at least the version I watched on Amazon Prime (more on that later). The first act would basically be a pretty great standalone short film, which climaxes with a nice chase/attack scene. While it introduces the zombies, it could be left out at no cost to the narrative ("our friend went out here and is now missing" would work just as well without us seeing what happened to her). Things slow down considerably after this part of the film as we move into the "investigation" phase, but there are a couple of little scenes here and there to whet your zombie appetite. And of course you get a big finale. For a film that essentially has only two big sequences, it feels like there's more going on here, since the titular Blind Dead make such a strong impression.
The biggest issue with the film is the storytelling - I'm not sure if it is something that could be explained in a longer cut of the film, but you're never quite sure of (a) the character's motivations, or (b) just what the rules are with the zombies. It's kind of like the rules/characters just bend at the will of whatever the script needs to have happen. (Like in the end - two extra people accompany our heroes to the ruins, just because the movie needs more people to kill.) But I guess I've seen enough similar zombie flicks (mostly Italian, to be fair) that I don't really expect things to make much sense. So I guess it gets an easy pass.
The cut I saw was PG, although it kicks off with a scene of a young woman being tied up and tortured. It's not crazy or anything - just a bit more intense than I expected from a PG rating. But after doing a little research, it sounds like this version was significantly cut from a decidedly more gory and nudity filled Spanish cut. It sounds like I avoided a pretty needless rape scene (which is implied in this cut, but doesn't make any damn sense), but there are some other things that were left out that sound really good. So I guess seek out the Spanish cut if you can - although it looks like the only way to do that is to buy the DVD. But the extra gore and whatnot isn't essential - what works in the film is the atmosphere and the filmmaking craft, which honestly doesn't need any R-rated business to be effective.
I would highly recommend this film.
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