La noche del terror ciego (1971)

Director:

Amando de Ossorio

Writers:

Jesús Navarro Carrión (additional dialogue)
Amando de Ossorio (writer)

Release Date:

February 1973 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Mystery

Tagline:

Who are these unholy savages who hunt out their victims by sound alone?

Plot:

In the 13th century there existed a legion of evil knights known as the Templars, who quested for eternal...

Plot Keywords:

Knight | Corpse | Blood | 13th Century | Medieval Times

Cast

Lone Fleming	...	Betty Turner
César Burner	...	Roger Whelan
María Elena Arpón	...	Virginia White (as Helen Harp)
José Thelman	...	Pedro Candal (as Joseph Thelman)
Rufino Inglés	...	Insp. Oliveira
Verónica Llimera	...	Nina
Simón Arriaga	...	Morgue keeper
Francisco Sanz	...	Prof. Candal (librarian)
Juan Cortés	...	Coroner
Andrés Isbert
Antonio Orengo	...	Train engineer
José Camoiras
María Silva	...	Maria

Also Known As:

A Noite do Terror Cego (Portugal)
Crypt of the Blind Dead
La noche de la muerta ciega
Mark of the Devil, Part 4: Tombs of the Blind Dead (USA)
Night of the Blind Dead
Revenge from Planet Ape (USA) (recut version)
The Blind Dead (USA)
The Night of the Blind Terror (International: English title) (literal title)
Tombs of the Blind Dead

Runtime:

USA:86 min | Spain:101 min

Country:

Spain | Portugal

Language:

Spanish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Canada:16+ (Quebec) | Spain:18 | New Zealand:R18 | Australia:R | Sweden:(Banned) | UK:18 (cut) | USA:PG | West Germany:18 | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Filming Locations:

Estoril, Cascais, Lisbon, Portugal

Company:

Interfilme

Trivia:

The blind dead are never referred to as "Templar Knights" or "Caballeros Templarios" in the original Spanish language version. They are referred to as "los Guerreros de Oriente" ("The Warriors from the Orient").

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: During the films intro titles, the camera is looking around the "abandoned" ruins of the Templars monastery. In one shot, a van with a ladder strapped to its roof-rack can be seen going across a bridge in the background, at the top of the picture.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Free Enterprise (1998)

The knights look great

Two girls and a guy go on a trip and halfway there on the train one of the two girls jumps of the train and spends the night in an abandoned village. When she is found dead her two friends set out to find out what happened to her. They find out that she was killed by the knights of templar who were killed many years ago and were hanged. As they were left hanging, crows pecked out their eyes and so now many years later they return from the dead and hunt victims using sound to find them.

The film is oozing in atmosphere and is has some tense moments. Although a little slow paced it doesn't get to boring at all. The few gore effects that there are in the film are done ok but the best thing about it is the look of the knights. They look very much like the ringwraiths in the lord of the rings films. As the knights are riding on their horses they look very impressive. When off the horses they move at an incredibly slow rate and one thing I have to say is their hands look terrible. They are bony and don't seem to move at all. There are a few moments of nudity and that really helps with the slow pace. The directing is pretty tight with some great use of angles and lighting.

After seeing this the first part of four films I'm looking forward to seeing the next film in the series. The strong points of the film are defiantly the atmosphere and the very cool looking knights of the templar. The weaker points are the slow pace and the very abrupt ending on the train. Overall it's a very good film that is often wrongly put in the zombie subgenre as the nights come from the dead but I wouldn't really say they were zombies. Defiantly worth a check.

7/10.