Tombs of the Blind Dead

“The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars.”  — Umberto Eco Foucault's Pendulum

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon – more commonly known as the Knights Templar – are great fun. Their connection to legends and ancient mysteries allow them to be brought into any story. They’re an all purpose sect of villains (or heroes, depending on your viewpoint, but usually villains). Do you need a mysterious and esoteric force? Summon the Templars! It worked for Umberto Eco. It worked for Dan Brown. It worked for Raymond Khoury. It even worked for Sir Walter Scott.

And it worked for Spanish film director Amando de Ossorio.

Tombs of the Blind Dead is a 1971 Spanish Horror film written and directed by Ossorio. (The Spanish title is La Noche del Terror Ciego, which means The Night of the Blind Terror) in which the zombie-like revenants of Templar Knights continue to live by feasting on the blood and flesh of their victims. They are blind as the result of their eyes being pecked out of their corpses by ravens and crows after thier deaths.  These blind revants hunt their victims by sound.

The film (first in a series of four in the Blind Dead series) is slow and creepy. It works by a gradual build up of terror. It creeps up on you, quite literally.  I liked this movie. But what really struck me was the irony.

The first victim of the film is a lone female backpacker who seeks shelter in the ruins of an abandoned village. The blind Knights (looking very much like Peter Jackson’s Ring Wraiths) descend upon her and leave her corpse masticated and bloodless.

After the first Crusade captured Jerusalem in 1099 many Christian pilgrims began traveling east to visit the so-called Holy Land. And although the city of Jerusalem was under Christian control, much of the land was not. Bandits and thieves abounded and killed and robbed pilgrims –sometimes by the hundreds- as they made their way towards Jerusalem. The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon were created as a monastic order of knights to protect these travelers.

But we rarely think of them in that capacity. They’ve become legendary for their military prowess, their acquisition of great wealth and power, and their connection to ancient and mysterious legends and artifacts like the Holy Grail and the Shroud of Turin – not for their protection of travelers.

And so watching these blind knights devour a helpless traveler affirms that very legend. They sought eternal life through strange blood sacrifices and they are doomed (according to the movie) to just that- an eternity sustained by blood.

The movie is violent and gruesome and does contain a bit of nudity so it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s also handicapped by a bit of stiff acting and a few “hunh?” moments. But it works well as an atmospheric creepshow.


Strange Note: Some distributors in the U.S. re-cut and released the movie with the title "Revenge from Planet Ape" in an effort to capitalize on the success of the Planet of the Apes (1968). A prologue was added in this cut version to make a dubious connection between the two films. The prologue explained that 3000 years ago a simian civilization of super intelligent apes struggled with man to gain control of the planet. In the end man conquered ape after a brutal battle. Afterwards the men tortured and killed the ape prisoners by piercing their eyes with red hot skewers. One of the prisoners vowed they would return from the dead to avenge man's brutality.