Seem to be having a spanish themed October so far.....
Tombs of the blind dead
A deeply atmospheric horror thats probably familiar to most of the people reading this. Essentially the ghosts of the nights Templar haunt a remote region of spain, when a young woman throws a strop after becoming the third wheel to her ex lesbian lover and her current love interest who seems to have friend-zoned her, she hops off a train in the middle of nowhere and decides to head up to an old castle where she inadvertantly awakens the slumbering knights.
The strenght of the film is Amando de Ossorio's direction and the terrific atmospher generated from the locations, especially the haunted ruins, the knights riding to slaughter in slow motion and the eerie soundtrack. Theres also a brilliant, Bava-esque scene where one of the victims comes back as a zombie to haunt a woman in a fashion house. A little bit of lore that remains unexplored in any of the sequels that admittedly plays fast and loose with any continuity to the characters.
Return of the evil dead
Sequel to Tombs that changes the back story of the Templars to make them a curse on a small spanish town that kicks in on the anniversary of the villagers victory over the Templars. The film is a lot gorier than the previous films with numerous mutilations, decapitations and a nasty scene of the local oddball mutilating the tits of some sacrificial victim in order to raise the blind dead. The idea of the people trying to remain silent to avoid the attention of the templars creates some great suspense and the end sequence of the templars dying in sunlight is one of the standout sequences of the series.
Ghost Galleon
Franco regular Jack Taylor decides to generate some publicity for his swimsuit models by having some of them get stranded in a speedboat on the high seas. This genius plan naturally backfires as a ghostly galleon emerges from the fog. Naturally its full of Templars who have taken the UK movie adaptation of TV series trope of going on tour and are haunting the boat. Given the intruders are swimsuit models this is red rag to a bull for the Templars and they waste no time going out for some maratime murder.
Its regarded by some fans as the weakest of the films but I like it. Its ripe with atmosphere and has some stunning ladies. Jack Taylor is at his Ron Burgandy peak here and the film is actually very enjoyable.
Night of the seagulls
for the fourth and final Templar film Ossorio decides to mine Lovecraftian mythos with the Templars worshipping some weird Dagon-esque idol. A doctor and his wife head out into the middle of nowhere to take over a practice only to discover that the locals are all hostile. It seems they have some strange pact with the templars to sacrifice seven girls over seven nights once every seven years. The sacrifice itself is heralded by the screeching of seagulls.
Its a nice send off for the templars. It re-writes the back story once again but as a slice of lovecraftian horror it works nicely while still feeling like part of the series. As with the previous entries Ossorio shows he's a master of creating a haunted atmosphere in his films.
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