Return of the Blind Dead (1973)
Starring: Tony Kendall, Fernando Sancho, Esther Ray, Frank Blake, Lone Fleming
Director: Amando De Ossorio
Synopsis: murderous Templars wreak vengeance upon a village that opposed them
Reviewed by: Omar Khan

Buoyed by the unexpected worldwide success of his Zombie epic Tombs of the Blind Dead, producer-director Amando De Ossorio returned hastily to the studio to try and keep the magic alive and his bank balance heading in the right direction. Action gets underway this time around with a buxom brunette being abducted by some nasty white hooded Templar Knights who carry her back to their quarters to gorge themselves on her blood. Unknown to them, they have been followed by a mob of extremely irate townies who proceed to trap them and set each of them on fire, gouging their eyes out with their torches. As the Templars are vanquished, they swear revenge and remind those who dare to humiliate them of their immortality.

500 years on, the entire town of Berzano is gearing up to celebrate the famous victory over the Templars with a massive festival night long festival. Unfortunately for them, the Templar Knights have chosen this auspicious day on which to return from their clammy graves to settle a score with the village that tried to wipe them out all those years ago. Ossario doesn't wait too long to introduce his lumbering Templar Knights onto the scene - first to go is a sleazy cad, played by an actor who has the unusual distinction of being killed twice by the Templars as he already scoffed it in the first movie of the series. Later on, and much to our delight, the main character from Tombs, Virginia, also makes a return, but alas, she isn't Virginia this time around.

Just as festivities are about to get into full swing, the Templars gatecrash the party, arriving en masse on their faithful horses and blocking off all escape routes. The bloodletting starts as the Templars draw their swords and start carving up the local population with tremendous relish and efficiency. This time they aren't out for a quick bite and a fresh pint of blood - they are out to decimate the entire town and hack every last inhabitant down to size. A group of survivors seek refuge in a church as the Templars slowly begin to close in. The slow motion scenes of the Templars as they advance inexorably upon their victims are as eerie as ever even though the shots appear to have been largely lifted from the first Blind Dead film. Unfortunately the eeriness is soon dissipated as we watch the Templars start battling the villagers in pitch battles, taking as many blows as they manage to dish out. Their invincibility tarnished when they start falling like ninepins when grenades are flung in their direction.

The slo-mo attack scenes are the highlight of the film which falters in between when Ossorio tries to fill in with uninteresting subplots involving characters the audience is least concerned about. Unlike the Tombs of the Blind Dead where one grew to care for one or two of the characters along the way, this time around you actually prefer that the Zombie's slaughter them sooner rather than later. Another unfortunate distraction is Ossorio's attempt at injecting some comic relief, a tactic that backfires comprehensively. None of the numerous attempts at mixing the horror with touches of comedy come off and all they do is irritate and bore. The gore levels are kept in check even though we do have the odd limb being hacked off here and there.

The star of the show is the ominous, rambling theme of Antonio Gavril especially when combined with those slow motion shots of the Templars as they prepare for mayhem. Perhaps the biggest drawback however is one that one would not normally think of as being a weakness of a film, but in this case, and probably in numerous others it is the chronic dubbing that takes so much away from the atmosphere of a film. Tombs of the Blind Dead was saved from this catastrophe, but all the three sequels have been dubbed - and each time the film has been shorn of so much "atmosphere" because of the jarring nature of the dubbing. At best, dubbing is a criminal act, but when done in thick American accents!

The Blind Dead sequels would have been far, far more enjoyable had they been simply sub-titled and not been lobotomized by undergoing the worst kind of dubbing. This particular effort has its moments, but they are dispersed rather unevenly through the course of the movie leaving too many long dull stretches where it's difficult not to nod off once in a while. Not the riveting classic that Tombs was, but a rather average euro-horror outing this time around. One had expected rather more.