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Movie Notes: Tombs Of The Blind Dead

August 6th, 2007

Note: This is an entry in the Second Webomatica Contest: So Bad They’re Good Movies

Tombs Of The Blind Dead

0 stars
So Bad It’s Good Rating -3 stars

Starring Lone Fleming, Cesar Burner, Maria Elena Arpon
Directed by Amando de Ossorio

Argh. After watching this flick I feel I’ve been blinded – my eyes picked out by ravens.

I’m not a horror fan, mostly because scary movie stuff has a bad habit of becoming funny if it isn’t executed well. Unconvincing costumes, fake blood, and terrible acting can all sink the threat of impending doom. Tombs of the Blind Dead is yet another entry in the Webomatica bad movie contest, and it’s pretty much both, and the film’s title could have also included “tone deaf” and “dumb.”

This foreign entry into schlock-horror starts out rather slow, but it’s all a tension build-up to about 30 minutes in when the scary stuff begins. Creepy monsters start chasing a pretty girl and eventually other clueless people, all so paralyzed by fear that their brains freeze and they become easy prey. There’s a break in the action as a professor educates the main characters about the old legend regarding Knights Templar – which is conveniently ignored.

Tombs Of The Blind Dead contains a long list of unintentionally hilarious horror movie moments and cliches:

  • Two pretty girls = lesbian encounter.
  • Pretty girls remove their clothing for no logical reason.
  • Pretty girl thinks it’s a good idea to get off a train and wander into an abandoned village, alone.
  • Creepy monsters in terrible makeup, and a skeletal hand that is essentially a long stick with immobile fingers.
  • Totally manipulative horror film tactics such as sudden camera zooms enhanced by scary sound effects.
  • Creepy monsters move so slowly that anybody under the age of 54 could outrun them. And the kicker: they’re blind. But of course, everyone screams when they approach, making the blind thing not much of an issue.
  • While chased by creepy monsters, girl’s impractical shoe gets stuck in a staircase.
  • Two people ride horses into the abandoned town – and the horses run off, conveniently leaving them stranded.
  • The local police are useless.
  • A demonic-looking doctor (well, he actually kind of looks like Jack Black) in the morgue shows the wrong body – scaring everyone – for no reason whatsoever.
  • Demonic-looking Jack Black doctor is then killed by pretty girl who has inexplicably been transformed into an undead vampire (I think).
  • Pretty undead vampire girl is set on fire in a mannequin factory.
  • Scary (satanic?) blood drinking ritual with cuts on a nude woman’s body… that looks like a mannequin. No, I don’t think it’s from the factory.
  • Nobody takes the legend concerning dead Knights Templar seriously until it’s too late.
  • Four people go to the abandoned town but through petty disagreements, are separated and picked off one by one by creepy monsters.
  • Did I mention buckets of fake blood?
  • One of the people killed is a real asshole, so we’re glad to see him perish.

Probably the most notable bad movie element of Tombs of the Blind Dead is its complete lack of a resolution. The monsters kill most of the main characters – and that’s the end. There’s never any satisfying headway made in fighting these creepy, slow moving vampire undead Knights Templar creatures, and now they have ridden a train into town where I guess they will kill even more glaically moving, clueless Europeans. Maybe this lack of an ending is why there were several sequels. I think it’s safe to say I’m not going to watch any of them.

To top things off, I found a bit of trivia at Hollywood Gothique that is laughably bad:

TOMB OF THE BLIND DEAD also underwent the indignity of being retitled REVENGE FROM PLANET APE, in an attempt to pass it off as part of the PLANET OF THE APES film series. The DVD includes a brief alternate opening sequence wherein a voice-over narrator explains that the eyeless horrors we are to meet later in the film are actually simian invaders from another planet, defeated and blinded centuries ago!

Now, that’s a bad movie. Do I have to watch more of these? Oh, the horror.

IMDB: Tombs Of The Blind Dead
Wikipedia: Tombs Of The Blind Dead
Rotten Tomatoes: Tombs Of The Blind Dead 67%

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  • I think you should reward yourself after this punishment by watching Renaissance :) .. it will in my opinion return you to the land where true artistry can exist
    LOL
  • Wow. That was pretty awful. But I must admit, your description sounds *slightly* better than what I thought the movie might be when I first glanced at the initial photograph. I honestly thought this would be a horror movie using marionettes or puppets or something -- the dude getting his neck bitten off by some blind dead chick didn't look real to me. I thought he was one of those Team America type puppets, lol.

    I dunno if Pam will let me down to your 'hood to watch one of these, but I'll see what I can do :-)
  • sang
    what were those horrible b-movies we rented in high school? yeah the 70s ones with the helicopters, ladies in shredded bikinis, stocky freaks with bazookas.....
  • Sang: Andy Sidaris films.
  • man, am I ever an asshole. :)
  • Sang, there is nothing wrong with Andy Sidaris. I'd term them "B+ movies"

    Engtech, was this your selection? If so, sounds like a good one! Have you seen the sequels that Jason swears he will never watch? If so, what's the capsule summary?
  • Don't worry Dave, I'm sure after I watch Do Or Die I will view you in a different light as well... looking forward to how Pat Morita fits into the Sidaris vision.

    Yes this was Engtech's recommnedation. I'm just glad no cats were harmed in the movie.

    This link had some summaries of the sequels, which I didn't read in full as I'm now avoiding anything to do with this flick...
  • sang
    andy sidaris, damn true auteur

    i give the guy four stars: ****

    no, but i have fond memories of that stuff.


    are you boys going to hawaii this xmas?
  • sang
    dude savage beach ----- that's it!!!!
  • I'll be going to the frozen north for Xmas. Thanksgiving ?? don't know.
  • Sang,

    Savage Beach and Hard Ticket to Hawaii!!!

    I don't usually hit Hawaii during Christmas (usually b/c of Pam's schedule). Plus traveling with the kids is a pain in the arse. We'll probably go in the spring when Kalea has a week off from school at the earliest.
  • Sang do you wanna come up to the bay area and hang with the lads sometime...

    Now the guy on the skateboard with the bazooka and the snake in the toilet - was that Savage Beach or Hard Ticket?
  • sang
    i'd love to visit you guys... this project ends in mid november so perhaps then? really though, i think hawaii is the best place to kind of settle in and retire...

    savage beach and hardddd ticket to hawaii... dude.... .......... no words
  • bub
    Wow! You critic is simply a shame! What a lack of analysis for a so creative movie. Tombs of the blind is mostly an original study of major figure of horror movie. Those zombies are not seen anywhere else and reaveals a true conception of what can be a living-dead, what can be the death into life. This is even illustrated with the appearence of the templars. They're just... empy! They're jusyt living dead by a kind of susbtraction and desubstancialisation. The figure is completely magnificent.
    Also the rythm is perfect to illustrate something we can only undestand with cinema : Something only mentionned in Nietzsche's work:
    the fact the weak always wins.

    And the rythm is perfect for giving more Esthetics.
    The last thing given in this movie is his unique ambiance. If you're unable to concetrate at leat about ambiance (neither about théory we can build with watching a movie), anvironement, athmosphère (...) I advice you to stop lose your time writing about movies. Neither intellectual nor sensitive work in your writing.

    And what is the basement for your pseudo anlysis? Two clichés? Hey, your own clichés are clichés. You can say the same for many of great movies you consider yourself as classics.
    The problem is not what clichés we can find in a movie, but what you can do with them.
    You only reveal your lack of analysis, of knoledge about cinema, and unability to write a critic.

    (I must also precise that there's no zoom in this movie, and whatever, you should have seen more giallos to understand what we can do with zoom).
  • No, this movie sucks. I dare you to watch it again
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