Tombs of the Blind Dead

Director: Amando de Ossorio, Amando de Ossorio

1972 / 83min / DCP

The first of de Ossorio’s Blind Dead tetralogy—the last, Night of the Seagulls, is also included in the program—Tombs of the Blind Dead opens at a sunny seaside resort, then plunges into a dusky world of centuries-old terror, when a young woman flees a lover’s quarrel into an abandoned medieval town once ruled by Knights Templar who sold their souls to Satan for immortality, and who still ride out to terrorize the countryside by night. The revenant knights on horseback are among Fantaterror’s most indelible images, and the sense of immanent apocalypse recalls de Ossorio’s admitted inspiration, George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.