There is something strangely wonderful about old entertainment from Mexico. Everything seemed to have an odd, twisted logic to it, like wrestlers who dressed up in colorful masks and jumped around the ring like chimpanzees. Some great films have come out of Mexico too. True, a lot of them involved wresters, but not all. How does this sound for a plot? A young woman, after unwillingly engaging in lesbian sex with an old friend, jumps off a moving train and stumbles into an old abbey, where she awakens an evil presence. A group of undead knights with no eyes crawls out of the ground, and starts riding around on horses hunting people by sound. Such is the story behind the first film in Mexico’s version of Romero’s Dead trilogy, “Tombs of the Blind Dead.”
While the plot may sound no different than many other horror movies, the details set it apart, although not in a good way. Overacting, horrible special effects and cheesy, subtitled dialogue are enough to separate “Blind Dead” from the pack of campy, fun horror films and place it into the bargain bin of dreadfully bad movie mistakes. Sure, it has some daring elements for a film it’s age; lesbianism, evil knights, and a downer ending, but it’s not enough to make up for its shortcomings. The undead knights hands are literally fake skeletal hands on sticks!
Like many old works of entertainment form Mexico, “Tombs of the Blind Dead” is not without its charms. It would be a great film to watch while drunk with a group of friends. However, when looking for a real horror film, the “Blind Dead” are definitely not worth seeing.
Spain…not Mexico.