Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972) on Netflix
Virginia White vacations in Portugal with Roger Whelan and reconnects with friend Betty Turner. When Roger invites Betty on a train trip, Virginia jumps off and camps in the ruins of Berzano.
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- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.1/107,133 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes79%
Trailer
Plot summary
Legend holds that in Berzano, a deserted medieval town on the Spanish-Portuguese border, the Knights Templar rise from their graves after dark as the living dead, blind, their eyes torn out by birds while the bodies hung on the gallows. Virginia White is vacationing in the area with Roger Whelan when she meets Betty Turner, a college friend who has settled nearby and runs a mannequin factory. Roger is drawn to Betty and asks her to come along on a train trip, which stirs Virginia's jealousy; the two women were lovers years earlier. Angry at both of them, Virginia jumps off the train and wanders the countryside until she reaches the ruins of Berzano and decides to spend the night there.
Cast
- Francisco Sanzas Professor Candal
- Andrés Isbertas Train Engineer's Son
- Antonio Orengoas Train Engineer
- José Camoiras
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- American distributors re-edited the film and added a new opening to cash in on the Planet of the Apes series, replacing its setting with a post-apocalyptic future where the undead were intelligent apes. Rather than reshooting, they edited together existing footage and added a narration track, retitling it Revenge from Planet Ape.
- Elite Entertainment's 1997 laserdisc opens with a computer-generated title dedicating the film to the memory of Armando de Ossorio; the dedication was an error, as the distributors thought he was dead, but he actually died in 2001.
- Hallmark Releasing advertised the US release as rated "V" for violence, as it had with Mark of the Devil a year earlier, and offered "stomach distress bags" to patrons who came to see it.
- The film has inspired metal bands worldwide: over 50 of them have songs titled "Tombs of the Blind Dead" or some other iteration, all paying tribute to the movie series.
- The English-language version moved a flashback of the living Knights Templar torturing and drinking the blood of a female victim to the film's start, and removed most of the sex and gore, including the scene of Betty and Virginia's lesbian relationship and one in which Pedro rapes Betty.
- Tombs of the Blind Dead was the first in Ossorio's "Blind Dead" series and its success helped kickstart the Spanish horror film boom of the early 1970s.
- The film's Spanish credits mention the monastery at El Cercón, Madrid, but the scenes with the sinister ruins were actually filmed at the Santa María la Real de Valdeiglesias monastery in Pelayos de la Presa.
