Night of the Seagulls is the final movie in Amando de Ossorio’s Blind Dead series. Starring blind Knight Templar zombies riding around on horses, these Spanish-language flicks are vintage 70’s Eurotrash, featuring oodles of blood, gore and gratuitous sex. Unfortunately, the last installment of the series leaves a lot to be desired.
The plot: the residents of an old Spanish fishing village sacrifice seven virgins on seven nights once every seven years to the undead Knight Templars. This state of affairs lasts until Doctor Stein and his wife Joan drive into town. We can tell they’re a modern couple because they have a car and because of the doc’s taste in flashy sweaters. They learn of the fishing village’s nocturnal activities with the help of the town lunatic and a young woman named Lucy, who pals around with them in hopes that she won’t be sacrificed.
A word about the virgins. That’s what I’m assuming because they’re dressed in white, which signals virtue. If I were a young woman in that village I’d lose my virtue, ASAP. Anyway: the ladies are chained to the rocks like in the Perseus and Andromeda legend, which is a nice touch, but instead of a sea monster we get grainy stock footage of the Knight Templars riding along the beach on their horses. They sacrifice the maybe-virgins to a statue of a big frog, which could be a shout-out to Howie Lovecraft.
The plot of Night of the Seagulls is sketchy and it shows. Nothing happens for the first hour and then things start moving. Doc Stein, his wife, Lucy and the town lunatic barricade themselves into a house. This leads to my favorite sequence of the movie, which I believe is repeated in all the Blind Dead films, where one of the Templars lays his bony hand on a young woman’s shoulder and she shrieks like fuck. That never, ever grows old.
I wanted to like Night of The Seagulls, but this movie is pretty dull. There’s a little semi-nudity and gore but nothing to write home about. The Tombs of the Blind Dead, the first installment of the series, features evil sex, lots of gore and a genuinely spooky scene in a mannequin factory, and is well-worth seeing. Night of the Seagulls, not so much.
Recommended for series completists and zombie fanatics only.
Abandoned Places 