Cheesy at times, but also very atmospheric

English title, Tombs of the Blind dead

The first of Amando de Ossorio's four films about zombie/mummy Knights Templar is a mixed bag. On one hand there's the beautiful Spanish/Portuguese countryside, an eerie ruined monastery where the Templars reside, and the blind, shuffling Templars themselves. On the other, there's some not-so-great acting, jumpy editing, poor English dubbing, and some distractingly light music that would be more at home playing in a department store lift/elevator. It's cheesy at times (both the male hero and a gangster he later teams up with look straight out of a Spanish daytime soap - which they may well have been), and the featured ladies (María Elena Arpon was gorgeous, btw) are your typical latina spitfires. And talking of the ladies, Jeez there's a lot of screaming in this. At times, though, it's fantastically atmospheric, with the slow movements of the Templars (including great slow-motion shots of them riding their undead horses) staying with you long after the movie's finished. The version I watched is the heavily edited original English release (removing all sex and some gore - which, in fairness, may have contributed to the jumpy editing that I mentioned), but it's still enjoyable. 7/10