Return Of The EVIL Dead [DVD]

In this second startling film in the BLIND DEAD series, writer/director Amando de Ossorio returns to the horrific origin of the depraved Templar: heretic knights whose eyes were burned out by medieval vigilantes to prevent them from finding their way back from Hell. Now on the 500th anniversary of their execution, the blind horsemen rise from their tombs to wreak bloody revenge on the town that condemned them. Tony Kendall (When The Screaming Stops), Frank Brana (Pieces) and Lone Fleming (Tombs of the Blind Dead) star in this chilling sequel that rocked the EuroHorror genre.

Apparently Peter Jackson saw this wonderful Spanish horror film prior to filming the Lord of the Rings films. Revenge of the Evil Dead is the second installment in the "Blind Dead" Quadrilogy, helmed by low-budget Spanish Horror director/visionary Amando De Ossorio. The reason I am reviewing the second in the series and not the first film Tombs of the Blind Dead is simply because this is a stronger film in terms of story and pacing.

Tombs of the Blind Dead was so successful that De Ossorio continued the story of the "Blind Dead" with Revenge of the Evil Dead as a follow up. Revenge starts of with recycled footage from the first film telling the story of the Cult of Templar Knights and their quest from immortality by sacrificing and drinking the blood of a virgin woman. The towns people round up the Knights and burn out their eyes, "so they may never find the town again" and then incinerate them. Centuries later, the Knights are free and bring their revenge back on the same town, on a celebratory night, remembering the Templar Knights deaths. Then the film borrows tricks from Night of the Living Dead only with more betrayal amongst the cast of characters who are cornered in a locked church hiding from the evil knights.

In the Lord of the Rings films, the Nazgul or the Ring Wraiths that obsessively hunted Frodo for the ring, looked so much like the Blind Dead Knights in Ossorio's films that the similarity is obvious. Even down to the weakness of both Nazgul and the Blind Dead Knights when concerning being scared of torches or being attacked by fire.

Revenge of the Evil Dead is not a technically brilliant film in terms of cinematography or editing but it is worthy to make mention that great idea with sub-standard execution can influence a multi million dollar film franchise.

This is the fastest-paced, most violent and goriest of the Blind Dead series. Taking place in a small town during a festival, the Templars awaken and begin a killing-spree through the town. After killing a bunch of the townsfolk, they force a small group to take refuge in a single building. There's some topless nudity, and the body count in this one is high. The atmosphere, suspense, music and scenery is also very good; although many might not find it as scary as the other Blind Dead films. While it doesn't feel as claustrophobic as NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD when they take refuge in the building with the Templars waiting for them outside in the dark, the film may still be of interest to fans of that film. The directing is really good, and the film is likely to appeal to an even larger audience than the rest of the Blind Dead films because of the increase in violence, action, and gore. There's good amount of gore in the movie with some scenes being quite nasty, but it isn't all gore from beginning to end. It's an excellent easy to follow film to watch at night, or for those who need to get anything remotely resembling NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.

The quality is excellent. The best version by far on the disc is the original uncut Spanish version with English subtitles.

Subpar laughable 70's horror flick which should generate an hour of joy to an hour of sheer boredom.

Plot: Totally nonsensical and utterly ridiculous. A group of Holy Crusader Knights Templar engage in a Satanic witch ritual, for reasons that are never explained nor make one ounce of sense, where a hot local village babe is slightly stripped and hacked in order to drink her blood (are they trying to become vampires???) Why on Earth would Christian Knights sworn to defend Europeans just out of the blue decide to become unholy witches?

The Portuguese medieval village people get mad, so they storm the castle where they burn and blind the Templar Knights, including murdering some of their rank and file. For no reason at all 800 years later a Spanish border town has a festival where these Knights, now skeleton warriors exactly identical to Tolken's / Peter Jackson's "Lord of the rings" - "Hobbit" franchise characters come back to life to hunt down and kill all of the people in the town (what is their end game? we have zero clue other then they want to attack).

A few nice looking ladies and macho horny boyfriend guys try to defend themselves, the town, and a little girl who are all targeted by these horseback and sword wielding thugs. At any point anyone with two functioning legs, a set of lungs, and a little fire in their belly could easily out maneuver and run away from these slow moving preposterous Skeleton Monsters that the entire movie becomes so absurd it's laughable.

These creatures are slow, they are dumb, and they are not threatening at all unless you are a tortious at an elderly home and thus this is why this movie really just doesn't come together fully. For an action-adventure science fiction fantasy horror flick to work, the bad guys have to be believable and the good guys cannot be these helpless tree stumps. We have silly gory shots where people get chopped up, along with a few tit scenes thrown in here and there, but over all this film is pretty much a dud through and through.

Teens could watch this movie to get a laugh at terrible special effects, and adults could watch it for even harder laughs, but other then that it has little to offer.

I guess if anything this film was a victim of it's time, when special effects just were not that great and thus the acting and plot had to make a horror action movie believable alone (just watch the classic Hammer films to see an example of that). A grade of a C.

The Return of the Evil Dead is the second installment of Amando de Ossario's Blind Dead series. This film is more formulaic than the original Tombs of the Blind Dead. Ossario owes a tip of the hat to George Romero on this on in that it follows the plot of Night of the Dead almost to the point of being the same film moved to a Spanish locale.

None of this makes it any less a classic of the EuroHorror genre. The blind knights are back on the 500th anniversary of their execution to wreak havoc on the village of Bouzano. The casting is a little better, the plotting a little tighter and the story a little more predictable. But the reason that you've gotten this far is that you are a fan of Ossario or his creation. The best part of the film is that the horsemen get more screentime in this outing (truth be told perhaps too much screentime). The makeup and costume effects for the early 1970's are not to be missed.

Blue Underground has done the best they could with the flawed source material. There was a distinct hum on the mono audio of the Spanish version of the film. The Spanish version is presented in its full 91 minute running time. If you are more inclined also included is the slightly shorter 87 minute American version. It is my understanding that some of the more gratuitous violence was removed from the opening sequences and some of the tame by today's standards nudity was also excised.

The disc contains the original trailers in both English and Spanish and a stills gallery.

Bottom line: this is one for the fans. While it may be the strongest film in the series it lacks a little of the originality of the original. Well worth a rental but purchase only if you are a true fan.