Tombs of the Blind Dead is a 1972 Spanish horror film by Amando de Ossorio, which spawned a number of sequels.
In the original film, tourists visit an abandoned medieval town near the Spanish-Portuguese border, drawn by the myths of undead knights haunting the area. They soon learn the tales are true and find themselves relentlessly pursued by the Blind Dead.
Examples:
- Cool Horse: The Blind Dead chase after their victims on horses if they escape outside the ruins.
- The Dead Have Eyes: Subversion. The zombies are undead Knights Templar, whose eyes were pecked out by crows after they were accused of heresy by the church. They hunt you by sound alone.
- Downer Ending: Elizabeth seems to narrowly escape the zombies on a train, but some of them manage to climb on and slaughter the passengers. Then the train pulls into a station...
- Gory Deadly Overkill Title of Fatal Death: The title.
- Hellish Horse: The titular undead monks ride equally undead horses.
- The Knights Templar: What the undead knights were in life, before being tried and executed for heresy.
- Living Motion Detector: In a variant, the Blind Dead can only track you down if you make a sound. Staying still helps. It can't save you forever, however — they can hear your heart beating.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Technically, in the original Spanish script the Blind Dead aren't Knights Templar at all, but “Los Guerreros de Oriente” (The Warriors from the Orient).
- Recycled Plot: They're all basically the same movie, four times in a row.
- Revenge of the Sequel: The first sequel, Return of the Blind Dead.
- Revenant Zombie: The zombies are the resurrected corpses of evil medieval Knights Templar who were executed for heresy. They are intelligent, although they don't talk. Notably, they're also completely blind as their eyes were eaten by crows, meaning they hunt solely by sound.
- Title of the Dead: Tombs of the Blind Dead.
- Warrior Undead: Templar Knights rise from the dead as mummies/zombies.
