Director: Amando de Ossorio
Year: 1973
Country: Spain
Alternate Titles: El ataque de los muertos sin ojos; Return of the Evil Dead; Mark of the Devil 5: Return of the Blind Dead; Mark of the Devil Part V: Night of the Blind Terror
Genre: Zombie
Plot:
In the town of Berzano, the annual day of the revolt against the treacherous Knights Templar is marked by a massive celebration, but as a fireworks display for the celebration begins the monastery out in the hillside spits up the Knights Templar zombies who return to town to wreak vengeance for the original revolt.
Review:
In many ways, this is the superior film in the series. Most of those come from the fact that it has a quite rapidly paced plot, as it seems as it moves from one event to another in no time at all. The attacks come fast and furious, and it therefore never seems slow and dull. This is achieved due to the major advancement over the original in that the Templars are given the reigns to carry the majority of the film, and they prove they can here quite capably. Given the lion's share of the movie, they effectively come across as vicious, fear-able killers, which is exactly what they should be. By giving the decaying, creepy creations more screen time, there is a lot more action than before as the dead themselves are always a treat to watch, their rotting remains and mud-baked faces as scary here as they were when they first were seen.
The action with the dead Templars is still the best part here and generates a lot of fun. With the atmospheric rise from their ruins and ascent on the town offering the chase through the daughter’s house followed by the foot-chase through the area, there’s a lot of impressive moments here with the dead emerging from the dark and slowly surrounding their victim. The real stand-out is the village massacre, which features both horse-mounted and footed Templars laying waste to the citizens in an extended, action-packed sequence that features many different individually great scenes that combine into one great scene as the horseback-mounted Knights battle with the pitchfork-wielding villagers before getting to the church for the final showdown. As is unusual with all Blind Dead films, this amount of action also results in the highest body count than the others, and the blood really flows in here as one is decapitated, another is dismembered, and quite a few are stabbed. These elements all come together to make for a wholly enjoyable effort to be had.
There isn’t much to dislike with the film. The main flaw, which isn’t really that detrimental is all, is the old Gothic feel of the first one is pretty lost here, replaced by a fast-paced feel that still delivers shocks but doesn't feel as overwhelmingly atmospheric as the first one felt. Featuring only trace amounts of the Gothic feeling by moving away from their ruined castle home into the village proper, the old-school imagery that worked well as the action-movie tone works more on the relentless attacks than anything else. It also borrows elements liberally from other films, so it does have a seen-that-before element to it that the first one didn't have to it, with scenes ripped-off or taken from other films rather easily rendering a lot of this one quite familiar. As well as holding out on one of the greatest potential highlight scenes of the film with a cutaway sequence showing the aftermath instead of the scene which is a missed opportunity, these are the main issues with this one.
Overview: ****.5/5
While it has a couple of seen-it-before elements to it and other minor flaws that aren't too detrimental, this is still arguably the best film in the series as it's action-packed, gory fun that any Euro Zombie fan will connect with. Any fan of the series, Eurohorror in general or those interested in the concept should need to see it immediately, while those that weren't fans of the original or the style should heed caution here.
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