HORROR OF THE
ZOMBIES

AKA, El Buque Maltido, La Noche El Buque Maltido, Ghost Galleon,
Galleon of the Blind Dead, Ghost Ships of the Blind Dead, Blind Dead 3.

The Blind Dead are all at sea, but unfortunately so is the plot, in this third instalment of DeOssorio's "Blind Dead" series. Somewhat reminiscent of the John Carpenter film "The Fog" (although this actually pre-dates that by about 15 years), the undead Templar Knights of this film are adrift aboard an ancient Spanish galleon which rolls out of the ghostly fog to attack a small experimental motor cruiser being driven by a couple of fashion models who are trying to pull off a publicity stunt to promote the new boat.

When radio contact is lost with the two girls, the boats designer and the promotional company executives, who had organised the failed publicity stunt, set out to try and locate them. They take with them a young girl named Naomi, who is friends with one of the missing models, and a professor Gruber from the nearby weather research station, who has expert knowledge of the area and is interested in exploring the legends of the ghostly galleon.

As they head out to the last known co-ordinates of the missing girls, their ship is enshrouded by the strange fog. They then encounter the galleon for themselves, and as they board the ship, the undead Templar Knights begin to emerge from the hold below....

Whilst the basic plot holds a lot of promise, the actual film is something of a disappointment and is definitely the weakest in the series. The whole thing takes far too long to get going, the blind dead take way too long to appear, and the amount of gore that does finally take place on screen seems hardly worth the wait. Indeed, the scene where one of the girls is dragged down into the hold to her death takes so long you could grow a beard whilst watching it.

Whilst the sets of the ghostly galleon are sufficiently eerie, they are let down by the external shots showing the galleon in the fog, which are all too obviously that of a small model. This is really one for completists only, and fans of the first two films may be disappointed. However, I felt that the film did somewhat redeem itself with the highly amusing ending.

Overall Marks : 4/10.

Other Information.

• The film was based on the legend of the Flying Dutchman, a ghost ship that supposedly haunts the Cape of Good Hope. This legend also provided inspiration for John Carpenter's "The Fog".

• Spanish actress Maria Perschy, who plays Lillian, also starred in the cult Paul Naschy films "Hunchback of the Morgue" and "Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll".

• Jack Taylor, who plays the Company Boss, was a regular in Euro-Horror "B"-movies and regularly worked with the likes of director Jess Franco. His long running career spans some 50 years and includes over 90 films, his credits include such diverse movies as some of the earlier "Carry On" comedy films, to Jess Franco's "Orgy of the Vampires", the infamous 1973 exploitation pic "Autopsy", the Schwarzenneger film "Conan the Barbarian", the Gerard Depradue film "1492" and more recently, the Roman Polanski film "Ninth Gate" starring Johnny Depp. He continues to appear in all manner of diverse films to this day.

• Up until 2005 this film had proved to be extremely hard to find, except for an old German video release on the now defunct "Directori" label. The full uncut version can now be purchased in the US and UK courtesy of Blue Underground/Anchor Bay. It should be noted though that the US release contains both the Spanish and English soundtracks, whereas the UK release only contains the dubbed English track.

Cast & Crew.

Buy the UK DVD.

Buy the UK DVD box set (4 films).

Buy the UK DVD.

Buy the UK DVD box set (4 films).

Buy the US DVD box set (4 films).

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Other films in the series.

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