Welcome to Zombie Strains the podcast that watches all the zombie movies we can stomach.

Today's film starts with a warning.

“The management of this hotel doesn't want anyone to know of our local superstitions. It's not good for tourists.”

And of course our heroes are wise enough to heed that warning. “

You want to go to this unofficial. Yes, and superstition be damned.

So cue up the 1970s groovy synth horror, right?

It's De Ossorio’s Tombs of the Blind Dead from 1972.

You know, I've seen people act like that in pictures. What do they call them, zombies or something?

Zombie.

Zombie?

What's a zombie?

Well a zombie…there’s um... ...Mr. Bill there’s... ...the living dead.

They are the living dead.

Get me the zombies!

Against an army of zombies, no armies could stand!

The unburied dead are coming back to life and seeking human victims.

I’ve seen the dead rise.

Kill the brain, and you kill the ghoul.

Welcome to zombie strains, I am John.

I'm Andy.

And I'm Brad.

Hello, everybody. We missed you last time, Brad. Produce a Brad, excuse me. You guys did a great job. Well, thank you. Did you see colony? Did you study curiosity? I have not. Have you ever seen trained a blue sun? I did. I've seen that. Yeah. Guys, well, listening to John's little intro there, which has a hotel manager warning trying to keep local superstition away from tourists. I feel like that is something that has changed about horror movies. You couldn't put that possibly in a horror movie today because these days, if there was some sort of scary superstition about a place, it would be flooded year-round by millions of tourists. Right. Part of me was like, she's like the first urban revival explorer. She should have a YouTube channel. But But we're getting ahead of ourselves. So welcome, we're watching 1972's, Tumes of the Blind Dead. And it is quite a film. It's part of a technology, actually. The director, Amando Diosoreo, directed four films in Spain in the early 70s. And we're gonna hopefully watch all of them, but we're gonna start here. Before we dive in, though, anyone have anything zombie related or just fun, they're reading or watching that they wanna share? Nothing's on be related right now. No, all right. Well, then I'm ready to go. Do you want to tell us how we got here, producer Brad? Absolutely. Tumes of the Blind Dead was released in April of 1972 in Spain and in the US and February of 1973. In the US, it was called both the Blind Dead and revenge from Planet 8. And we'll get to that in a little bit. Other horror films from 1972 include the anthology film Tales from the Crypt, What's Craven's The Last House in the Left and the first black plantation horror film, Black Ula. Interesting. So mainstream movies in the theaters in April, 72 were Cabaret, Silent Running, What's Updoc, Slotterhouse Five and The Godfather. it's forgot the godfather was that old i think i mean not that it makes a difference but i think over the like seventy four five but really that's the secret that's part two yeah yeah i have not seen slaughterhouse five and i i don't know how you would make a movie of that book is that did it were it it didn't uh but it's been a long time since i watched it i watched it and it'll actually a lit class maybe in high school It was a long time ago, but I don't think it worked for kids out there who haven't read Slotterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. I think we can recommend it, and maybe it's absolutely cancelable at this point. I don't know, but I think we can recommend it. I think most of, I think most of his stuff is both cancelable and probably a must read. So yeah, great. Well, tombs of the blind dead was directed by Amano de Asorio, a Spanish director. His first film was the Black Flag, a 1956 film that was censored by the Franco regime for being against the death penalty. It wasn't released and he didn't make another film for eight years. In 1964, he was hired to direct grave of the gunfighter, a spaghetti western. This movie was a success and the Asorio was back making films. Dissorio made low budget international co-productions. These are films produced by multiple companies in different countries to spread the cost and risk with the intent to distribute the film in many markets. We've already watched a few co-productions terror creatures from the grave and the last man on earth are two examples. Oh, it's true. And to that, right, what I learned this week, which you, I'm sure we'll go into a more detail is that often the cuts were very different, especially in this context, and often the cut that we get is actually not the original cut that was released here. So anyway, correct. And I have a feeling we may have watched different cuts amongst our, I think, too. Yeah. Deosorials films were very low budget films that were shot in 10 days with small crews and cast. We have seen quite a few little budget films, many from directors who seem content with the budgets. Deosorial was different. He said he had big dreams and grand visions for his films and then he was reduced to reality by the limited budget and resources. Yeah, but some of that peeks through in this one. Yeah. He was originally an artist, so he has an eye. 1968 was the beginning of the Spanish horror movie boom, which has been given the name Fanta Terror. Fanta Terror was used to identify the uniqueness of Spanish horror films within the broader Euro-Horror genre. Fanta Terror often reacted against the authoritarian government of Franco, to early examples of this are La Residencia and the Mark of the Wolfman. Wolfman also launched the career of Paul Nashye, who became an icon as a writer-director and actor in Spanish horror movies. These fan-to-terror films were both a violent and titillating, and the genre lasted until around 1975. In 1969, Deosorial Directed one of the first vampire films called Malenka, known in the US as Fangs of Death. Whether or not the vampire film depends on which version you see, and the Spanish version there are no vampires, just legends used to scare and intimidate the village locals. In the English version, the producers added an ending that changed the plot and explicitly made vampires real, drastically changing deosorials vision. This happened often to deosorial. You know what, I keep thinking like... Like, this has just been a problem forever, right? Directors, just, it's like musicians arguing with record companies, directors and studios, and yet we keep still doing it this way for a gazillion years. Anyway, deosario followed this film with tombs of the blind dad. He wrote, directed and shot it in Portugal and Spain. This is one of the first films influenced by Night of the Living Dead. In fact, Spanish horror films reacted more quickly to Night of the Living Dead, and you'll find more Spanish zombie films in the early 70s than US or Italian films. The Spanish filmmakers saw that horror films, like Night of the Living Dead, could diversely comment on society. But deosario created a new monster, zombie medieval knights who kill and drink human blood. Deosario often insisted his knights are not zombies. Well, George Romero said the same thing except her. He said, ghouls and look, look where he is now. I did, when I was taking notes, I did. My first instinct was, I think this might be a mummy but carry on. Well, it is interesting that Romero was trying to keep his from being vampires like I am legend. And then the Astoria was trying to keep his from being zombies like not the living dead. So even though they're trying not to imitate the other, they are. Interesting. The music was composed by Anton Garcia Abril. Abril was a highly respected classic music composer who was head of the composition department at the Madrid royal conservatory for 30 years. He composed over 100 film scores. The cast is small and known mostly for this film. Lona Fleming played Betty the survivor. She is a Danish actor with nearly 80 credits almost all in Spanish cinema. says our burner played Roger. This is his first acting credit and he appeared in only four more films. He appeared in green in Fernow, like the green in Fernow, like the cannibal movie, the recent one. No, the old one from 73. Now I get to look it up. Yeah, look, you keep going. Maria Elena Arpone played Virginia before tombs. She was in a horror film called The House that screamed and went on to do several more horror films in the early 70s. INDB calls her a Spanish screen queen. Jose Thalma played Pedro, the smuggler. He has 22 film credits and he appeared in five deosoreo movies. Now, tombs of the blind dead was released in 1973 in the U.S. as the blind dead, it was 20 minutes shorter than the Spanish version with most of the sex and gore edited out. In 1976, it was released again in the U.S. mostly a drive-ins this time as revenge of planet 8. A prologue narration was added that explains the zombies are not ten plars, but intelligence apes whose civilization was defeated by man. And I thought instead of describing it, I would just play it for you. Here we go. Legend has it almost 3,000 years ago, a semi-incivilization of super-intelligent apes snuggled with man to gain control of this planet. In the end, man conquered Abe after a brutal battle which saw him destroy the ape, his culture and society. After this battle, man tortured and killed all the ape prisoners by piercing their eyes with a red hot poker. One of the prisoners, who was also the leader of the apes, vowed they would return from the dead to avenge man's brutality at a point in time before men destroyed Earth himself. That time is now. Well, when you put it like that, so it's planet eight. I thought you could plan it eight first of all. So that's amazing. Second of all, there's no corrigan suit in this movie. And third, I watched the shorter cut without all the sexy gordinates. So yeah. So where was the plan of the apes franchise at the time when this, that would have come out? It was mostly played out. But I think I think it did two things. One, they're capitalizing on planter of the apes with this title. And two, they were reaching a movie that many people may have seen and tricking people into seeing it again with a new title. And also my last comment there. So legend hasn't almost 3,000 years ago. There was this civilization of super intelligent apes. That's a pretty documented part of history. Yeah. I'm like, well, not. I know, Andy, that's only if you don't listen to Graham Hancock. I'm just saying, uh, what if you watch Netflix, they're listening to Joe Rogan lately. Gosh. Oh, yeah. I'm learning a lot today. I just feel like if you're going to try to do the Simeon Mutant 8 civilization, you need to go a little farther back. Yeah, like 15,000 years ago. Yeah, they I put it to mantis. She got to be eroticic and that stuff around. Yeah, but I will say we'll get into it. The look of these zombies. these Templar nights. You could see it looking like a name because they don't look quite human. I mean, they are, they're a little bit of both in there. So it sort of passes. I think well, I think they're amazing, but we'll get to that shortly. I disagree with Brad sake. I don't, I don't think they're even one percent a-looking, but what do I know? All right, well, let me finish up tombs of the Blind Dead was a financial success and launched a franchise called the Blind Dead films. There were three sequels. We turn on the Blind Dead, the Ghost Galion, and Night of the Seagulls, making these films the first zombie universe, six years before Romero returned in 1979 with Donna the Dead. Interesting. I am genuinely excited to see what else is done with this franchise. I am, too, actually. Yeah. Oh, I've did my toe and I watched some documentary, so some crazy stuff coming up. Oh, good. I hope that Ghost Gallion, or whatever, is a pirate zombie movie. Don't go. Don't go. I think it's better than you think, Andy. Better than you. All right. I can't wait. Well, John, do you have any context, cultural context you want to bring us to? Yeah, I wanted to talk about, we've talked about Frank a little bit and I, you know, I don't know what other people know about history. So I just wanted to do a quick. a primer on Franco, authoritarianism in Spain, and sort of where we got to in the early 70s. So you may now, you may know of other authoritarian regimes that came about in the early 20th century, right? Mussolini took over Italy, Hitler took over Germany, obviously, but the third one that is less quote unquote famous was Francisco Franco, leading a military coup against the democratically elected government of Spain in the 30s and winning a civil war there in 1939. The reason I think we don't know, we don't think or talk about, I think there's multiple reasons. He's not talked about in the same breath with Hitler or Mussolini, is that A, he stayed out of the second world war, Spain remained neutral, and he essentially took that time rather than trying to conquer the world to establish his power base, which is why, and this is the other reason we don't talk about him quite as much. He didn't have a dramatic flare out. because of the Second World War, he died sort of old age in 1975, and he was the ruler of Spain that entire time. So it's a really interesting contrast because we, you know, like in counterfactual history, right, there's all these novels about if Germany had won the war, what would have happened, but we actually almost have an example of an authoritarian regime in Europe that survived for almost it has a huge impact on Spain and how Spanish people see the world and art and in the 1970s he was starting to decline in losing his grip a little bit so I want to kick it over to Andy and he can maybe go over a little bit about what art was like at that time. Brad touched on some of these things, so I keep this quick. I did want to say, I mean, I think you implied it, but the Spanish Civil War was kind of notoriously savage. Yes. So what's interesting about the Spanish Civil War, and in fact, all of the big authoritarian takeovers in the 1930s, you know, Hitler and Germany, Mussolini and Italy, Franco and Spain, we'd like to think these were conflicts between fascism from on the part of those three men and democracy. And they, in fact, were not the primary sort of opponent in each case was communism. Sometimes Soviet style communism, sometimes more sort of softer socialism, but that was usually opponent. So in the case of the Spanish Civil War, there were two sides, there were the, it was Franco's side, the authoritarians, and he was supported very strongly by Italy, but particularly Adolf Hitler. And just to go on a brief historical tangent, sorry, producer Brad, one of the reasons given that Germany was able to sort of roll so quickly early in the war is that they had sent a ton of hardware and pilots and tank drivers to Spain to learn how to do all this stuff. So when it came time to invade Poland, they had already been doing it for four years. However, on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War a weird mix, Mexico, Soviet Union, communist, socialist, the Recival International Support Brigades, including an American one, and Andy, do you know who the most famous American to participate in one of those brigades was? I do not. It was one earnest Hemingway. Oh, yes. So he was an ambulance driver in that war. So, all right, well, having said all of that, Andy, do you want to tell us where we are in the 70s in terms of censorship sure and between the two of you covered this quite well so this shouldn't take me too long to get through. So this is the waning years of the Franco regime and the Franco's regime is a repressive right-wing fascist system that imposes a lot of what you would probably call the kind of So things that were prohibited to various extents under the Frank of Regime were any kind of direct criticism, of course, of the regime, the military, the government, the clergy, or just Spanish institutions in general. you are not allowed to do anything that kind of put Spain in a bad light that talked negatively about Spain. So that means depictions of poverty, any kind of like social dysfunction and the presence of like corruption or criminal elements, that was all suppressed so that because Spain was supposed to be a utopia of law And, of course, you also have your familiar kind of right-wing restrictions centered around, you know, what you might call moral purity, so you couldn't show a nudity, sexuality, homosexuality, infidelity, divorce, and violence and gore. I have kind of just done a big checklist of the content in this movie, which raises the obvious questions, so how do movies like this get made? Now listeners of this podcast might remember our episode on the Deadly Organ and Argentinian exploitation film. In that episode, we talked a lot about how artists living under and creating art within an authoritarian restrictive censored society, how they do it. And we talked about different options you have as a subversive artist. And I, and, the director of this movie used to specific outlets to do this under Franco. First, we talked about what you might call like the low-brow loophole in Spain. You could not make, like for example, a historical drama that addressed uncomfortable issues about life in Spain. but filmmakers quickly figured out that you could sneak that same message into a genre film that was seen as low-brow and unimportant. And that's definitely what happened with this film, which has a lot of social commentary, I think. Packed quite skillfully into a Yeah, you know, just a note on that. One of the reasons, you know, we all like genre fiction, and I think one of the reasons is when you're creating an alternative world or a fantasy world, it allows you to just, speak very plainly about cultural artifacts in a way that you can't and say literature. I mean, you can, but it's a way to insert it without making it the centerpiece of the story. I guess is what I would say. Exactly. The other thing that was done here in Brad, references are already was the double version loophole. So, like Brad said, like hammer films and yellow films and other horror films, we're showing that there was this international market for horror. And to some extent, when there's a market that might make a regime money, they might loosen up a little bit because of the economic incentive. And what you can do in what happened here was you can do two versions of the film, a team version for the domestic audience that you submit to the government sensors, and a more shocking version for an international audience that would make money in less restrictive markets. And that was the case here as my understanding. Sometimes this meant you like literally shot two versions of your film on the same set. So you would literally film like a scene with clothes on and then you would film the same scene with clothes off. And then those would get edited into two versions. Brad mentioned this version. I watched the tame version. Although it had English. I want to be original. Well, I don't it wasn't the Spanish one because it had all the sex and gore. So I watched the most explicit version I believe. Yeah, what's confusing here is that often what'll happen in our case and I think is that there was a version made for Spain. That is the one we watched that had been dubbed into English. And then the international version, which had all the sex and gore in it, Like I'm sure there's a version we could watch, but that is now what got released on the DVD. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. That's what I have to say about how this film was made under Franco. But so there it is interesting to list in my opinion the stuff that was cut that that was in the International version and maybe Brad you can confirm if you watch it. I didn't watch the the 18 or so minutes that we're not in the domestic Spanish version included a flashback that showed that portrayed a homosexual relationship. That is strongly hinted at, but yes, we hinted at it. What I saw was a flashback to high school of the two women where they have a relationship. Yes. The version we saw had a really short and kind of bewildering version of that. Right. There is a scene of sexual assault towards the end of the film that is not present in the tame version. John and I watched you just have to infer what happened. I wasn't pretty graphic in the version I was really. Yeah, no. Well, I mean, that's horrible. And also I'm glad I didn't see it I guess, but yeah, it seemed like what they did is show the trauma afterwards and it seemed pretty traumatic for for the woman in this movie. So, Yes. And lastly, there's a massacre scene at the end of this movie that is a very tame and bloodless in the version John and I watched and I think not so much in the version. Well, as you watched the rock version. Oh, man. I was going to say because of like as upsetting is the is the sexual assault would have been for me. I am here for that for the end. Massacre. I'm like, what is this? There's a huge massacre. Yeah, talk at the end what you missed. I actually might go back and watch at least the end of the other version. We screwed up, John. We did. We screwed up. The last thing I wanted, the last change we made and maybe Brad, you can confirm. In the team version, the prologue that the the like psilacious prologue with the woman being tortured and the Templar backstory occurs later in the film so you only learn about that at the same time the characters of the film do correct whereas in the version john and i watched it's laid out their upfront so as a viewer you understand what's going on right from the get go. I think that would really change the feel of this film from like a what would be a slow burn in the version Brad watched to one that starts out like already dialed up to 11 in the version John and I watch. Yeah. Well hey on that note, what do we get to it? I can't wait. Let's do it. Do you want to give us a just a short summary of the film and then I'll Yeah, absolutely. This film mostly follows three people. Virginia and Roger are two heroes. We meet them at a poolside resort in Lisbon where they encounter one of Virginia's old school friends Betty. There's some tension between the three of them, but they all decide to go on a hiking expedition out into the rural wilderness. along the way, Virginia gets separated from the other two for reasons we'll get into in a few minutes, and she comes across an old castle. There is a local legend that the castle holds the tombs of a bunch of dead knights Templar who may not entirely be dead. What happens is, She's killed and zombified and the horse spreads all over the place, uh, Roger and Virginia trying to investigate what happened to their friend, uh, must return to the haunted castle along the way. A lot of people get zombified and killed in gory ways and everything culminates in a very, uh, dramatic, uh, trained massacre. Yeah, I want to talk about this ending, but we should probably talk about the rest of it first. Thank you, Ed. Yes, yes. So let's get started. So you mentioned that the film started with a medieval ritual. So this is your exploitation bit, right? This is where this is the whipping's we saw at the beginning of San Tomoobies. A woman is brought into this castle by knights. They're all wearing these pure white robes. Some of them are on horseback. And she's tied to an X across not like a, like a crucifixion cross, but like an X where her arms are above her head and her legs are, you know, sort of spread apart. And she is strapped to it. The strip can, yeah, can we pause here. Do you know what that is called? No, what's it called? It's called a saint Andrews cross. Interesting. All right. Here is here is your general rule of watching horror movies that have torture, implements and then yeah. If you see any sort of like, be spoke custom built cut torture device, it probably was the product of fevered Victorian imaginations rather than real life. You can tell this one is fake because Well, this thing, I mean, so she strapped in there, so they can kind of whip or cut her, but you wouldn't whip the front of somebody. No, um, so this was this, this x-shaped thing that was common in horror movies because it lets you spread eagle a charismatic actor or actress where you can see them well, torments are being visited on them. Ah, got you. Yeah, so this is the big exploitation intro, and then they start galloping around her and slashing her with swords, which I did not expect. Yeah, and right after that, all of the nights descend upon her and drink her blood from the cuts created by the swords, and we cut to title card. So, yeah, I mean, you've given me a lot of thoughts in that scene, but anything you want to say, uh, In addition, just that the scene I pleasantly didn't know what was coming. Yeah, so that was kind of fun. I did note that this scene sure goes on for what it does and in at least in my household, this is the part. This is the moment that happens in many of these movies I watch for this lovely podcast where the headphones go on so that I don't have to explain things to family members who come into investigate all the sexy moments or the screams. Yes, exactly. Just, you know, the version I watch, it starts with shots of the ruined church with all the credits, then it has the title card and then it goes straight to the pool and people and bikinis. Yes. Oh, now your version have a jump scare at the end of the credits. No, Brad. So ours ends with we see it basically shows us like the final five seconds of the film right as a jump scare. You see a a mummified hand and then you see someone you don't yet recognize because it's Victoria from the very end of the movie screaming in horror. Yes, Betty, but yes, I'm sorry. Betty. Yes, there there was a hand that came on the screen. Yes. Okay. All right. So then yeah. So then we cut right to a swing in 1970s pool resort in Lisbon people wearing bikinis swimming pools and it gets weird really quick because two women Virginia and Betty run into each other in Virginia. is with her, her man, Roger, and they're going to go camping. And very suddenly, Roger thinks takes very strong interest in bedding. He's like, why don't you go camping with us? Let's all go together. And obviously, in Virginia is immediately put out by this. And so I guess one thing I wanted to say is that there's a lot of things this movie has going for it. uh, emotional subtlety or believability is not among them. Well, I wonder if that's a difference in the cuts because in mine, Roger and Virginia are traveling together, but they continue to make the point that they are not together together. Oh, see, that didn't know that at all. It just came off as Virginia being jealous of Betty and that they were old school chums. she is jealous, but she also says she's not with Roger, but she's still jealous. Okay. Yeah, from my reading on the cuts that and changes that were made, this element of the film by removing the flashback that Betty and Virginia were once in a romantic relationship, right? They kind of flattened this to what seems like these characters just being kind of jealous of Roger, I, well, I think that those flashbacks and stuff that were cut were mostly there for exploitative purposes, I, I do think they would have added depth to what otherwise is kind of a dumb and flat right series of relationships. Yeah, because after the flashbacks, you realize that that Virginia is really still into Betty, and that's what the issue is. Yes. Now, I would also like, so can I take a moment to talk about, I'm just going to, there's a lot of exposition here. I'm going to sort of get us to the action pretty quickly here, but I wanted to make a couple of points. First of all, at one point, there's a pause so long, like I didn't realize. Like, I don't know why they didn't edit it out. When the two of them are having a conversation, at least in my version. But it may be think of our high school drama teacher, pretty sure, do you remember what she used to say? No. That pauses so long. You could drive a truck through it. So. Ha ha. Ha. Ms. Stollerowski, God bless her. So, if only she had been consulting on this film. And here's, yes, and I want to make a point here This is interesting and I'm not quite sure how to articulate it, so you guys help me out. So in this scene, we also find out that Betty's career is making mannequins. And later in the movie, there's this huge set piece of her mannequin studio that is absolutely the creepiest thing you've ever seen. And in that set piece, there's a business across the street with a flashing red neon sign, so that the whole time you're in this, terrifying mannequin factory it's being flashed with red yeah and here's the point I wanted to make about all of that because there's there's more things like that in this movie it's an elaborate setup that really doesn't make any sense you know the movie goes to great pains to try to like explain it literally but it's still in my mind it's like that is that is just weird but what it's done in my mind at least Right. That he wanted to hit. And so he spends a lot of narrative time sort of justifying it. He being deusory. Deusory. It was correct. The director spends a lot of time agestifying it in the narrative. But I think it very much feels like, oh, I just had this great visual idea. And I, and I just need to backstitch it all so that it works in the movie. You know what I mean? So that's a great point, John. So here's a question for you guys. In the version of the movie, we watched the director Like, he explains, oh, yeah, Betty has a mannequin making job and it's right next to the morgue. And there's a business nearby that has a new neon sign that shines through the skylight. So, okay, if you were the sort of person that was late. Well, I mean, is it then more satisfying when you have this hallucinatory scene in the mannequin store with that strobing red light where there's a zombie that just walked in from the morgue? Did you, do you like having that backstitching and explanation? Would you have been okay if for no reason at all, they're in a mannequin store with a flashing red light and a zombie? You know, and that, like, narratively, you could have handled that much differently, like in addition to the mannequin store, the board and the, and the new business with the flashing red light, that just could have been Betty's office and Nina flees into the mannequin factory. Like you could, there's, there's other ways you could have done it. There were less, less heavy handed. Yeah. Does that hurt? Like when you see something like, would you accept what is just a on a meta level, just an amazing set piece with no explanation or with that, have hurt your enjoyment? You know what? So I have a, this is actually my ultimate question that I was going to tack on to here is we're getting to the point. So first of all, just to just to the back up just a second, one big difference here again from the movies we watched in the 60s and 50s, this is a movie for adults. right so so this is not invisible invaders this is not zombies of the stratosphere so it is supposed to actually be scary and I think that changes the the the I don't know framework here because what like I often hear people and I'm not just picking on Quentin Tarantito, but I'll hear a director pick a movie that they say is amazing and I'll be like I've seen that movie and it's not that amazing but it does have a great set piece and I feel like this movie is a movie that like you could complain about this movie all day. about the bad dub and the stilted acting and the exploitation, but it has two amazing set pieces in it that make the whole thing worthwhile even if it's, and we'll get to the next second one, but that make it worthwhile. So when we're talking about is it a good movie or not? Like, I'm not so sure anymore, because objectively I could say all there's all these problems with the movie, but there's two set pieces in it that are so good that I'm like, I'm so glad I saw those. You know what I mean? Yeah. And my version, they explained the red light a little with a little more detail that above them was an neon sign factory and they're test the lights. Which, but what that does is because the earlier when when she says I work at a mannequin factory by the more the other gruggles, that's a horrible part of town. So they're reinforcing that it's an industrial area and it's sort of remote. So that makes it better. But so is is what you're getting at John that. So here's the thing though. I mean, this movie does all this work, maybe as you suggest, so then an adult viewer isn't pulled out of like their state of immersion. Right. But it doesn't work because you still recognize it as, oh, this is just a great idea for a scene he had and and also, if you think about all that explanation, it's all kind of dumb. Right. Yes. So it doesn't. It doesn't succeed. If it's goal is like we got to make it so adults will watch this and it will make sense to them. It doesn't really succeed at doing that. So no, I don't know. I think that all that's just an excuse for a director who has an amazing eye and has something they want to achieve visually, you know? And I just think he didn't, I think a different director could do the exact same thing and just it would be less hamfisted. Yeah. So. All right. Well, anyway, carry on. Anyway. So what happens is the three of them Virginia Roger and Betty. They decided to hop on a train. They're going to go camping. And. That's just right away the tension between Virginia and Betty and Roger is palpable because Betty and Roger are really into each other. Virginia feels left out. I won't go into a blow by blow, but I did want to mention two things about the getting on the train and leaving the train station. First of all, they let Roger And later Betty, climb on and jump off a moving train, which would absolutely never happen in a movie today, even a little bit, right? Can you see them letting Owen Wilson climb on a moving train at this point like never? Having said that, my other favorite bit is when Virginia gets really mad and she says, I'm going off with some fresh air and she goes out to the caboose of the train and it's just swath and covered in the smoke coming from the smoke stack of the train. And that's so this is when we get also the flashback. So Virginia has a flashback of her and Betty together at school and ours is pretty chased, but it's clearly implied that like they look at the cover of a magazine showing a married couple and then they start doing a sort of impression, one impressing the man and the one sort of pretending to be the woman and it's clear that they had a romantic relationship and this is one of the ways they sort of reveal it. It's clear if you're more observant than me. I was mostly like, what? What? What? Thank you. But then I am a sheltered individual, so I'm fine. Mine was, I didn't have to interpret. Mine was two women in a bedroom in their nightgowns. They look at each other. Betty approaches Virginia, puts her hand on her kisses or they look at each other. OK. Okay, so that's pretty clear. I would have, if I had seen that version, I would have figured it out. I think. Yeah, I'm so. Okay. I carry on John, I have another comment about moving trains, but we'll get there. Well, no, I was about to start with the monastery. What's your comment? What was it going to say at this point? Mad respect. for Virginia for just deciding I'm leaving and then jumping off the track. I actually did like this bit like she said she goes to the porter and she says hey I would like to get off. Can you just stop the train? Here's 20 bucks. I'll hop off and you keep going he's like oh no we don't stop here. So it does have the good vibe of saying no this is a danger is place like we don't stop here. Yeah and then she just jumps off. It's a great bit of character, I mean, you learn a lot from the fact that I annoyed by this. She gets up and she jumps on the train. But also, I'm pretty sure that was the actress jump behind pretty soon. Yeah. It's a little high heels too. Yes, in those heels. Yeah. I think those are, I don't know if they are as per drills, but if you imagine as per the second, she was like a high heel, but it's a block heel, and then it has a strap across the front. Anyway, so did you think there is no evidence that she non-high she'll choose for this can't you know she did not know just that there yeah just on that okay carry on jump so so yeah so that's our setup right we see this ruin know you called it a castle uh i thought it was a cathedral but maybe it's a monastery with a cathedral attached but it is actually more than it's certainly more than a single building it is a ruin of collected ruins of buildings one of which is it is a medieval church for sure and the other is a graveyard Um, inside, not inside, but like in the inner circle of the courtyard. What is strange thing that we don't do today, that you can still see if you go to like older cities in the east coast. Graviards at churches. Yeah, you know. It is a monastery ruins in real life outside Madrid. And it looks great, by the way. That's the other thing this film has going for it that I think you can do in a place with history is you can shoot in a 100-year-old ruin. Your heart, your spooky movie in a real 100-year-old ruin while you probably can't anymore, but at the time you could. Let me back up, it was monastery ruins in Madrid but also castle and fortress in Portugal. So there are two different places combined into one. interest that smart filmmaking right but what you can do is what they didn't have to do is build a set right they just had a really cool looking old cathedral they could shoot in and collect all kinds of cool shots you know what I mean I do hope I would like to think that they actually like busted through the actual doors of that we're in the mirror But I bet those were, we're sent, props, yeah. Yes. So Virginia and Roger continue on. They're not going to jump off the train after her. And Betty decides to explore this ruin, like a crazy person. And she, yeah. She decides that she's going to go inside. There's sort of a room in the basement that's blocked. She needs a place to stay for the night. She needs a place to sleep. She walks around the room. She's like, is anybody here? And nobody's there, at least nobody living, and not at the moment. So in the basement, there's like, uh, a fireplace, and there's a door she can shut and bar, so she thinks she's pretty safe in there. But when she starts a fire, she has a little am radio, she's listening to music, smoke and a cigarette, reading her book, relaxing she's, yeah, she's listening to the the worst music. If you are trying to also read a book, because it's like this super, uh, Yeah, you say kids today have trouble with their attention spans, but she falls asleep. When she lights the fire, something happens and you see the bells, it jumps in on sort of the bull bells of this cathedral and you hear the chiming sound that you don't see the move. And then, of course, we get fog machine in the graveyard, right? It's on. The dead are coming back to life, fog machines, the little crosses they're buried under or wiggling back and forth, and it's a very long scene. It's a little tedious. However, the payoff is excellent because the Templar Knights who are now basically mummified corpses emerge. And he tells us what these guys look like. Well, I'll describe what they look like. And then I'll tell you what I instantly thought of when it's probably what I instantly thought of, but you say it first when you're ready. Probably. Yeah. So these are mummified. uh... these are like a month like money looking skeletal uh... guys that are very heavily cloaked in tattered rotting black cloaks uh... what they will immediately remind any uh... anyone today is they will remind them of the not the nazzle or black writers uh... from talking a hundred percent Yeah. Yeah. As so much so that especially later, we're going to see them chasing somebody on horseback. Yes. And there is a 1,000% chance that Peter Jackson had seen this movie. That was an accident. I am not joking. It's so reminiscent of the way the black writers move and hunt and are filmed and ride on horseback. It, I mean, I, it has to be and what's great and and the what he does with this though, and this is the other great set piece to me. I mean, there's there's several other ones, but as they emerge and they're sort of moving around what he does he's got a little budget so he's got to do something to make it eerie like the the the costumes and the movement is great so the actors have it the customers have it. That all looks good, but also what he does is slow down the film and mutate essentially. This actually reminded me of the backshellot of the rings where everything's kind of muffled, and these horses are riding towards them in slow motion, and everything's muted. Yeah, 100% and I thought it just, I was like, this, this is actually a great game. It's so good. Yeah, it looks fantastic. Agreed. Yeah, and this is what I meant by like, you know, a movie that's maybe not the best as laughable bits in it and everything, but put you get something like this and you're like, Okay, this is worth it. This is the A with you. Yes, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I have a quick question about the sound of the tolling bells. I have a trouble with some of these films, especially from like the last decade or so that we've been watching with knowing when sounds are like diagetic and when they are not. Yeah. So I wasn't sure if the bells tolling was something that like the character. that Virginia heard that was really happening or if that was just like a spooky sound effect being played for the audience. I'm not sure, but at the end of the film, they'd go again and I think one of the characters hears them. I think because they visually show you the bells, it's meant to be implied that the sound is coming from the bells. Even though the bells are moved. Well, their physically or not, that's what's happening. It could be like spectral bells. It's hard to say, but it's either way it works, right? Yeah, yes. One of my last comment on this sequence is we get a cat jump scare. Yes, I did some digging. I don't have any great revelations to share with you, but it did make me go down a little rabbit trail of when the first cat jump scare is because obviously that's classic. And I don't know if there is an iconic one because by the time the hammer films are around, this was a commonly used trope. But the movie I did see that we have that has come up numerous times on this podcast as having maybe the original jump cat jump scare is cat people with that hiss that yeah with that noise it's not I don't think it's a literal cat jumping out, but it gives you the same effect right yeah. Absolutely. And then I did read that this was used by Japanese filmmakers before it heavily before it became like super calm in place in western horror. You know what, we're not going to do right now because the the hissing cat or the jump scare cat is such an iconic element of American film, alien, you know, aliens, like so many movies, like that we might have to go down there and hold some time. But maybe not today. Let's maybe move along. So we'll do some more digging because we should explore that, but I have a feeling we'll have plenty more opportunities to do that. So, you know what? Well, weirdly while we're talking about five minutes ago, I can't win by my window. And you know, guys, a bunch of medieval bells just started to Oh, here. That can't be good. Yeah. So I want to, I want to actually, I'm probably going to start to move through the exposition quickly, but I wanted to stay here for another second. So I just want to describe her escape. And then I want to have one more maybe somewhat lengthy discussion. and then we can sort of race through the rest of the narrative because it's not that complex. Or even that significant, it's just set to give us some cool shots. So she tries to escape. The slow moving. So these nights are slow moving. They surround her. They're trying to hunt her down. She's able to like climb up a wall and leap off. She loses one of her shoes. She jumps on an undead horse, which is amazing. And tries to right away, they pursue her and they get her and then in a field, they all descend upon her and drink her blood. And when the train is going by the next day, they see her dead body, but they still won't stop. They say, we'll just call the police at the station. But same train, same entry there. Same train, same everything. So here's what I want to talk to about, Andy. We had the other side of this conversation when we did our colony episode, right? So let's have this side of the conversation. These are slow moving zombies. that you seem to be able to easily run away from, unless they're in a horse, and they totally work as scary zombies, in my opinion, right? Like this is what we were talking about, to say, slow zombies done right, sort of, in enclosed spaces, where you can't escape, where you think you're free, but they overwhelm you. There's one behind you, you didn't see, like this is a great example of how those work really well. I agree, the, I love the sequence where when the zombies first break into the room where Virginia has set up her little sleeping bag camp. Yeah, um, she kind of, it works because she, she doesn't know the layout of the place. So she keeps just moving. She can get away from the zombies. She's faster than that. Right. But, but each room she moves into, there's more zombies and more of her routes of it's so she gets channeled. She can get away from them, but they're being channeled by where the zombies are and stuff. She's being channeled in one direction, which will lead to her doom, which is a really satisfying way to do slows on these in my opinion. Yeah, absolutely. And one in this, the scene also has a direct tie to not a living dad because she's standing with her back or she's at the window, which is all boarded up in a zombie hand comes through. Yeah, absolutely. That zombie trope is showing Yeah, although what I loved is one of the zombie hands like kind of punches through a hole in the door and then it it reaches down and unlocks the door lifts the bar. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, and one more comment about these zombies and then we'll then we really will sort of start to tear through the narrative. But props again to the prop master and the effects guy, the faces on these zombies, the skeletal faces, some of them have like the little whiffs so beard or something. Yeah, they look good like I was impressed. You know, all just practical effects. So yeah. All right. All right. I have I this is my last comment on this sequence and it will apply to a few other people in the movie years ago my my wife and I were watching some bad like relatively modern horror movie. And we realized that like there's there's good screams and there's bad screams and good movie screams sound like screams. Yeah. Bad movie screams are when someone says, ah, really loud. I mean, like, ah, where will for example? Right. Exactly. And this movie has examples of both. Oh, yes, I would say that's true. Okay. So, she is killed, we cut to Betty and Roger, they're having breakfast at the resort. I thought they were going camping, but they're at an expensive resort. That's fine. I don't know how I don't know how people in Portugal camp, but they talked to their waitress, and this was so delightful and ham-fisted. Like this is some example of some of the exposition, and maybe it's better in the Spanish language version. But let's just hear what she tells them about this ruin. But what about the one I saw from the train? You must need their solo, but it's been deserted for over a hundred years. But maybe our friends stay the night there. It's so funny. I wouldn't ask about it if I were you, Senior. And just why not ask about it? Nothing, Senior. We're not allowed to talk of such... Speak up. The management of this hotel doesn't want anyone to know of our local superstitions. It's not good for tourists. I'm sorry. I can't talk about it anymore. What is so great about that is she doesn't drop her tray, her serving tray. She throws it at the ground in the drum and dramatic fashion. It's kind of great. She's like, ah, slam! So our heroes rent some horses, again, actors writing their own horses just all over the place. And at this point is when the train conductor and engineer from the previous day, see this woman lying in the field and say, we're not stopping, we'll go and call the police, which they do. So the friends arrive at the, at the ruin, they find, I don't think they find her body. No, they meet the police, they meet the police here. Yeah, but there's one bit of exposition exactly. We've only got three clips in this episode, and here's the second one already. Well, they're there. They do look at the gravestones in the graveyard, and here's what Roger, who apparently is an expert in the land. Can read. Oh, it's an archaic script of some sort. If my Latin doesn't share me, oh, these are the tombs of the Templus, an ancient order that worshiped the devil in the year 1250 AD. Let's go. This place is giving me the creeps and I certainly don't want to spend the night here. We still have time, and we must look for Virginia. Yeah, so I just love... that he's like, oh, if my Latin's failing me, it's about the Templars who started to worship the devil, like, oh, thanks. That knocks that right up. I love, and I don't know what the original Spanish was, but I love that she uses the word Arcade, the phrase Arcade. Some sort of Arcade. But she makes mannequins, but her hobby is as an archaeologist. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Good time. Yeah. So, so let's keep going. The police, the police, question them, interrogate them. They take Betty and Roger to the board to identify Virginia's body. And there's the world's creepiest. More what do you call them for the people who keep and more is the undertaker. They're not undertakers there. What are they just like a more tissue. There you go. I think the credit is more. Keeper more you keep in the press. When do you think the word keeper stop to be used in job titles? So Yeah. He's absolutely creepy. We could do a bit about him. He's the first death. But what happens is they go to identify the body. He pulls back a sheet and it's some old woman who is not Virginia. And everybody screams and then the next body they show is Virginia's. This was a strangely good little jump scare because it's just not what you're expecting. That's right. It's like a different person under there. He's pulled the sheet off the wrong body. And they've made him so creepy. He's clearly in, he clearly knows he's pulling a joke and he's like in Tissie practically Drooling with how he's gonna scare them in a minute. So yeah, also seems to enjoy being around dead people very much. So yes, I was smiling down there. Yes So this is where and at this point we see sort of, um, we see Betty's studio with the mannequins. We get the exposition about the flashing light. We meet Betty's assistant Nina. Um, we have another sort of, uh, I was born near there, but I don't want to talk about it. A monologue from Nina. Uh, and in the meantime, a zombie virginia awake. Yeah. And she creeps up on the, you know, I'm just going to tell what's happening. I'm going to give no other details and just let the audience imagine. She creeps up on the more keeper who is playing with a frog he keeps in the, in a jar on his desk that is alive. What happens, Annie? She creeps up behind him, she grabs his shoulder and the zombies go for your throat. If you're fighting like one zombie in this movie, they go for your throat. And the zombie kills have an aggression to them, like a kind of a ferocious aggression that they don't in others on the movies we've seen. So she like bites us throat. He dies. It bleds all over the place and then the scene ends with the frog. He was playing with intramenting, hopping through the blood, topping to the more keepers blood at the end. Do we want to talk about what Virginia zombie Virginia looks like? Yes. Yeah. Do you want to subscribe that? She has a bunch of just wounds from where she was like bitten. But when these zombie Templars drain your blood, they bite you like all over your body. And there's like a dozen of them. At one point, I think like one of the more person says that there's like 12 different bite marks on her. So she has a bunch of scattered kind of gross wounds all over her. And she has remnants of the autopsy. She has the the scar down her chest and like staples around her head. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, there's incision. She looks pretty cool. Yeah. Um, so there's a bunch going on here. I don't, I don't really want to get into the, the plot, but I want to talk about sort of, there's a couple of cool things here. I want to talk about, but I don't want to, like, there's a whole thing with the professor and his son and they think he's a criminal can we extend about Nina though. Yeah. to turn someone else into a zombie, a human. That's right. Yeah, living dead, which is, and she's a different type of zombie from the others. That's true. Absolutely right. In fact, we know those zombies weren't created because they had the blood rate from them from others, zombies, because that's what these zombies did to other people. Yeah, this is interesting. Presumably, by the way, we should talk about the templates real quick. Yeah, but presumably in that, in that, in that intro where we saw the living Templars like draining blood from the woman. I don't think they that she returned as a zombie at that time, right? No, but Nina. So it's part of like their their curse. I wish I guess we're going to get to in a minute and you can tell us how they learn the backstory of the Templars. But All right. So after the frog hops through the blood, we cut to daytime and Betty and Roger go to a library. They want to talk to a professor. Classic grumpy professor. He doesn't want to talk to them, but he ends up talking to them. And he lays out exactly what's going on here with the Templars. I want to hear his story Andy. And then if you have If you would be willing, I want to hear you sort of say, what actually happened to the Templars, because it's one of those great little bits where obviously this isn't what happened, but it's a nice fictionalization of what actually happened. So let's hear the clip first. In the 12th century, the Templars fought in the Crusades. They brought back great treasures from the East with them. Yes, and they also came back to worshiping Black magic. The Templars took over by force, and their blood rituals sacrificed every virgin girl in the village. They continued to ravage the countryside into the King of Spain conquered them and brought them to trial. They were hung and left for all to witness that witchcraft was forbidden. The crow's eight the eyes are just a cadavels. But, can that be true? Absolutely. The archives here date back a thousand years. What are you trying to say? Are you suggesting that some new sectors practising the old rituals? No, I wouldn't say that. They're the old Templars that have come back to life. What kind of nonsense is that? Nonsense, are you sure? Has science answered all the unknown questions of the world? The Templars from the East brought many secrets in among them. They solved death in its mystery. But they're impossible. And now they've returned again from their tomes. They're the blind dead. But that will be no handicap. As they still can hear their victims, we'll continue with terror and murder. so I wanted to play that whole thing because it lays out everything and there's so many classic bits there right the professor the prophecy that the little you know check-offs hint about how to beat the blind dead where they can't see you but they can only hear you it's all right there had you figured out that they couldn't see and we're not sound I had not because it wasn't important yet, but it will be important in a minute, but before we get to where it's important and it tells like what the Templars actually were. All right, I'll take just a quick sec on the Templars. I'm always saying I'm just going to take a quick sec and then I don't take a quick sec. So they are correct that there were people called the Templars. That's about where the historic records he ends. But they were excommunicated. They weren't. So the Templars were formed in 1119 after the first crusade. This was an order of, you know, I guess we call a night's whose job was to escort Europeans who were making pilgrimages to Jerusalem. They were around for like 150 to an hour of years. Their actual impact was less military though, and it was more financial. But they became one of the wealthiest and most powerful political organizations of the era in large part because as they were answerable to the Catholic Church and not to any state. They were excused from all local taxes and a lot of local laws. And they became wealthy by establishing an early form of international banking. so that if you were going on a pilgrimage, you could deposit all of your money in Europe and then with draw it into east. So that's a whole topic that's not related to this podcast, just the history of like how credit evolves as the world economy became a world economy. But for the Templars, also called the Knights Templar, this just meant that they became enormously wealthy and powerful. So by the late 1200s, their military significance had mostly gone away, but they were an awkward, an awkwardly powerful faction that answered only to the Pope, but that was like in your country. Yeah. So, um, and by the early 1300s, Philip four of France, was outrageously indebted to the Templars, due to their financial shenanigans. In a highly religious medieval world, John, if you are super in debt to somebody, and you're never gonna be able to pay it back. And what card might you play to wipe your debt clear? Yeah, so you would say, well, they are enemies of the church. They are evil and should be excommunicated. Exactly. Yeah. So what's? What's interesting here is not this is not a common unmodern politics, but so Muslims today there are some there are some people who still will not pay interest on a loan, right? So they have to do some creative financing from this is actually in the Bible and Christians didn't used to do this either so they had to do creative things like this to get all the money they wanted and then when they were so in debt and had to pay interest on these loans in whatever convoluted way that they did they said well that is clearly a violation of God's law, right? Exactly. So they Philip rated the Templars. He rested them. They were put on trial for very over the top trumped up charges of a heresy. Yep. So it was a really lured trial. The charges were really lured that they were they had gone. The Templars had gone to the Middle East maybe as a Christian organization, but they had gone native and they were contradicturally both worshippers and there are all these lured stories about like satanic initiation rituals and devil summitings and all kinds of cool, narrowly stuff like that. It worked. The Templars were disbanded. The leaders were killed. I don't know if birds pecked their eyes out to make them blend. Maybe some of them. So that's what happened with them. And I did a little digging. So these days, if you know about the Templars, you probably know about them, not from like a a history or a horror genre angle, but from like a conspiracy or a cult angle. Yeah, I could not think of any like straight horror movies besides these this one and it's sequels that really drew on the Templars where you do find them like starting back in like the societies and occult groups started like claiming lineage going back to the Templars like yet the Free Masons by the time you get like, I don't know, either like order of the Golden Dons and Crowley and Bolvatsgian stuff like that. The Templars are ensconced in a lot of like occult. Right, a cultureditions. If you hear people talking about like the Illuminati, the odds are very high that they're also going to mention the Templars, and so these days you will find Templars mentioned mostly in stuff that's in like pop culture that talks about like kind of centuries old conspiracy. So like Dan Brown novels. Yeah. Do you have any guesses here, John? Do you know where in like around the year 1990, I would have first encountered the Templars in my role. It would have been in Indiana Jones maybe. Oh, actually, no, although they are mentioned in our last recent last crusade. Is the grail night a Templar night? No, I don't think so. He's not, but maybe I'm trying to remember if they say Templar in there. That would be fascinating. I found them through a baritoneckos novel. Oh, through co-spendons. Yeah, just sort of the great meta novel of conspiracy thinking. All right, heavily features the Templars and all of this juicy, juicy stuff. All right, I have gotten us like way off track. No, yeah, I'm going to pull it back not because I don't, I didn't totally prompt you and ask you to do that ahead of time. But we should probably move a little bit. Yeah, we should. Okay, so I want to make a, I want to talk about this next set piece and then we can sort of race to the end. So zombie Virginia has just killed the more keeper. The frog has just hopped through the blood. And now zombie Virginia is in Betty's studio, but Betty is not there because the studio's next to the morgue. because this is next to the movie, which is next to the neon sign factor. Thank god this all makes logical sense. Yes, yes. And so actually there's a great chat of Nina like poking the eye out of a mannequin like zoomed in that you zoom out on. You don't know what's happening. It's pretty fantastic. But that shot was great because you don't know what you're looking at and it's one of you said he was an artist Brad the director and like in shots like the frog in the pool of blood and this shot of the mannequin you can just he just had a great idea for an image like it yeah. his eye yeah there was a there's a shot I sent you guys a screenshot of a life was watching it it's just two of the women in the moonlight like half only half their faces are illuminated and the way they're seated and looking at each other I'm like that just looks like a painting like yeah it was it was pretty good anyway so so Nina is in the mannequin factory the red light is flashing incomes zombie Virginia So this is the big set piece we were talking about earlier. This is just a great set up for a slow zombie Like picture this Nina is trying there's she does a couple things to escape at one point zombie Virginia is walking down a row With all of the hanging mannequins Yeah, and just walking relentlessly yeah and walking relentlessly towards Nina is she's completely freaking out remember the scene is pulsing red light Oh, I was talking about a different word. It's great Nina's trying to escape. She's walking down the hall with all the mannequins and the very last one in the dark is Virginia. Yes, that worked too. Like there's so many great bits here, but there's one bed I wanted. So she ends up actually burning zombie Virginia and escaping. However, I did want to talk about one more. Do anything you wanted to add on that Andy because I had one thing I wanted to mention. Nope, go for it. So this is back to our fast and slow zombies. If one point need to almost escape. Right, because Virginia is blind. However, she kicks over a trash can or something. Yeah, big noise. And here's the note I put. We just saw this exact same scene almost identically in colony. Oh, a movie made this year. Right, they're sneaking through the parking structure and the dumb bully steps on a aluminum can. That's right. Yep. And the heads whip around and like the zombies chaser. So I just love that that something like a such a simple set up We've just been using it for 50 years, and you know what it worked in both places. Yeah, right? Totally. Okay Nina survives. However, that's not the end of it because our genius heroes have to find out what's really going on. So they have to go back to the monastery at night. I mean, why not, right? There's a kind of alluded plot where they go to see some guy in a fishing village. It is the son of the professor. It doesn't really matter. Well, What matters is that his name is Pedro. Pedro is a smuggler. Pedro is a smuggler. I think it's important. I think that the smuggling subplot is in this movie for a reason. Although it's like from a purely narrative perspective, it doesn't add anything. Right. So back, they go. The couples are walking separately. I don't want to get into this too much. I mean, it's interesting, seeing. But this is the scene where Pedro assaults Virginia. Yeah. I would rather skip that if that's okay. Yeah. The two couples are sort of the other couple is just making eyes at each other. The group comes together and Pedro and Roger say we're going to go look around. The two women go into, I don't know if it's the same room, Virginia is in, but in a room with a door that they can bar. So nobody else can enter. then the bells go off. The cathedral bells, while Pedro is standing in the graveyard. And of course rather than run, he just stands there in terror as all the graves open and the incredibly slow moving dead come out. And this is another example of how the slow dead can get you. Like like as he's finally turning to flee one of them grabs his ankle and he just trips over Roger sees this. He runs up with his gun and tries to shoot them. Shoot the zombies. That, of course, has no effect on them. So he flees back to the door that the girls have barred. Now, what follows is a really extended scene where Roger is pounding on the door. And the girl and Betty wants to let him in, but the other woman won't let her, so they end up in a fight to let Roger in that lake so long that the incredibly slow moving zombies catch up with him. And was there some gruesome event happening to Roger in your version? No, he, we saw, we did not see how Roger died. We only see him eventually. His bedores open. We see the hypnotism, his body is kind of bloody. In the verse, and I saw the night come upon him and they cut off his arm. And he's holding it in blood, spurting, and his hand is on the ground. John, I am, I am going to, I'm going to go from, from right after the assault and watch the rest of the movie. Yeah, Brad watched. Now, about the assault, okay, we shouldn't watch it, but just know the actress was involved in the planning of it, and she was in control a lot of what you see on the screen. Doesn't make it right to film, but just know that the actress did have to say. All right, well, I'm going to skip it, but I would really like to see the sending here. Okay, so they are too late to save Roger, or Betty is, the dead get in. Can we say, I think the reason Maria wouldn't let Roger in. I think it was because she was like jealous of Roger, not because there is like undead chasing him around. Not in it. Yes. It was kind of petty, but it all seemed petty. However, she gets her just desserts when the blinded, finally breaking. However, she does in a great zoom, a very iconic style She gets backed into a corner, and it's like shot from above her, so you see the zombies just pressing in and like she just gets subsumed under this like crowd of zombies. It's a real like you recognize it. You could put it in a modern movie and we'd all understand we'd all understand it. Yeah, absolutely. However, Betty escapes and the way Betty escapes is by being quiet. So there's a scene where she is just standing still. She's trying, she's holding her hand over her heart to stop the noise from her fast beating heart, from attracting the zombies. And the zombies are sort of just wandering around. So she slowly sort of sneaks out. They do catch on to her eventually. And there's a chase and where did she run to? And she heads out to the train tracks. Yeah, because remember, this is then walking distance of that train, which is how it's all of these people got involved in the first place. Yes, and and she breaks her ankle. There's another really extended scene where the engineer, not the old conductor, the train driver who is scared and won't stop the young engineer makes him stop his son. His son. Oh, I jumped. That's true. But I do think it's pretty significant that the old guy never wants to stop even to help somebody. Yes. he starts to pull Betty in. It takes forever. You have never, they have so much trouble getting Betty through the door of the train. It almost broke the otherwise great tension. Yes. It took a little while and yeah, however, Now, if there's zombies, they're writing up like the zombies are coming up to the train. Yes. And I thought what was going to happen is that the last second beddy was going to make it on. The train was going to leave and that would be the end of the movie. Yeah. That is not what happens, Andy. Do you want to tell everybody what actually happens? So Betty gets on the train, but then, but so do the zombies. The zombies board the train and they start butchering everywhere. Yes. Yes. And our cut doesn't show almost any of this. So we are going to turn to you, Brad, to tell us what happened. Yeah. Well, did you see who the passengers were? So the only, like, slightly, like, scarily thrilling thing we saw. You see a clip that there is a young kid in there. Yeah. Like a three year old. Yeah. So there's a mother holding her child and there's a there's a shot of the mother you assume she's dead because you only see the child there's blood everywhere on the child the child is moving and then a zombie approaches and you know the child is going to be dead to goodness. Wow. Andy, we did, we were, we were dumb. It is a grim, I mean, but even without the gore, it's a grim, it's a kind of an unexpectedly grim finale. Yes, and Betty survives by hiding in the coal bin behind the engine. at the end, the train pulls up. Oh, do we know like, I don't know trains. How are we to understand how the trains started up again? I think they've never started. It never stopped. It never stopped. Yeah. Yeah. All right. He hit the break. They never turned off the engine. He just slowed down. However, she escapes and then I think you got a better shot here too, producer, Brad, because the people at the station, And Betty screams in the movie ends, but I bet you got to see something we didn't produce a red. Yeah, that's the same in the and then Betty turns around and she screams to like a huge scream Queen scream. Yes, big big showy scream. And you guys think that there were that they were screaming because that room was just full of dead bodies or with a screaming because there were zombie Templars in there. I'm not sure to be honest. I think or humans that had woken back up as zombies. I don't know. I think I don't know. I think it was just dead bodies. But where did the Templars go? Yeah. I thought that they were kind of cursed to that monastery. Yeah. And so the further they got from it, the more confused I got about the rules of these zombies. Yes. Yeah. But I think where I think it's intention I left to our, either it was a budgetary constraint. or it was actually an awful move to leave it to our own devices because we're certainly talking about how gruesome it was in there. No matter what happens, the zombies are still out there. That's right. I think this was a good choice. It's cool that there's just a bunch of dead bodies in there. But you know that without doing a cheesy thing like colony did at the end. Yeah, they are laying out the possibility that this might be about to get a whole lot worse. Yes, right. Yeah. So it is an ambiguous ending. I have so much to say about this movie. Can we just jump into the questions and we'll answer it. Yeah. All right, John, let's start it on our wrap up questions. John, in terms of the blind dead, is there a hero party? Yes, it's mostly Betty and Roger, Virginia too, but she's sort of the victim that is getting investigated. But Betty Roger and Nina, the assistant, I would say. Well, I would say it's Betty Roger, Maria and Pedro. Maria and Pedro, the one that she adds to the monster. Yeah, I sure I need in there because she does survive us on the attack. Yeah, so how do they do overall? What's kind of the mortality rate in this film for heroes? Right. Well, Virginia's killed early. Nina survived. She's the only one to encounter a zombie and survive, except for Betty, who also survives. But Pedro Maria and Roger are killed. Yep. All right. Tell us what kind of zombie strain we're dealing with. Yeah, so these are like zombies that are created through a curse, right? They did something horrible in the past, not unlike Dracula, actually, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. There's zombies in more detail, but in the case of Dracula, these zombies did something horrific and their soul was cursed by God and they are wandering the earth is the living dead. or uh... it wasn't plague of the zombies what was the one you mean the plague of these uh... know what was the one with the black death uh... and the uh... your water will cure you the terror creatures from the great creation of the great creation of the great these these guys reminded me of those yes they are dead and they're cursed but they're they're also jerks yes yes and not unlike the zombies also in hercules in the haunted world um yeah the sort of mystical ancient ancient zombies yeah and visually they they actually resemble those hercules zombies too yes I just like to say again they look amazing so Yeah, so do you find that these zombies are kind of like Michael Myers that they would slow that is terrifying, that there's such a purpose to their movements that they don't have to go fast? You know what, I put a note in here that I didn't mention, but it had this slasher feel to it, right? That they were this inevitability of them catching up with you like Michael Myers would. Yeah, absolutely. All right, John, how are zombies destroyed or killed? I don't think we know that. I don't think they are. There's no solution given. Well, the version version. Yeah, we know that you can kill modern. Yes, the resurrected victim, their resurrected victims by setting them on fire. Right. But yeah, that's all we know. All right, we already said these are slow zombies. Right, effectively slow zombies. Yes. Are there any new strains or zombie firsts in the portrayal or behavior of the zombies in this movie? I feel like this, this zombie, I don't know that the mechanism of the zombie is new maybe it is, but it also feels like zombies are more a towel. However, I feel like these are the most visually stunning zombies we've seen. in a while. You know, so I think, yeah, there's something fresh about this and the way they behave, the way they sort of move as a group and move slowly, that feels like a new thing. They're not like the zombies in night of the living dead. It's like they have, again, I'm comparing it to colony. It's like they have a hive mind almost. Yeah, absolutely, you know, it makes you wonder, you know, is there a mind in there? Are these just mindless? Yeah. Are they doing this like out of purposeful malice? Do they have a choice? You know, are they just mindless? But they're clearly magical, right? This is no, you know, scientific creation here. And this is black magic that is created though. But I think we should be clear. I think what's new is the slowness. We see slow, like stumbling Yeah, I think it is different and I think it works better because of that. Yeah. I think there are a few things. I don't want to call them first because I think they are traits that aren't really part of the zombie genre. Sure. These are zombies. They do wield swords. Some of them. That's right. And they can like ride horses. I mean my god. At one point one of them is holding the sword close to his chest. Well, he's against a wall in profile. And I was like, that is such a framing of a ring-raith from the floor to the rings. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, can zombies return to being human? No. Hard no. All right, John, at the beginning of this podcast, you laid out four pillars of the zombie film genre. Let's find out how many of them are present in tombs of the blinded dead. All right, John, in tombs of the blinded dead, is there an apocalypse? No, no apocalypse, at least. Maybe one is starting at the end, we're not sure, but no, it's not a movie about an apocalypse, right? Nor I think is there really, I mean, there is that little possibility at the end that things are getting worse, but I don't think this movie ever ends with the whole world getting affected or something. Okay, is there contagion? Yes, these old zombies can create news zombies. We see them do it to Virginia. It takes a long time, but it honestly requires nothing more than the bite and your death, even though it's very protracted. Are there tough moral choices in this money? There are, especially at the end, right? They're trying to decide whether or not to let Roger in, Roger's trying to say whether or not to try to save Pedro, people all kinds of people are making choices about how to save themselves versus how to save others. agreed. And does this movie feature loved ones turning against you? Absolutely. Yeah, I mean Virginia becomes a zombie in a tax Nina, but she didn't want to take me unless you want to do a tag Betty. It's just Betty wasn't there, right? So yeah, 100%. I am a little curious why Nina got to be in that scene and not Betty. Yeah, doesn't make us like Nina is really a very side character. And I mean, that scene would have had much more resonance if Betty had been in there. And it would have made total sense for Betty to be in there because that's her business, right? Yeah, so I'm not sure it works either way, but you're right, it should have been Betty. And I think it maybe's just like, well, I had to have Betty over here doing this thing, but I want to do this set piece and I narratively, I don't know where else to put it. So I guess it's Nina, you know. Yeah, I mean, weirdly Nina, the site character is the only one who gets a zombie kill. Yes, that's right. Okay, John, you have some 70s questions for me. Yeah, and I'm going to try to, I'm not going to ask all of these because we have some but the Vietnam War, but I might, I'm going to try to sort of improv some about, uh, about Spain in particular. So let's see how that goes. However, your first question is is going to be timeless or at least for the 70s. Does this evoke terror of crime, lawlessness, or anarchy? it does. And I have a broader point to make here about this when we talk to the new and old generations thing. But on a kind of on the more surface level, I think the presence of like the smugglers and stuff is there as a little. I think it's supposed to be there as I think it's kind of a dig at Franco's spain to be totally honest, that there's this network of smugglers who operate in the area, and everyone kind of knows about it. Yeah, he just tells people, he's like, I'm a smuggler, yeah, I thought that was kind of interesting. That said, I would not say that this has the, like, the terror of anarchy that, you know, maybe you get in night of living dead or something. What, how would you know, it's a pretty, it's a pretty ordered society in general. So, but, but does this film push the boundaries of on-screen violence and sexuality? It really does, um, one of the brands that us, yeah. I mean, our version was pretty tame, but it is, It is tame. It's not without some bite and it's not at all hard to imagine how just a few more minutes in any of these scenes would turn it into something that was pretty shocking. So I want to say that yes it does, but but I do feel a little weird because I didn't see the version of it that probably really does this bread. How would you answer this? Like how did the use of all the graphic gross stuff? How did that make you feel like what did how did that feel in comparison to I mean, visually, you know, it's not explicit in that set, but emotionally, it is and so it's really difficult to watch. I read that the Asario in many of his films, these scenes when started for other markets and they weren't necessarily things that he wanted in his films, which I find interesting. So knowing that these were just for marketing, they're part of the story, they're just for exploitation. It's kind of itky. So next question, or I'm going to put two together here, does this evoke a divide between new and old generations, and also does it show a lack of trust in institutions and authority figures? Yes, I think so. Coveyot, I'm not an expert in Spanish history. However, I think there is a really that lurking behind the background radiation of this film is that if you're a young person in Spain, who's watching this kind of movie, uh... who is relating to the young protagonists in this movie you're living in a country there are like mass graves out in the country said that and your parents probably know where they are uh... or and when you were growing up told you where not to go right for this sort of reason yeah And maybe it wasn't that dramatic, but when in this movie, when you see like the older generation, I think represented by the train conductor, who's always saying like, look, we don't talk about this. We don't stop here. We don't look there. We don't go over there. Even if you see something interesting, look as just in your best interest that we move along and don't look at this. And you see his son saying, hey, there's a lady out there. We got a helper. There's a body out hey that person just jumped off the train shouldn't we go help her out and the old guy says no don't do it. I think that is a direct commentary on a younger generation that probably had a lot of like complicated feelings about. their parents' generation and the institutions that their parents grew up with. And I don't know, do you have any thoughts about that? No, I'm getting a strong vibe of that. And in fact, I want to ask you one more question that sort of relates to that. Yeah, and it's very specific to this movie unlike other questions, which are sort of general. Does the ending of this film... and it's feel. Do you think that is a product of the environment you're talking about when you're talking about the difference between the generations, the sort of terror of it? I think that the end of this film is a literal case of the bodies you buried and tried to forget in the past have come back and they've ridden the train into your nice modern stable, peaceful, beautiful city. Right. I think this is a movie about the past haunting the present, a present that would rather just not think about it or forget about it or let it slide away into history, but the past won't, in this movie it literally won't stay dead. I want to see how the Templars in this movie, these these Satan worshiping Templars, evolve across the four of these movies because it would be easy for me to just say these represent Franco's regime and his evil soldiers and the crimes they committed in the past, but I don't know that that's the case and maybe he's going to try to say different things with them in different movies in different ways. So I guess that's something I want to watch out for in the next one. I want to add it on to what Andy said that, you know, in the past, we've been watching out a lot of these, particularly American films where the code was good has to triumph over it. Yeah. And this film ends on a screen because it is ongoing. It doesn't end. Yeah. Evil is still dominant. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the younger generation, the steps that kind of ending, I don't know what the older generation, how they feel about this. And not to again, this is not a political podcast, but there have been a lot of sort of newer right-wing movements that are sort of more authoritarian, you know what your opinion country that is not happening in. as much as Spain, because they remember it better than anybody else, right? I think yes. My last comment and answer to this question is, I don't think the Templars are like a Spanish specific thing. No. In fact, I mean, I always understood them more as like a French thing, but I don't think it's any coincidence that the historical threat here are representatives of the institutional church. Correct. Which is extremely important in Spain in ways that you know I mean similar to when we've talked about Mexican film you talked about the centrality of the institutional church in a way that maybe Americans can't really relate to. Yeah. And so I don't want to quite go out and say, you know, the Templars are Franco's right-wing religious fascist. whatever his version state. Yeah, because I think they are meant more broadly to represent the the sins of the past But I don't think it's coincidence that they also are wearing a you know church car Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right. Well, that's all the questions I have for you Andy. Let's bring this spring this one home All right. We always close each episode with three traditional questions That really grounds this movie and our personal experience, John. John, would you and I survive in the zombie world of tombs of the blind dead? Probably not. I mean, they make the zombies seem really inevitable for anyone who encounters them. Right? The only person who really survives is Betty. the other person who survives is Nina but she didn't run into the old ones she ran into the product of the old ones so I think I do not think we would survive we'd go down I'm not as tough as Pedro with his switchblade and his tank top so you know if he goes down I'm going down Yeah, the protagonists in this movie didn't do anything to like earn the wrath of the nose. They were just in the way. Yeah, they, they were just doing something that you or I might be doing and they, they got caught up in it. If I were out camping, if I were in the sort of environment, I think the slow zombies would get me. Here's the only reason I think I might be able to survive at least for a while. John, in your life, when was the last time you got your foot caught on something, and you couldn't get it out? Like I cannot recall the last time. Yeah. We've seen numerous movies where someone flings on these gets their foot stuck and even the film cannot convince you that it's really stuck. You know, I mean, tripping, tripping would be one thing if they just stuck with Yeah. So, you know, Virginia most gets pretty much caught, gets her foot stuck. Betty is how I would go out. Betty survived, but I would go out because I also would break my leg or roll my ankle and my mad sprint through the ruins, except I wouldn't, you would probably wouldn't make it to the train. So also you probably wouldn't be wearing white gogo boots. So that's true. All right, John is tombs of the blinded a zombie movie or is it a movie with zombies? I think it's a zombie movie, even if they seem like mummies, they have the zombie vibe, and it's all about them. It's about this curse. So yes, agreed. Yeah. Lastly, John, do you recommend this movie? Firstly, just do you recommend it generally to someone who likes to watch good movies? And secondly, do you recommend this movie as one that has special value for the zombie living listeners of this podcast? This is a really tough question this time, and I'll tell you why. So, like for example, I'm going to just pull up the invisible invaders, right? Because as I keep pulling it up, but here's what I mean to say. As a zombie fan, it was super exciting in invisible invaders to see zombies and go, hey, that looks like a prototype of the zombies from night of the living dead, and that's really cool. So for zombie fans, I think you should watch it. I feel that same way about this movie. Here, zombie fans should definitely watch this movie. Here's the problem with the regular fans. It does have some flaws, you know, depending on what version you have, it's kind of gory and lured. But there are a couple of bits, especially that the, the, zombies coming out of their graves and how all of that is shot and some of the artful choices in this movie where like a regular movie fan maybe not just like a regular person who just is looking to go to the next you know who is awaiting a new action movie or something right but somebody who enjoys film or cinema I would say yes you should watch this there's some amazing things that happen in this movie so how's that for a convoluted answer Yeah, I share your difficulty in figuring this out. So I think for a general audience, I'm gonna say no. Yeah, agreed. I can agree to that. I think if you are a subsection of a general audience, who is just a film nerd, then yes. And you have no idea, by the way, how? Prevasive it is for people who just have no idea about movies and TVs like we're so into it I was in a meeting the other day and and my co-worker Katie was there and we had a vendor He said you know Katie you kind of look like Patricia our cat and Katie said I have no idea who that is So that's and that's normal people so if that's the measure then no for normal people for me for sure so Okay, yep. Yeah, and then I, of course, Ginkr, zombie-loving listeners, you should absolutely watch this movie. Now Andy, producer Brad has developed a new question that I would like to ask you, are you ready? Oh. And all right, should your mother watch this movie? Or what's the question? Yeah, and I was on the site. So my answer depends on the version. My mom should not watch the on cut to the or the extended cut. The original. Yeah, the directors version. Yep. I think, oh, I don't know. Also, all right, mom, if you're listening, I think you could handle this one. If you watched the Tamer version. There you go. All right, awesome. All right, well, we are here at long last. You might have thought all of that stuff was pretty scary to hear, but we're actually coming up on the scariest part of the episode, which is when producer Brad tells me and John what zombie movie we will be watching next. Well, our next film was released one month after tunes of the Blind Dad in May of 1972. It's from Italy. And here is a snippet of the trailer. He's the last boss for me. Little bit Ari. Let me taste with revenge. I mean, let me come and put it off. behind the dang walls, a nightmare world of horror. That's what you'll always, as a rotting corpse crawls from the earth, to terrify the living. There are all the barren blood. Yes. Oh, and here's the poster, which you can describe. All right. Blood. Oh, man. He sought the ultimate human agony with instruments of torture, ghastly beyond belief. The torture chamber of Baron blood. Oh, man. Okay. There's a lot going on in this post. Let me try and describe it. All right. In the middle. we have a woman in a cage like it is like a like a like a cute move kind of thing yeah yeah she's a she's in trouble there is a cheesy eyeball that looks like it's like dangling down from the top of the poster yeah on the left we have some startled and scared looking men hippie siblings guys with long hair what is what is that guy holding second night for some kind of Okay, a knife. And then we have what I, you know, imagine as our zombie on the right, it's a very decayed looking green zombie head. Wait, Elkie Summer, I know that name. See, it was in the shot in the dark. Oh, my God. And she's in this movie. Okay. Is that her in the cage? I think so. Okay. I think so. It's hard to tell because she's screened. Yes. What is a special notice? I don't know and read that, but I can read it. The management here by disclaims, any responsibility for patrons who suffer a, a pop-a-liptic strokes, the use of cerebral hemorrhages, the cardiac seizures, or the fainting spells during the shockingly gruesome scenes in this film. Uh, that's incredible. You know what? This is a gimmick that uh, it was never good. It was never good. I was just listening. I was listening to another podcast recently. I don't remember what it was. But it was um, it was about another like horror movie in this general area era like 50sish. And. you like, when you bought a ticket, you got like a thousand bucks in life insurance. I think we talked about that one, didn't we? Maybe. Now, did you see the the name in front of Elkie Summer? It's not the Joseph cotton. It's the use Joseph cotton from citizen. And the third man, like that Joseph cotton. Oh man, becoming an old actor was never easy. And the other important name on here is the director Mario Bava. Oh, okay. All right. I'm ready now. Thank you for joining us. Hopefully you'll join us next episode for Baron Blood. Please give us a rating on Spotify or an Apple Podcasts ranking and a nice review would help us out immensely. Also we have merch. merch in the show notes at Redbubble, and we will see you next time! You've been listening to zombie strains. We'll be back next episode to talk about another zombie movie. If you enjoyed our podcast, please take a moment to rate us in your podcast Apple Choice. Tell a friend, follow us on Instagram at ZombieStrains. All of this helps like-minded people find the