Trash Movie Review: The Blind Dead

Welcome to a review of a different kind. This time, a trash movie review of the four Blind Dead movies, all made by the Spanish director Amando De Ossorio. They’re horror movies made between 1972 and 1975 and they’re both scary and amusing - although the latter is more down to quality than down to a plan. The four movies are (English titles, not the original Spanish ones): Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972), Return of the Blind Dead (1973), The Ghost Galleon (1974), and Night of the Seagulls (1975).

The Blind Dead in the movies are knight monks - the Templars, although never really named - and they’re all blind. In some movies, they were blinded after a trial or by a mob, in others they lost their eyes while their corpses were hanging on the gallows, but they’re all blind zombies. That’s important, even though the effects are different in the movies. In Tombs of the Blind Dead (TOTBD), the zombies are blind, but hear well enough to find their prey by their heartbeat (and their victims become zombies themselves), whereas in the other movies, it’s often possible for a victim to hide in plain sight, as long as they’re cold-blooded enough to stay silent as the skeleton monks shamble past. Return of the Blind Dead (ROTBD) is the first case in which the hero sneaks past the monks in plain sight while saving a little girl from them.

There’s few movies where the Blind Dead are killed in the end. As a matter of fact, only ROTBD has a scene where the corpses collapse at sunrise when touched by the hero, the others suggest that the Blind Dead are still at it by the time the movie ends. In TOTBD, the knight monks leave their lonely hunting grounds on a train, which suggests they will carry their un-dead state into the world (since it’s the only movie where the victims rise as zombies themselves). In The Ghost Galleon (TGG), they walk out of the ocean at the end, clearly set on continuing their murder spree (the effect of the dead walking underwater isn’t quite as nice as in “The Curse of the Black Pearl,” but then, the movie was produced decades earlier). At the end of Night of the Seagulls (NOTS, the weakest), their seven nights of revenge just end - which suggests they will be back at some point. There is no clear victory for the hero, merely survival of a few people. The Blind Dead hover in the distance, can reappear at any point.

Even though there’s only four movies with the Blind Dead (at least officially), I know of a couple of other stories which feature similar beings. Some of them, like a German radio play or a German pulp novella (published in magazine form in the Dämonenland series), put the Blind Dead into another area (such as former Yugoslavia) and make them even more dangerous, only to destroy them afterwards.

The main difference between the Blind Dead and regular zombies is that the Blind Dead are very old and can’t be destroyed with a headshot. They may not be the fastest (unless they get on their horses), but they are persistent and they know what they are doing. They work together, they hunt in packs, and they feast on their prey. Whether or not that prey is turned, is a minor question.

The Blind Dead movies can still give you a scare today - something which not all old horror movies still can do. They’re also funny and often not on purpose, due to their effects. There are scenes when you can read the horses’ minds and know they’re wondering what kind of trash they got strapped to their backs. Yet, the hollow riding sounds and slightly slowed-down motions give the riding corpses (which is the translation in Germany) a scary impression. Of course, those long-dead Templars look funny sometimes, but they also give a good image of skull-faced creatures with twig-thin limbs which still manage to drag a healthy human away and rip them apart.

In addition to the gore, sex also plays a role in the movies. In every story, the Blind Dead in question were punished for dealing with the devil or other demons, kidnapping, torturing, and sacrificing young women, often after they were raped. And the 1970s Spanish-Portuguese horror movies show a lot of blood, gore, and sex - it was pretty much standard then. This makes the fact that a lot of victims of the Blind Dead are women (not unusual in 1970s horror in general) even more scary. While the Blind Dead clearly are no longer able to rape, they can still torture and kill.

Ossorio himself has claimed that his Blind Dead are mummies rather than zombies and, to a degree, he’s right there. They are no longer ‘wet’ - meaning they have no rotting flesh on their bones. They’ve been around for centuries (since all of the movies are set in the 20th century and the monks all were killed in the late middle ages) and are merely bones with a bit of old, brittle skin stretched over them. However, mummies are usually associated with a handful of cultures (mostly Ancient Egypt, but some South American cultures also mummified their dead), not with Spain. And the Blind Dead rise to feed on the living or make another sacrifice to their master, they are not roused from the dead by a crime committed on their tombs or suchlike. Neither have they risen to bring their long-lost love back to life (a story successfully used for every version of The Mummy so far). They’re out for blood, flesh, and revenge - but a little more intelligent than your regular garden-variety zombie.

The Blind Dead movies are not great movies by any definition. They are trash, they are B-movies at best. They’re also fun, though, if you find fun in bad movies. And most of them carry their story well (you might want to forego NOTS, which isn’t very good and also not in turn with the others time-wise, since it’s not set in the 1970s, but in the early 20th century). I sometimes put one of them into my DVD drive and enjoy a bit of a thrill with a lot of more or less accidental humour.

Incorporating Themes

Usually, I’d say I’m not someone who works off themes when she’s writing. I consider my stories to be good adventure yarn, not something with too much depth. But sometimes, themes happen. For me, two happened with the latest book I finished - “Alex Dorsey” (out February 2020). The two underlying themes in the story are loss and duty.

It is, perhaps, not strange that these themes emerged in the wake of the changes to my real life since October 2017. Within seven months of each other, my best friend and soul-mate (in a non-erotic way) and my mother died. My father moved home and so did I. I became my father’s only immediate family nearby, taking the brunt of caring for him. He’s still quite fit, so it’s not a 24/7 job, but it did change my day severely.

The theme of loss which is in the novel (the first one I wrote knowing it wouldn’t be part of a series, it’s a standalone story) clearly came from the first two severe losses in my life I can remember (when my grandmother died, I was still too young to really understand what ‘dying’ meant). However, the losses in the novel are more severe and Alex has more active agency in them. Yet, they all strike close to home (without any spoilers) and Alex feels them very acutely.

The theme of duty is entwined with the theme of loss when it comes to Alex - with the loss of several family members, a duty she was never supposed to bear becomes hers. But there’s another level to it. Alex takes on the duties very much the way I did when it happened to me - taking them far more to heart than anybody else expected. Underestimating what I was really doing, how much I was really carrying, because it was just ‘what needed to be done.’

I doubt I could have written the novel at any other time - only within the year after my mother died and my world shifted, I was so acutely aware of those shifts that I could put them into writing. I’m proud of the novel, but I’m also sure that such strong themes will not come back to me in a hurry.

Another story which has a strong topic, if not theme, is “Heart of Ice,” the first story of “The Loki Files” (available in volume 1). I only realized after writing it that I had put down a severe case of depression in this one (which is why this story is the only darker one in the whole package - all other are more adventure yarn than anything else). I once suffered from the beginnings of a depression - something which is often called a ‘burn-out.’ It only came to me afterwards, about a year or so later, that the way I had described the changes in Loki after the supposed death of the love of his life that he’d slipped into a slightly magically-enhanced depression. Depression isn’t about being sad all the time. When you’re sad, you’re feeling something. Depression means that at some point you’re unable to feel anything. Your heart goes cold, your feelings die, you forget that there are ways you could feel about what happens around you. That is how Loki turns out after Sarah is supposedly killed and he is unable to save her. In his case, though, because he’s not a human, but a Jotun living in Asgard, there’s also a physical component and his heart is really wrapped in ice - hence the title.

One underlying theme in “Criminal Ventures” could be parenthood or family, if you want to keep it a little more open. It starts off, after all, with Jane in yet another abusive foster home and spends half the story with Jane growing up with an unusual, but caring parent. Jane and Steven need a while to realize they’re family, but it only makes them more dangerous for their enemies in the end.

Apart from that, I don’t think I’ve really written stories with themes. There might be underlying tendencies in some stories - “One for Sorrow” also has a bit of a family theme, but it’s a revenge story overall. “Secret Keepers” could be read as a clash of different ideas of feminism, Jane representing one type and the Morrigan the other, but I wasn’t thinking along those lines.

When I wrote “Alex Dorsey,” I was thinking about loss and duty and it influenced my writing. Currently, I’m continuing my work on “Grey Eminence” (which will, most likely, not keep this title), but can’t see a topic there. Jane will dip more into the underworld again, but that was already suggested in “Going Legal.” It’s just a logical development of her character - she simply isn’t made to stay completely on the legal side (and neither is Steven, truth be told). Sometimes, themes happen, as when I decided that “Criminal Ventures” should start with Jane and Steven meeting when Jane was ten (it’s all based off a remark of their personas as mastermind and right hand in “Crime Pays Sometimes”). With Jane being a kid then, there would be some kind of parenthood and family themes in there.

On the whole, I do not look for themes to incorporate in my writing. I take them when they happen, but I don’t go out of my way to find them. With “Alex Dorsey,” it happened. With many other stories, it did not.

I write to entertain, not to discuss the big questions of mankind. Don’t get me wrong - if you want to do that, go ahead. It’s just not what I write. I write adventure yarn, pulp stories. I write just so others can have a few hours of fun with my writing.

If you want to have themes in your stories, you should be careful not to pick too many at once. I’ve seen that with stories I’ve read which were overburdened with themes. Duty and loss fit together well for me and they entwined - the loss of her brothers and uncle shoving duties Alex’s way. If in doubt, though, I’d rather drop a theme than try to incorporate it with others it doesn’t work well with.

On World-Building

For me, world-building is usually quite easy, I have to admit that. Most of my stories are set in the here and now - more or less. Only the John Stanton series (volume two out in November 2019), the two volumes of “The Loki Files,” and the upcoming “Alex Dorsey” (out February 2020) need world-building in the sense of introducing the readers to a world they don’t know and don’t see daily - or can imagine easily from what they see daily. Jane in both varieties and also Inez from the Magpies series are settled in the 21st century very much as we know it (if with minor changes).

When I wrote the stories collected in the two volumes of “The Loki Files,” I very much made things up as I went along. The human world was a mirror of our own and I could go wild with Asgard, adding whatever I wanted. A structure emerged, the large palace inspired by the MCU, the Great Hall of Old Asgard (the time for the palace), the populace of around 12,000 individuals (including people from other realms). The structure of the realms emerged as well, putting the realm of the Sidhe right next to that of the humans - which has played a part in a story or two.

The same very much went for John Stanton’s Steampunk 2015 Britain. I set out with the first story and just made things up as I went along. With every new story, I could flesh out the world, the Bureau, and John’s family a little more. John’s older brother Lewis played a larger role in the second story (where he’s accused of a murder he didn’t commit) and Richard, another of John’s four brothers, was only properly introduced in the second story of the second volume. Since John doesn’t regularly do his job while he’s at home - even though his family might be around, forcing him to be very careful -, I had a lot of leeway with him for most parts. I built up his acquaintances faster than the world as a such, basing society heavily on my idea of late Victorian England, and added landmarks as needed. So far, the only specific room in Stanton Manor which I did describe in detail is John’s secret hideaway below the library - the room he usually has to himself and uses to contact his boss.

When I started writing “Alex Dorsey,” things were a little different. I was working with the modern world, but I had something in there which, as far as I know, doesn’t exist: vampires and other un-dead creatures. Therefore I have a bit of masquerade as well. Alex, her family, her clan, and her order know about the monsters, of course - as do some other clans around the world (one is named in the story). I played around with my own vampire lore, made two strains of vampires in Europe, the Drakul strain (based on Dracula, of course) and the Nosferatu strain (based on Murnau’s “Nosferatu”). I also made use of the idea that vampires were allergic to whitethorn - it saves Alex once during the story. What I came up with was a world interchangeable with ours, unless you are attacked by a vampire or belong to one of a handful of clans worldwide.

So I don’t need to do much world-building under normal circumstances, but I do appreciate the world-building others do. While I’m more partial to humorous takes on fantasy or science fiction, I do appreciate a good world-building everywhere. I do like the way Terry Pratchett (May The Clacks Forever Carry His Name) built his Discworld, I had a lot of fun with  Robert Asprin’s Myth Adventures (and the first two books of his Phule’s Company series - it goes downstream really fast afterwards). I do love the way Randall Garrett built his alternate 1980s reality with magic and a huge Franco-British empire. I had more fun with the Hobbit than with Lord of the Rings, though. There’s too much detail early in the books for my taste - I don’t want to start out with an essay on tobacco when I start reading a fantasy novel.

I generally think you shouldn’t overdo it in the first chapter. Yes, you have a new world. Yes, you need to tell the reader about the new things. But do it slowly, carefully. Start by only giving them information they immediately need. Infuse the scenes with some information which will come in handy later. And don’t forget about Chekov’s gun: If you introduce something in great detail, it should play a role in the plot. All elements of your world which get a big introduction, be it creatures, places, or customs, should be important for the story. You can introduce them early (but not a book or two or five early) and hope the reader remembers them, but at some point, they need to be important. Just like that gun: if you describe it in detail in chapter one, it should have been fired (at what or whom is your choice) by chapter three. The same goes for the ominous shadow flying overhead as the character hurries through the forest in chapter one of your fantasy novel or the robot which is somehow different in chapter two of your science fiction novel.

You need to know all about your world, of course, but it can take ages until you share that knowledge with the reader - and about ninety percent of the knowledge never gets shared in so many words, it just influences what you write.

You will have to dive deep into the world you build for your story, but you also will have to be very careful about how much of it you tell the reader and how much of it you dump on the audience early on. Usually, it’s much better to infuse the story with information as it becomes important and leave it to the reader to put everything together and form a picture in their mind. That, after all, is what reading is all about.

Low-Stake Conflict

Not every story is about big stakes, about the adventures of big heroes with a lot of skills and a lot of experience who take on evil masterminds, dragons, or alien invaders all by themselves. No, there are also stories with low stakes and everyday people in them. Such as the ‘Slice of Life’ type of story, which can be a very good read, but often isn’t. This is an article about why those stories often fail and what to keep in mind about a story, its plot, and its conflict.

First let me make one thing clear before you stomp off angrily, because you want to write a ‘Slice of Life’ story and not something full of violence and murder. ‘Conflict’ in the case of storytelling doesn’t mean a violent conflict of any sorts. It means a situation which needs to be resolved in some way, forcing a character to get active and do something. It can be a fight, it can be a heist, it can also simply be getting to an appointment in time. Conflict means making sure that something in your main character’s life isn’t going as it should - something is disturbing their routine. That can be an evil mastermind, a dragon, or an alien invasion, but it can also be something mundane like a closed diner, a broken-down car, or an overdue library book. For a ‘Slice of Life’ story, you’ll rather want that diner, car, or book, of course.

Let us talk about stakes next. They’re part of the conflict and can even be called that which makes a conflict a conflict. The stakes determine how important it is to resolve the conflict well. Low stakes mean it’s not so horribly important on a large scale - whether or not one person gets to that important appointment in time isn’t important for world politics or when compared to those invading aliens. That doesn’t mean they’re not important on a personal or individual level. For the person currently sweating over how to make that appointment, it is very important indeed.

We’ve all had days when it felt as if the world had conspired against us getting to work on time, from the alarm failing over the coffeemaker on strike, the flat tire, and the late bus right up to the elevator which took ages to come down to the lobby. We’ve all had that one time when we totally forgot that library book and it was well overdue by the time we remembered it again. Such situations disturb our regular lives - and often not in a good way. They have conflict, though - a problem which needs to be resolved, be it getting to work or handing in that book without having to pay a fee. The stakes of that conflict are relatively low, but they’re there and people will be interested to see how the conflict is resolved. The higher the stakes, the higher usually the interest, but if written well, low stakes can be highly interesting, too.

Low stakes are good for particular kinds of stories. ‘Slice of Life’ has been mentioned often enough already, but comedy is also a good genre for low stakes - there, it’s more about the complications and the weird situations than about the horrible things which might happen when things go wrong. Stakes also don’t have to be so horribly high in romance stories, where they are usually highly personal.

Stakes and conflict are necessary to create interest in a story. A story where nothing happens is boring. A story where the character can master all troubles without breaking a sweat is also boring. Stakes have to be appropriate for both the conflict and the wants and needs of the character (meaning the character’s goals and what they need to learn). If the character is a powerful hero, the stakes have to match that (unless you’re looking for a comedic take, where the powerful hero suddenly finds themselves failing at some mundane task). If the character is just an everyday person, stakes can be much lower without making the story boring. Nobody expects a guy working at the office to defeat the world from an alien invasion, but he is expected to come to work on time - even on a day when everything goes wrong.

The stakes also need to fit the character. Someone who regularly comes in late for work doesn’t have a reason to worry about being late again. But someone who has either already been reprimanded and threatened with being fired or someone who is always on time will feel under pressure when everything goes wrong and it seems they just can’t get there in time. So the stakes need to be established. Some stakes, the very high ones, establish themselves - when a character’s life or the lives of their loved ones are threatened, there is no question whether or not those stakes will motivate the main character.

Once you have your conflict and stakes sorted out, the plot can develop. How can you raise the motivation of the main character and make their lives harder? Because that, as horrible as it sounds, is how writing often works. It’s about finding out what else you can throw in your character’s way to make their lives more difficult and to make them work harder. Of course, it can very well end with them succeeding, but the hard work has to come first. That is how you make things interesting for the reader, which is the ultimate job for every writer.

A low-stake conflict doesn’t need to be boring. A conflict can always be interesting, depending on how well it is crafted and how well it fits with the character. Keep that in mind and make sure that your low-stake stories have enough of a challenge, then they will be just as interesting for the reader as stories about people who save the world.