i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

Don't Believe the Hype

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

It is an odd decision to have this film open up with scenes of how the Knights Templar became known as The Blind Dead, and then some way into the running time, have those scenes repeated as flashbacks as someone (in this case, 'village idiot' Murdo, played by José Canalejas) is relaying the story of their origin.However, this second film in the Blind Dead series sees Director Amando De Ossario once again making the titular creatures as revolting as cowled, decomposing skeletal zombies can be – although their withered, twig-like hands rarely look anything other than gnarled gardening forks held by the actors beneath the rotting robes and look particularly ineffective when trying to grab various victims. In fact, the cadaverous knights can be astonishingly inept here: usually their agonising slowness adds to their menace – here, a whole group of them completely fail to capture the terrified, screaming Monica (Loretta Tovar). It might be their most ineffectual scene and reduces their effect greatly. Later on, however, a horde of the Knights Templar storming the village present a far more persuasive presentation of their powers.This is another enjoyable instalment in the series. Each entry manages to be more than 'just another episode', however, due to Ossario's inspiring passion for the subject, and 'Return of the Evil Dead' is a substantial project in its own right. It perhaps lacks the atmospheric chill of 'Ghost Galleon' and 'Night of the Seagulls', but the Knights' relentless, statuesque vigil throughout the night awaiting the emergence of the last few survivors makes for a morbidly enthralling scenario.

The second in director Amando de Ossorio's "Blind Dead" series sees a horde of fifteenth-century Knight Templars rise from the dead to take revenge on the town that poked their eyes out and burned them alive centuries before... I saw Amando's first entry, TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD, on WOR-TV's "Fright Night" (Saturdays at 1am) as a teenager back in the '70s and even then I knew these films were most likely edited but I never expected the gore I got last night. My letterboxed DVD of RETURN (nice print, too) was English-dubbed but a couple of parts were subtitles only and it's interesting to see just what was excised for US television (and possibly drive-in release) at the time. The flashback where a Knight Templar sacrifices a woman by tearing her heart out and eating it would never fly on the tube back then and neither would the bare breasts. Speaking of WOR-TV in the "Me Decade", I also saw the ghost of SCTV- the fat mayor and the town hunchback reminded me of John Candy & Eugene Levy in "Dr. Tongue's 3D House Of Stewardesses" and another character was a lot like Levy's Ricardo Montalban impression. That said, the robed, rotting Templars galloping slo-mo in the misty moonlight was genuinely eerie. Undead fun, for sure.

This is only the second film in the series and already they are changing the story. The knights got their eyes plucked out by birds in the first, and now they are burned out before they are burned alive. Well, which is it? It is slow in the beginning, but picks up after the dead return.About 20 hole up in a church, but some are trying to get out on their own. The Mayor (Fernando Sancho) uses one to try and get away, and when that doesn't work, he uses the man's daughter to distract the knights while he escapes. He gets his just desserts.The ending was anti-climatic.

A rural Portuguese village is preparing to celebrate the annual festival commemorating when their village overran and killed the Templar Knights who had been sacrificing its villagers. The mayor of the village on the advice of his fiancé Vivian, hires a fireworks expert Jack Marlowe, to ensure the festival is a hit, little knowing they have a past. Jack and Vivian immediately rekindle their passions in the ruins of the local abbey, where they are spied on by the village idiot, Murdo, he regales them with the gory history of the abbey and how the Templars had their eyes burned out in case they returned to avenge their deaths, which they swore they would. He tells them that the Templars will return tonight during the festival and he duly has a secret plan to sacrifice a local girl to ensure the curse of the Templars comes true. Sure enough the dead arise, and seek to avenge their deaths, they ride into town to kill all they encounter, Jack and Vivian along with the mayor and his cronies hide out in the village church and with the mayors pleas to the local authorities ignored, they must fight for their lives. Pretty decent follow up to de Ossorio's Tombs of the Blind dead, some striking Gothic visuals and just a little gore make this a sight to behold, things are also spiced up by a bevy of local beauties. The Blind Dead makeup and costumes are also very effective even if their pace is a tad slower than a comatose sloth.