aka El Ataque de los Muertos Sin Ojos
Amando de Ossorio, Spanish zombie-auteur-extraordinaire, enjoyed a good deal of success with his 1973 release Tombs of the Blind Dead. Never one to pass on a good business opportunity, Ossorio turned around and filmed a sequel in four weeks and released it the same year. Not to be confused with Return of the Living Dead or The Evil Dead, Return of the Evil Dead proved to be a fitting sequel to his previous low-budget zombie bash. Despite the low production quality, Return is a genuinely entertaining flick with some juicy memorable moments. It blows my mind that Ossorio pulled these movies off in a year with little to no money. Gotta feed the monkey, I guess.
Just like the first movie, there were definitely some problems with Return of the Evil Dead that tended to detract from the over-all enjoy-ability. One of the same actors appeared in both movies as two different characters (who both die). The gore is fun up to a point, but there just wasn’t enough time or money behind it to make it all really stand out. And, as a budding editor, I have to harp on the recycled footage they used. There were scenes from Tombs of the Blind Dead of the undead Templar Knights rising from the grave and riding off on horseback that somehow made their way into this movie with absolutely no changes made to them. Sure those shots were hot to death, but they could’ve done something to disguise their schlocky stock footage tactics. Finally, the ending left much to be desired. After the main characters have barricaded themselves in the local church and the Templars are starting to hack through the planks, the zombies just drop dead. Right when the movie has built itself up to a dramatic-as-hell moment of tension, the sun comes out and ices the zombies. Weak.
Despite some nigh-inevitable pit falls, Return of the Evil Dead really was sweet. It was faster, raunchier, and had a higher body count than the original. The pacing was really amped-up and many of the needless vignettes that populated Tombs were gone. In Return, the undead Templar that were once confined to the ruins of their former citadel are now unleashed and wreak havoc on a nearby village. There are some amazing scenes when the zombie horsemen ride into town mowing down the townsfolk with liberal portions of sword slashing. Mark Rogers and I had a doozy of a debate about which was a better movie, Return of the Evil Dead or Tombs of the Blind Dead. In the end we reached a consensus that Tombs of the Blind Dead, was better as a whole, mostly due to originality, mood, and the kick-ass ending. Return of the Evil Dead had quicker pacing but lost tons of points for the piss poor ending.
