The Ghost Galleon

source: The Ghost Galleon

Moviecut—The Ghost Galleon

I suppose that people were wasting their hard earned cash in the 1970's visiting theaters to watch junk like this, and that is why we got so many sequels to the squalor they call, "Blind Dead" films. This is purely a waste of time and good money. If you see this at a five and dime store, don't pick it up! It's awful and has no suspense what-so-ever. The boat is a silly model that is floating in a man's bathtub, if you can see a toe, that is a man. I can't believe people actually have the guts to call this filth "brilliant". That truly is a ludicrous and bold statement indeed!

In the third of his 'Blind Dead' movies, writer/director Amando de Ossorio has his skeletal Templar knights sailing the high seas in a ghostly galleon, drawing other seafarers into their dimension in order to feast on their blood. When an aspiring model (the lovely Blanca Estrada) and an actress (Margarita Merino) mysteriously disappear during a publicity stunt for a new boat, millionaire Howard Tucker (Jack Taylor)—the man who designed the craft—leads a search party to try and find the missing women, despite being warned that they might have become the latest victims of the haunted galleon and its undead crew... Although de Ossorio's 'Scooby Doo'-style phantom ship is certainly a unique and extremely atmospheric locale (the director sure gets his money's worth out of the fog machine), the film's dreadfully slow pace, lack of gore, and complete absence of gratuitous nudity (we get babes in bikinis, but no *) means that The Ghost Galleon is likely to be something of a disappointment for fans of trashy Euro-horror (particularly if compared to the first two films in the series, which offered bare breasts and blood a-plenty!). Furthermore, the withered zombies—which still look fairly cool in their tattered, cowled shawls—move so slow that waiting for them to catch and kill their victims is like watching paint dry, whilst the shots of the titular vessel feature some of the least convincing miniature models that I have ever seen. De Ossorio does occasionally succeed in putting a little wind in the sails of this generally dull feature—a brief rape scene adds the much needed exploitation factor, and there is one blink-and-you'll-miss-it gory death—but for most of the running time, The Ghost Galleon is dead in the water.

Dull "Blind Dead"flick set aboard a 16th century galleon, where the corpses of the Knights Templar periodically roam. Some folks from a modeling agency run afoul of the ghost ship in a dense fog, and are picked off one by one. The gals playing the models are definitely hot, and there is a pretty graphic rape scene involving one of them. The walking dead are not particularly scary, and move at a snail's pace, and yet they always seem to catch their prey. A good part of this Spanish made movie is taken up with people talking and walking about. Eventually, I was just waiting for everyone to die. Sadly, the galleon itself is a miniature model and not at all convincing. The plot is similar to "The Fog." Skip it.

The third entry in "The Blind Dead" series is arguably the weakest: dull, uninvolving and peopled with thoroughly unsympathetic characters who are hard to identify with and, ultimately, care much about. The Knight Templars are, yet again, not the same 'characters' seen in the previous films, as these here have been punished for their evil deeds to perpetually roam the seven seas in the Ghost Galleon of the title; also, they seem to have diminished to a handful as opposed to the endless array of Knight Templars from the previous film. The ending, however, is a beauty: having disposed of the Blind Dead into the deep sea, the two surviving characters reach the shore and, supposedly, safety - only to see the Dead rise from the sea and make their way s-l-o-w-l-y but surely towards them! Some people have seen this film as being a major influence on John Carpenter's infinitely superior THE FOG (1980) but, to me, those comparisons are tenuous at best.

The Blind Dead leave the sanctuary of the Templar's crumbling monastery for the third in the series, the floating fright-fest Horror of The Zombies (aka The Ghost Galleon). If there was ever a film that's rooted firmly in the decade from which it sprung, it's this one. Oh, and Saturday Night Fever, but this one's from 1974: pre-disco, and post-taste. Now, if we've all forgotten just how senselessly ugly Seventies fashions were, the opener will bring it all kicking and screaming back to us. It's at a swim-wear photo shoot, where top model Noemi is looking for her missing girlfriend. She's taken to a secret location by photo-frau Lillian (Maria Perschy) where the great mystery is revealed – her girlfriend Cathy and another model are out in the middle of the ocean as part of an elaborate publicity stunt to promote a weather-controlled boat, cooked up by cocky financier Howard Tucker (Jack Taylor). Unfortunately for the girls, the fog rolls in (although, being the Seventies, everyone is huffing away on cigarettes and cigars, so how would you notice), and an ancient galleon, seemingly abandoned with rags for sails, floats into view. The girls radio the news of the Ghost Galleon back to base; the resident token egghead Professor Gruber goes a little strange, and despite his rigorous scientific training, suggests the legendary Ghost Galleon is from a another dimension outside of time and space. Clearly a huge fan of Eric von Daniken, Gruber seems to have read one too many supermarket paperbacks on the Bermuda Triangle, but, like I said, it's the Seventies – we ALL read Von Daniken. The girl's are here, he reasons, but they're not, and they won't be coming back. Nothing is real – the ship, the fog, you or I... A philosophical paradox, for sure, but the real mystery is this: how de Ossorio stretches such a flimsy premise to feature length truly defies all scientific explanation. So of course they all go looking for the Galleon and the missing bikinis, or maybe Howard Tucker wants his speedboat back. Cue more fog, and the resurrected skeletons of the Knights Templar rising from their on-board coffins. We soon discover on a 16th Century boat, there really is nowhere to run. Or, you could swim, but wait for the water-logged ending to drown that theory. "Preposterous" is the key word here – de Ossorio asks a great deal of his viewers to suspend belief when what amounts to little more than chicken bones drags a fully grown woman down a flight of stairs to her complete and utter dismemberment. Horror Of The Zombies features the two most popular stars in Spanish horror. Austrian-born Maria Perschy, and American expatriate Jack Taylor who starred in a string of no-budget shockers for Jess Franco and decided he couldn't go home ever again. And yet Horror Of The Zombies was the least successful of the Blind Dead quartet. Perhaps the film strayed too far from the formula, although how could you go wrong: girls in bikinis on a boat with zombies? Despite its limited scope, micro-cast and tendency to be stage-bound, it's still an entertaining exercise in tension, atmospheric and illogic, and the empty eye sockets of the Knights Templar are always a welcome sight. All I can say now is "Welcome aboard" for a cruise into another dimension… of TERROR!… with the 1974 Horror Of The Zombies.

This is one of the entries in Ossorios' Templar zombie series. The Templars were witches burned alive at the stake thousands of years ago. They are back as skeletal zombies. This one is the best of the series. Atmospheric and spooky it's worth a look. Don't expect digital effects like your modern so called horror film, but expect an actual HORROR FILM!! If you like this one check out the other Templar films, Tombs Of the Blind Dead, Return Of the Evil Dead or Fangs Of the Living Dead(not easy to find). Digital effects are destroying horror films, if your not a fan of the older stuff, go to your local video store, look in the old horror section, and rent some REAL STUFF!!

This film was my first introduction to the severely underrated Blind Dead mythos. Despite their age, they stand as some of the most hauntingly eerie and frightening horror films of all time. The film centers (for its first half) around two models (we shall call them #1 and #2) lost at sea on their way to an assignment who come across an old Galleon. #1 goes aboard, #2 too frightened to come aboard, and disappears. After a long contemplation, #2 decides to face her fear and board the decrepit vessel. Naturally, #1 does not answer her calls, and she assumes it is simply a cruel joke and camps out in one of the ship's rooms. Eventually, she is awakened to a noise outside and becomes confronted with the ship's long dead crew of 13th century Templar Knights. They slowly approach, extending their skeletal arms. Of course, #2 attempts to escape, however, her attempts are futile as she is caught and (almost gloriously in a sickeningly sadistic way) lifted onto the shoulders of the knights and carried off to certain death. I suppose it is hard to look at such films objectively without Wes Craven's cleverly written satire "Scream" coming to mind. As the second model tried feebly to escape the malicious Templars, the line "always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door!" reverberated in my head and I fought the urge to laugh as I was seeing this principle in action. Then I realized just how much principles such as those addressed in Scream fail to work outside the other Wes Craven films. The fact of the matter is, #2 did try the "front door" (the boat) but the boat had vanished. So, at that point, all she could do was run feebly "up the stairs". It is easy for us the viewer to make such remarks at such situations considering that we are not there on that galleon surrounded by bloodthirsty Templars. It is a simple fact of human nature that in situations of high stress, coherent thought becomes jarbled as raw instinct (and the will to survive) takes over, making even the most futile escape routes seem like open doors to havens of unrivaled safety. So, to all those who have lambasted such works of art as this for such reasons as those presented in "Scream", try to tell yourself to run out the front door instead of running up the stairs whenever you're being attacked by a deranged killer (or killers, alive or undead!). In conclusion, the Blind Dead series stands as the epitome of the horror film for their abilities to make the sly, satirical remarks of "Scream" fans null and void in the face of true danger.

This was an absolutely relentless piece of garbage. I love zombie movies, and I am also a fan of some of the other Blind Dead films. However, this worthless waste of time contains nothing of interest whatsoever. The "ghost ship" is a terrible model floating in three inches of water. The USA video title is "Zombie Flesh Eaters", although there is no flesh eating. I know what your thinking, "this guy just doesn't know b horror movies." Oh, but I do. Avoid this at all cost. I want the two hours of my life back, and so will you. This movie is a boring waste of time and one of the worst I have ever seen. If you want to watch the Blind Dead films you would do well to skip this one. There is no suspense, blood, no nothing. Want a good zombie movie besides Romero films? Watch a Lucio Fulci movie, not this.