The final entry in the "Blind Dead" tetralogy (which began with TOMB OF THE BLIND DEAD in 1971), this is probably the low-point in the series, despite a vague fan consensus that it represents a step up from its immediate predecessor THE GHOST GALLEON. In truth, the Templars (an order of knights put to death for practicing black magic, who rise from the dead, seeking their victims by sound), had pretty much exhausted their cinematic potential after RETURN OF THE BLIND DEAD, and GHOST GALLEON at least offered some small novelty by locating the characters on a Flying Dutchman-type vessel. NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS returns to the familiar formula, with only a few minor details to distinguish it from the previous films.

Like all the Blind Dead sequels, NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS offers no plot continuity with its predecessors beyond the presence of the Templars (who by this point were so well known to audiences that writer-director Armando de Ossorio's script doesn't bother explaining how they became the Blind Dead). However, SEAGULLS does offers a small touch of visual continuity: although the story returns the Templars to land, the setting is an isolated seaside fishing village, reminding viewers of the ending of GHOST GALLEON, wherein the Templars pursued their victims onto shore after their ship sank. Viewers might assume that the Templars had taken up residence somewhere near where they made landfall in the previous film; unfortunately, a flashback makes it clear that these Templars have been in residence for hundreds of years. (Which raises an unanswered question: how did these particular Templars become blinded like the ones seen in the previous films?)

The new story briefly seems to offer a hint of potential: this time a young doctor and his wife come to town to set up practice and find their efforts to provide aid are most unwelcome. The villagers are a taciturn, cruel bunch (they routinely hound a local man just because he's mentally retarded), and eventually the doctor learns that they are sacrificing young virgins to appease the mummified Templars (here called simply "horsemen of the sea," presumably because they are frequently seen galloping through the surf).

Unfortunately, the story never gains any momentum, because the doctor, despite expressing concern, does little to unravel the mystery. Since the audience knows what's happening almost from the beginning, the viewer is forced to wait through seemingly interminable scenes for the doctor to catch up with what we already know, leaving only one or two small details to be revealed toward the end (e.g., how many and how often sacrifices are made -- seven, on seven consecutive nights, every seven years).

Typically, the characterization is weak. We never get to know the villagers, who remain an undifferentiated mass. Teddy, the mentally challenged man, is crude stereotype. Doctor Stein and his wife are supposed to be the protagonists, but they are so arrogant in their attitude toward their provincial would-be patients that you understand why the villagers want them to clear out. Also, the doctor is a weak hero; although he does destroy the Templars, he fails to save the lives of any of his patients. (The same could be said of Captain Jack Marlowe in RETURN OF THE BLIND DEAD, but in that case it was clear that the people who died were victims of their own stupidity and/or cowardice.) 

Visually, the film is mostly a rehash of what came before. The innovations mostly relate to the setting: giving the Templars a stone idol of some sea god to worship -- they rip their sacrificial victim's heart out and place it in the mouth of the statute, while the rest of the body is left on a stone slab, where the local crabs can crawl over it. (As if the Templars were not slow enough, this extra bit of gratuitous gross-out drags the film to a virtual standstill.)

The Templars themselves are as interesting to watch as ever, although they are given little screen time. This film features a return of the day-for-night photography seen in TOMB and RETURN. Although unconvincing, the shots of the undead knights riding their undead horses along the shoreline and wonderfully atmospheric and evocative.

Also impressive are the actual locations where the footage was shot, including a stone village and a striking castle on a cliff. The sacrificial processional (with black shrouded women leading the white-clad virgin to be chained to the rocks on the beach) is wonderfully evocative, and the early scenes do establish a nice atmospheric sense of unease, of a stranger in a strange land, and the even if the rest of the film is unable to capitalize on this approach.

Perhaps the SEAGULL's biggest failing is that it never reaches the level of exploitation art that characterized the first two films in the series. The graphic violence and crude sexism have been toned down (this is the only Templar film without at least an attempted rape scene), but this only robs the film of its raison de'tre. The atmosphere and plot (such as it is) are not enough to carry the movie without the shocks. And the story itself fails to deliver on all that it promises: we are told the Templars will raze the village to the ground if they are cheated of their sacrifice; this raises expectations of an attack on the town (like the one in RETURN OF THE BLIND DEAD), but after Doctor Stein saves his servant Lucy, the villagers evacuate, leaving the Blind Dead to take out the anger on no one but the doctor and his friends.

As a result of these failings, NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS is at best a mildly interesting failure, a slowly paced, gloomy film, drenched in ocean atmosphere that comes to life for a few moments here and there but without the full-blown blast of transgressive, tasteless horror that made TOMB and RETURN mandatory viewing in spite of their limitations. In the end, this is another chance to view a familiar horror icon in a new setting. For Templar fans, this is worth checking out, but the average horror enthusiast would be better off sticking with the first two Templar movies.

TRIVIA

NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS appears to have been inspired by the work of American author H.P. Lovecraft; in particular, the ominous inhabitants of an isolated fishing village, where an ancient fish-god is worshipped, suggest "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and "Dagon." Also, the explanation for the film's cryptic title has echoes in Lovecraft's work: in the movie, we are told that the seagulls seen and heard flying at night are the souls of the virgins who have been sacrificed to the Templars; in Lovecraft's story "The Dunwich Horror," we are told that whippoorwills call out at night when someone is dying, trying to capture the soul as it departs the body.

Like THE GHOST GALLEON, NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS contains no explanation for how the Templars became the "Blind Dead."

As in TOMB OF THE BLIND DEAD, the term "Templar" is eschewed. The characters are called "knights of the sea" in Spanish and "horsemen of the sea" in English.

As with all the Templar films, the score was provided by Garcia Anton Abril. His slow menacing chants, punctuated with groans and screams, perfectly capture the mood of the Templars. In this case, the usual themes are augmented with some effectively eerie high-pitched wailing music, apparently inspired by the screeching seagulls of the title.

DVD DETAILS

The Blue-Underground DVD for NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS includes a theatrical trailer, a posters-and-stills gallery, and an English-language print of the film: that is, the credits are in English (although strangely, the post-prologue subtitle identifying the shift from past to present day, is in Spanish).

The film can be viewed with either the English language track or with Spanish-audio and mandatory English subtitles. The Spanish dialogue sounds almost as dubbed as the English, but it is preferable to the English track, capturing a more accurate sense of the Spanish flavor of the production and omitting the caricatured "retarded" voice for the character of Teddy, the mentally slow man persecuted by the townsfolk. Also, the English subtitles' translation of the Spanish dialogue is occasionally different from the English dub. For example, the English dub tells us that when villagers resisted the Templars in the past, the knights retaliated by killing "women and children"; the subtitled Spanish says they killed "newborn babes."

Although the box cover insists that this is a "definitive edition" containing all the "scenes of extreme violence and nudity," the opening sacrifice seems rather obviously truncated, with brief flash-edits creating awkward jump cuts. Later scenes of violence are also mild compared to the initial two entries in the series, and one wonders whether there is not a more complete Spanish-language print available somewhere.

Another hint that this English-language print is an alternate version is the fact that the film starts with a scene of the Templars performing a human sacrifice while still alive -- like the re-cut English-language versions of TOMB OF THE BLIND DEAD and RETURN OF THE BLIND DEAD. In both of those films, the original Spanish-language versions featured the sacrifice scenes as flashbacks later in the running time, not as pre-credits prologues.

The trailer is also from the English-language version of the film, and it contains much of the best footage (including the Templars' final-reel assault on the doctor's house), along with one of the worst scenes in the movie: when the doctor sets one of the shriveled mummies on fire, the actor is obviously out of character; all his concentration is on trying not to make a mistake as he gingerly applies the oil lamp to the back of the stunt man in the rotted costume.

The image gallery contains some posters, a nice set of German lobby cards, and an extensive number of color and black-and-white stills. Some images repeat, but overall this is a good selection. There are no surprise revelations (no behind-the-scenes shots of sex and/or violence cut from the movie), but there are one or two posed photos of actress Julie James with nothing on beneath her flimsy white nightgown  (unlike the film, which is not nearly so revealing).

THE NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS is available in a coffin-shaped box set that includes DVDs of all the Templar movies, plus a wonderful forty-page booklet called "Knights of Terror," which gives an excellent rundown of the Templar movies and their place in horror film history. The box set also contains a fifth disc with three behind-the-scenes bonus features:

1. "The Last Templar" is a half-hour documentary on writer-director Amando de Ossorio, apparently made for Spanish television. It starts off slow with the usual biographical details about birthplace and early years, then gets more interesting when discussing his films. It includes interviews with Spanish critics and fellow filmmakers (including cult star and auteur Paul Naschy), plus a few comments from Ossorio himself
2. "Unearthing the Blind Death" provides a rare filmed interview with Ossorio, in which he frankly discusses the limitations under which he worked (low budgets, fast schedules, demanding producers, government censorship). It is interesting and informative, but one wishes that some journalist had probed deeper, because sometimes Ossorio raises as many questions as he answers. For instance, the director claims he resisted prodding from his German producer (the Templar movies were co-productions between Spain, Portugal, and Germany) to show more nudity during a love scene in RETURN OF THE EVIL DEAD, because he was afraid of going to jail -- yet the film contains explicit nudity during two gory human sacrifice scenes. One is left wondering if the nude stills available in the RETURN OF THE BLIND DEAD image gallery are indicative of a sexier German export version of the film. One is also left wondering if nudity in the Spanish version escaped censorship because it took place in the context of violence rather than sex.
3. "Farewell to Spain's Knight of Horror" is a special DVD-ROM feature, a reprint of an article written by Mike Hodges upon the occasion of Ossorio's death in 2001. The article covers some of the same ground as the "Last Templar" documentary, but it also conveys a genuine sense of a fan's appreciation for the director's work.