Return of the Evil Dead (1973)

Original title: El Ataque de los Muertos sin Ojos

Director: Amando de Ossorio

Writer: Amando de Ossorio

Composer: Anton Garcia Abril

Starring: Tony Kendall, Fernando Sancho, Esperanza Roy, Frank Brana, Jose Canalejas, Loreta Tovar, Ramon Lillo, Lone Fleming

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Have they heard your heart beating?

Plot: 500 years after they were blinded and executed for committing human sacrifices, a band of Templar knights returns from the grave to terrorize a rural Portuguese village during it's centennial celebration. Being blind, the Templars find their victims through sound, usually the screams of their victims. Taking refuge in a deserted cathedral, a small group of people must find a way to escape from the creatures.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

de Ossorio gets a few points for creating some great horror baddies in TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD () but with this picture, the first of three sequels, he's made a better film. The first one suffered with too much time spent doing much of nothing but here he's got stuff going on constantly with the characters, and there are several, engaged in trying to survive with one failed attempt after another.  Abril's great music is back and so are the badass Templar Knights.  One thing I really dig about these guys is that there are a bunch of them.  You'll need to forgive, though, their unusual ability to go from efficient killing machines to incompetent boobs that can't break through a door or boarded up window.  But hey, you get the Spanish Stephen King!

RETURN is a more effective horror film than the first one and it's made better with de Ossorio taking what was good from it and making it better.  Here's hoping the other two films hold up as well.  The fantastic Blue Underground coffin box set comes with all four films (that so far look great) plus a fifth bonus disc (I won't go through the extras until I've seen all four pictures).  This disc, like the first one, offers both the original film in Spanish (with English subs available) and the English dubbed version which is four minutes shorter.  So far I've only watched the original Spanish films so I don't know what, if any, differences there are between the English dub and the Spanish dub.  It also comes with the theatrical trailers and a movie poster & still gallery.