The Ghost Galleon
(El buque maldito, 1974)

Amando de Ossorio

Spain

90 min, color, Spanish (English subtitles)

Review © 2005 Branislav L. Slantchev

This is the third rendition of the pretty damn cool idea of the blind Knight Templar that de Ossorio has done, and it is still clear that the original inspiration can fuel an atmospheric horror film with enough success to keep it a cult classic thirty years after it was made. This is the weakest of the Blind Dead quartet, as any fan would readily admit. (There is some disagreement about which one is the best. Many like the first, Tombs of the Blind Dead, but I find the second one, The Return of the Evil Dead, to be much more satisfying.) Still, in terms of sheer ambient and style over substance it is miles ahead of other contenders in the Eurotrash genre.

The cutthroat world of bikini modeling	Post-feminist patriarchate

In this variation on a theme, de Ossorio opts to move the blind mummified knights from the Portuguese country side to the ghost ship of the film's title. Unfortunately, this leads him to sacrifice some of the best aspects of these walking dead. On the galleon, they are confined to close quarters, which means there can only be ten of them instead of the multitudes that stormed and wiped out the entire village before. They are horseless too here, and that's a problem because it makes them look a bit pathetic instead of menacing on account on them not being the most agile of the supernatural evil beings. They also do not have enough room to wield their awesome swords, and as a result they mostly walk around in a desultory fashion and occasionally drag a semi-naked female into the bowels of the ship.

Please, come and kill us!	What any sane person would do

This, too, turns out to be somewhat of a departure from the original idea, and it is to its detriment as well. Whereas the knights killed their victims where they found them (and if they were pretty women, they also drank their blood right there and then), now they go through all this elaborate trouble of dragging (or carrying) them around, then decapitating them at a precise spot, and then eating their flesh. Yes, that's right, with this third episode, the knights have finally evolved into traditional zombies. Recall that in the first two, they drank blood which they needed for their satanic rites that ensured their somewhat Spartan longevity. Now they are not averse to nibbling on flesh, and it makes the whole thing ludicrous (that's of course presupposes that the other ones were not).

What happened to simple motor skills?	Why do all these films have a rape scene?

Case in point: the whole idea of stranding the knights on a 16th century galleon. This is inspired by the Flying Dutchman legend insofar as it involves a ghost ship, a curse, and the Dutchman who is mentioned as their master. On their way back from the East (why they would be stranded in the North Sea instead of the Mediterranean remains a mystery), the knights sort of fell afoul of the Pope who excommunicated them. This should not have been much of a problem for devil worshippers, and the Pope has been known to excommunicate much more exalted personages who never turned into flesh-eating undead. But for some reason the curse worked this time, and now they roam the seas.

Kathy exploring the ship	The blind dead about to explore Kathy

This roaming is also a bit mysterious because the knights started in during the 8th century and yet acquired the ship only 800 years later. Perhaps their ability to walk underwater explains it? At any rate, they are stranded in another dimension (I am not making this up), and their galleon only appears shrouded in fog to small vessels whose crew they can capture and use for sustenance. If this sort of thing strikes someone as poor planning, I must agree: just how many small vessels can they capture at random in order to survive in their zombie ways? Obviously enough, for not only have they survived but some mice have made it too!

Second guy from right sucking his stomach in	Kathy's vertiginous one-foot drop

Before we get too academic on this, I just want to emphasize why this bothers me so. I am too willing to suspend disbelief, so I have no issues with walking dead, curses, ghost ships, and even the occasional slaughter of the innocents. But I still insist that things happen for a logical reason that has a cause and effect structure. In other words, I can buy the most fantastic premise and the most twisted logic that leads to the events depicted in the film, but I still want it to make sense. And this whole backstory made none, which is why (in addition to the subtraction already made because of the modifications to the knights environs) I do not like this entry all that much.

Ah, the good old very friendly times when roommates hung around in lingerie	Two out of three dentists agree: having white teeth makes you a tempting templar prey

It all starts in the usual exploitative fashion. As a publicity stunt, two pretty women, Kathy (Blanca Estrada) and Lorena (Margarita Merino), are left in a small boat somewhere in the North Sea. Kathy's friend, and model, Noemi (Barbara Rey) gets suspicious about her missing room-mate and confronts the modeling agency boss Lillian (Maria Perschy) who is forced to divulge the secret. When Noemi goes with Lillian to some warehouse to verify that Kathy is indeed alive and well, disaster strikes, even if at first it's not obvious that it is anything dreadful. Kathy and Lorena encounter the galleon in the fog, and then break radio contact. Until Lillian and the owner of the factory whose publicity stunt this is, Howard Tucker (Jack Taylor) attempt to verify their last known location, Noemi is tied up to prevent her from going to the police.

The last moments of Noemi	What do you mean you don't like my haiku?

What follows next had me entertain high hopes for Noemi's probability of survival in the film: she gets raped after a clumsy attempt to escape which involves her losing simple motor skills and being unable to unlatch a gate that any chimp would have a field day with. As I have discussed previously, in the prudish world of Spanish horror, not having sex or being forced to have sex is usually enough to render the potential victim an ultimate survivor. Unfortunately, my theory fell apart here but I must plead extenuating circumstances for Noemi did not seem all that much bothered by the rape afterwards: when forced to go on the search & rescue operation with her kidnappers, she sunbathed in her bikini in close proximity to the rapist.

Dude, where's my sword?	A tense moment before a temporary escape

Having done the unspeakable to Lorena, the knights make mincemeat of the hapless Kathy who herself manages to break her legs in a fall from a whooping one foot. The women getting immobilized quickly for no apparent reason is a recurrent theme. First, Noemi starts crawling with no excuse whatsoever (unless I am unaware of the motive importance of one's throat; perhaps her getting choked for a while somehow explains her lost ability to move her legs... maybe there is also the parallel with the earlier choking she experienced at the hands of her rapist, Sergio (Manuel de Blas). Then, the plucky Lillian (who is afraid of mice but has no trouble plotting to kill two people to cover up the initial tragedy) also loses locomotive control just when the knights stumble after her. At least she is saved by the guys whose problems only involve lack of the grey matter rather than brawn.

Flammable zombies, beware!	The power of the budget compels you!

The would-be rescuers have brought along professor Grüber (Carlos Lemos) who knows suspiciously much about ancient legends, curses, and proper exorcism procedure for an oceanographer. He is the typical caricature of the learned scholar: bookish, brave despite himself, and usually ignored but almost invariably proven correct in the end. In this instance, he manages to drive back the knights once by burning a cross, and then hits upon the idea of dumping their coffins in the ocean as a way to break the curse. Unfortunately, despite his theory of magic-breaking is proven correct, he cannot survive. Satan (or whoever it was that the knights worshipped) causes the galleon to catch on fire, and the little toy model is burned in an bath-tub apocalyptic inferno that is too obvious to be anything else but funny. It's not that the others are safe: did I mention that the zombies can't drown because they are already dead? No. Well, I should have, and the professor at least should have known too. So everybody pays for their collective stupidity.

The 'Pirates of the Caribbean' trick	Bunch of strung up surfer dudes

Even though it's the weakest of the four films, The Ghost Galleon is entertaining enough to warrant repeat viewings. Forget the scantily clad models who get devoured by the knights, they are not all that interesting. The ship (when not shown from a distance that reveals its toy-store origins) is pretty neat, and the knights are awesome in the fog even though the get less screen time than in the previous film. The Blue Underground DVD is stunning. The picture is presented in a remastered 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen that is gorgeous to look at. This particular film used to be available only on very muddy VHS bootlegs, so I have never seen it like this. It's absolutely worth it, and belies the limitations of its puny budget. We only get the 90 minute version though (I hear the original cut was a good 16 minutes longer), but at least we have the option to listen to it in Spanish (mono, I did not care to check out the English dub), with removable English subtitles. There are some extras on the disc as well: in addition to the trailer and the photo gallery, we get some hilarious U.S. promo clips for the film under it's drive-in title Horror of the Zombies. Definitely something any fan of Euro horror should own.

December 11, 2005