Horror of the Zombies otherwise known as The Ghost Galleon is the third movie in the Blind Dead franchise and presently the lowest rated on IMDB.

I loved the first film, I found the second rather disappointing and this deserves its place as the lowest rated.

It tells the story of two women out on the ocean who run into a huge galleon. Upon investigating they fall afoul of the Blind Dead and their employers come looking for them.

The ship setting was a great idea and had limitless potential but sadly the whole thing is a real sorry swing and a miss.

For a start everything looks shoddy, the sfx have taken a step backwards and look terrible. The ominous charm of the franchise is all but gone and truth be told very little actually happens and our ocularly challenged undead friends are barely on screen at all.

I can't believe such a great franchise is nose diving so badly, I can only hope the finale ends it on a high but it's not looking good.

The Ghost Galleon is a weak entry and an all round pretty lame film.

The Good:

Some great ideas

The Bad:

Timeline is still confusing

Very dull

Lacks everything that made the first movie so effective

Some beyond bad sfx

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

A petrol fueled motor boat cannot move out the way of slow moving incoming traffic

Religious scientists, still the most baffling oxymoron

El Buque maldito suffers from several alternate titles, perhaps distributors fear a stigma if it is out in the open about being the third of the Blind Dead movies? Amando de Ossorio delights those that follow the Blind Dead series with a third installment. I have to admit those pesky Templars seem to end up just about everywhere by the time you've made it through the fourth installment. This review deals with the cut version, as I have been unable to locate an uncut version as much as I would like to find it. Special effects are adequate although the ghost ship that is the Templars' residence this time is severely lacking. The sets themselves are decidedly creepy and evocative. Given, most hardened viewers will not find themselves terrified by the lumbering skeletons and may well ridicule the slow moving protagonists in this film. By today's horror standards the Templars are not the most threatening but make up for their snail pace by just being patiently tenacious. Dubbing is a disaster in this film, all foreign horror films for the 70's and 80's get the royal raspberry treatment when it comes to dubbing. The lines are delivered dead pan and generally seem more concerned with matching lip movement than conveying plot points. Anyone familiar with the Blind Dead mythos will most likely figure out there's more going on within the ship than just the Templars randomly killing. I assume the sacrifice scenes ended up chopped out of the release I watched. The film has its weak points as well as strong. None of the characters are particularly likeable, although all the females are decidedly attractive. Apparently Ossorio decided to spice the weaknesses of the film up by distracting the male audience with eye-candy. The plastic ghost ship in the bathtub may cause humorous howls from the more FX sensitive.

The film is atmospheric and conveys dread with an even hand. The camera work is excellent throughout. More than anything else the film is purely hamstrung by budgetary constraints. The confined space of the galleon apparently reduced the budget but not near enough to cover all the bases.

If you enjoyed Amando de Ossorio's previous Blind Dead films this one should not disappoint. Others may find the film too slow moving and come away disappointed.

note: this review is of the US release version, titled HORROR OF THE ZOMBIES and released by Independent-International. While this is part of the famous Spanish "Blind Dead" series, it has little to do with the others and has a completely different feel. The ancient zombies do appear, but this time they are at sea in a plot that reminded me initially of THE PLAYGIRLS AND THE VAMPIRE. There's not much gore and except for one ugly sexual attack (committed by one of the human cast, not by a zombie), there's little here you couldn't show to a 12 year old. In fact, this is really an old-fashioned zombie film--an abandoned old Spanish galleon that seems to exist in another dimension is stumbled across by two young models on a publicity stunt in the sea, and it turns out to be populated by the Blind Dead. The whole film plays like an amusement park haunted house--the kind where you cruise through it in a boat and are exposed to shocking sights, zombies flying out at you, etc. I found the film wonderfully entertaining on that level. I don't really care for gore films, so I found the tame nature of the film to be refreshing. The two "stars" in the film (in other words, NOT the models or the professor who is enlisted to help in the mission) are old favorites of international b-movies, Jack Taylor (legendary for his Mexican horror films and Spanish films of all types) and the lovely Maria Perschy, and like most established actors who find themselves in these type of films, they manage to keep a straight face yet communicate that they are having as much fun as the audience. Some viewers have complained about the many cheap-looking miniatures used for the ship, but they are well-done in an old Republic Picture serial kind of way, and those who cannot go beyond today's computer generated effects need to get a little "willing suspension of disbelief" and have some fun. Overall, this is a wonderful, old-fashioned zombie film that is quite unlike the rest of the Blind Dead series in tone and in amount of gore. You can still find the VHS of the US release titled HORROR OF THE ZOMBIES for next to nothing used (mine cost 99 cents), and except for not being letter-boxed, it's supposedly the same cut as that now being sold on a new Blue Underground DVD.