- Directed by Raffaele Picchio
- Written by Franceso H. Aliberti, Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, Lorenzo Paviano
- Stars Aaron Stielstra, Alice Zanini, Francesca Pellegrini, Jennifer Mischiati
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 27 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSI1WuSbek
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The gore effects are excellent, wet and realistic. This is a sort of sequel to the classic Blind Dead films of the 1970s, but it’s a step down in almost every way. A dull script not saved by the acting or direction.
Synopsis
A possessed-looking pregnant woman is tied to a rack and surrounded by Knights Templar. There’s demonic imagery all over the walls. She gives birth to a normal-looking baby. Just as the priest is about to sacrifice the child, local villagers storm in with pitchforks and capture the Knights. They kill the mother and then one of the villagers kills the baby– on the ritual altar with the ritual knife – so mission accomplished? Does that still count? The five Templars are burned at the stake for apostasy. When the priest warns that they are immortal and will return, the executioner burns out their eyes so they’ll be blind in the afterlife. Credits roll.
As the credits roll, we hear about nuclear war, plague, and lots of other bad things that have happened in the near future.
Michael and daughter Lily wander through the woods looking for food and listening for signals on the portable radio. They’re following a map to a place that the “voice” told them to go. Men rob them at gunpoint the next morning. Some other men kill the robbers and rescue them. They are taken to a big factory, and we see that Lily is pregnant. Kain introduces himself, but he doesn’t know of anything that could have called Michael on the radio.
Kain hints that today is a special day for them, but doesn’t elaborate. Abel, “The Maestro,” is the man in charge, but they can’t meet with him today. When they do get to talk to him, Abel also has no idea where Michael’s radio transmission came from, but he wants them to stay with him and help rebuild society. He says that their arrival was a divine sign. They are drugged and pass out.
Michael awakens, chained in a dungeon. So does Lily, next to another girl. The other girl, Karen, is chained to a rack similar to the girl in the pre-credit sequence. Abel starts his ritual, “Open the gate of fire and free your Knights!” He exclaims.
Then the zombie dead show up, looking very much like men in rubber masks. Back in the dungeon, Michael cuts his own thumb off to escape his bonds as the eclipse proceeds. Karen gives birth to a stillborn baby, but Abel offers it to the dead anyway. The dead are not pleased with this offering and start killing people, starting with Abel.
Lynn comes to Lily in her dungeon and releases her. Kain points out to Michael that the dead can hear them but not see them. That doesn’t stop Michael from screaming for Lily at every turn. There is an interminable sequence of running and chasing. The dead get ahold of Lily, and they want her baby.
The leader of the dead “marks” Lily. Then the sun comes out and the dead all burn up and are gone. Lily and Lynn are apparently the only survivors, so they search the dead people for loot and get ready to leave to find that signal that Michael told us he heard.
Lily shoots some more bandits at another big church. The dying man they find says this is no safer than anywhere else. Lynn finds the automated recording that Michael heard. “There’s nothing here, we hoped, but there’s nothing else but them now,” he says of the Blind Dead cult. “You have the mark; they will come back to claim their child. You cannot escape them,” he warns. As he rants this, someone attacks Lynn.
Lily goes into labor, and there is much screaming. Suddenly, there’s another eclipse and the Blind Dead reappear. The people she found strap her to a rack (I guess that’s just how we give birth now). Lynn takes the baby and offers it up to the Blind Dead Templar leader.
The sky turns red and something bad happens, but we don’t see what.
Commentary
How did a no-budget Italian movie from 1973 have better-looking monsters than this? The acting, or maybe it overdubbing, is truly horrendous. The previous four movies from the 70s are legitimately scary classics– this thing, not so much.
“This is an uninspired and unexciting remake,” Kevin stated about two-thirds of the way into it. At least, I think he said that because I was dozing quietly between slow-paced “chase” scenes.
It’s truly a waste of time.