i bought a cheapie double feature anchor bay disc a while back that has the first two "blind dead" films on it, and it reminded me that i'd already seen the fourth one on one of those tape-to-dvd brentwood communications discs a long while back.
while these movies have a certain charm, especially the first one, they're also filled with REALLY HORRIBLE effects work, and can tend to drag at times.
i don't know who thought this particular bit up, but i have to respect that these zombies don't have eyes. i mean, why would they? i understand that when you're in zombie territory, you're already dealing with an exceptionally tenuous premise, but if you think about it, it's funny to see all of these bright-eyed zombies in romero flicks.
I think the first one is quite excellent, the ending was especially nice. I havn't seen the sequels.
the second one wasn't really much worse than the first one, it just contained a lot of footage from the first movie, and if i remember correctly, some of the scenes of the zombie knights getting lit on fire were really poor.
Nothing beats the look of the Templar Zombies and concept of only being able to hear you and not see you. Slow motion horseback riding zombies from the grave. I've only seen the first two and the last one on the ship. The last was was the weakest of the bunch, but the ending is awsome looking at the Templar rise from the sea. Would like to find the 3rd film someday.
the third installment isn't difficult to get ahold of. blue underground just put out a four-disc boxed set in the shape of a coffin, and the third film can be found on the brentwood communications "pray for death" two-disc set, which also includes "sisters of death", "the satanic rites of dracula", and "werewolf vs the vampire women".
admittedly, on the brentwood disc, it (and the other films) looks pretty bad, but the set is considerably cheaper than the four-disc boxed set.
A few years ago, I had TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD and RETURN OF THE BLIND DEAD on VHS. I'm hoping to pick up the DVD boxed set (in the coffin-shaped package) at some point, but it's not at the top of my "gotta have it" list right now.
(http://movies.monstrous.com/pictures/Mummy_Movie_Monster_25.jpg)
Here's an image for those who haven't seen these great films from Spain. I do have 3 out of 4 of the films on DVD.