Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Curt Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

jadavix In this superior sequel to "Tombs of the Blind Dead", the templars attack an entire village celebrating a festival commemorating their disposal hundreds of years ago. The body count is thus much greater than the first movie, which featured only a small band of heroes and anti-heroes against the skeletons on horses.The violence is also much increased. This version features an impaling, a limb being hacked off, and in one particularly memorable scene, a beheading. The festival-attack scene is nowhere near as violent as it could be. I guess it is harder to use those kinds of special effects the more people are on screen? Either way, it is not until the end that the movie turns really violent.It is also not until the end that the movie turns scary. If you watch a lot of horror movies, you know genuine fear is actually a rare emotion to feel during one's runtime. Like the original, Return of the Evil Dead manages genuine tension thanks to the impressive set up the movie ends with, and the minimalist, heart-pounding soundtrack. It is scarier than the original, and in my opinion, superior.It also features a moronic, monobrow-having halfwit who reminded me of Gotho from Paul Naschy's Hunchback of the Morgue. The scene where he sticks his head out, only to be beheaded, unbeknownst to the lady he is trying to save - until blood starts flowing down his arm - is a work of art.One thing that makes this movie more effective is its refusal to bow to the same old morality lessons Hollywood movies always feature (it is Spanish). Everyone knows that in mainstream American films, if a character acts brave, or puts themselves on the line for another, that character will survive the situation. In Return of the Evil Dead, they don't. This ups the tension, because you can see they're not playing by the same rules we're all familiar with, and you really don't know what's going to happen next.

Michael_Elliott The Return of the Evil Dead (1973) *** (out of 4)The second film in the series starts off by showing villagers taking the Templars and tying them up. Before killing them they burn their eyes out making sure that the Templars will never be able to find their village. Flash forward hundreds of years and the village is celebrating their win over the evil men but soon the dead Templars rise from the grave for revenge.The first second to TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD isn't a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but director Amando de Ossorio does a nice job at giving fans what they wanted. It seems that the director saw what was good in the original film, the Templar knights, and gave fans much more of them. Not only are the knights given a lot more screen time but they also make sure that there are many more victims to be slaughtered.The violence, which is missing in the American version of the film, is certainly one of the reasons to watch the film as there are some pretty graphic moments including a woman being sliced open and drained of her blood. It gets even gorier when a knight rips out her heart and eats it! There are several murders like this but along with the gore the director gives us that atmosphere that was so rich in the original movie.THE RETURN OF THE EVIL DEAD also has its share of flaws including a rather dicey pacing, which drags the film at times but it's still very much worth watching.

melvelvit-1 The second in director Amando de Ossorio's "Blind Dead" series sees a horde of fifteenth-century Knight Templars rise from the dead to take revenge on the town that poked their eyes out and burned them alive centuries before... I saw Amando's first entry, TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD, on WOR-TV's "Fright Night" (Saturdays at 1am) as a teenager back in the '70s and even then I knew these films were most likely edited but I never expected the gore I got last night. My letterboxed DVD of RETURN (nice print, too) was English-dubbed but a couple of parts were subtitles only and it's interesting to see just what was excised for US television (and possibly drive-in release) at the time. The flashback where a Knight Templar sacrifices a woman by tearing her heart out and eating it would never fly on the tube back then and neither would the bare breasts. Speaking of WOR-TV in the "Me Decade", I also saw the ghost of SCTV- the fat mayor and the town hunchback reminded me of John Candy & Eugene Levy in "Dr. Tongue's 3D House Of Stewardesses" and another character was a lot like Levy's Ricardo Montalban impression. That said, the robed, rotting Templars galloping slo-mo in the misty moonlight was genuinely eerie. Undead fun, for sure.

Jonny_Numb It is hard to deny Amando De Ossorio's talent behind the camera--the man knows how to make even the most foreboding locales postcard-pretty. His writing, on the other hand, is a different story..."Return of the Evil Dead" is essentially a plot less rehash of "Tombs of the Blind Dead," with a liberal helping of "Night of the Living Dead" thrown into the mix. I don't have a problem with movies borrowing from each other, but "Return" is so bereft of story and interesting characters that the whole thing becomes kind of tedious. While "Tombs" didn't really spring to life until its impressive climax, Ossorio does a much better job integrating the resurrected Templars into the film--mostly filmed in mid- and long-shots set against dark sets, they exude more menace this time out (also drawing attention away from their creaky marionette movements); problem is, the action scenes revolving around the Templars go on far too long, diluting their presence. And underneath the surface, there isn't much going on here--a bunch of forgettable, cliché characters hole up in an unusually well-lit church to hold out against the Templar menace--subplots involving a greedy Mayor, a jealous lover, and a lost child ensue. Ho hum. To "Return"'s credit, the opening Templar slaughter is effective, as is a suspenseful child retrieval scene, and the climax is chilling. Too bad everything in between is beautiful to look at but aesthetically mediocre.