| Night of the Seagulls | |
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Original Spanish poster |
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| Directed by | Amando de Ossorio |
| Produced by | José Ángel Santos |
| Written by | Amando de Ossorio |
| Starring | Víctor Petit, María Kosti Sandra Mozarowsky |
| Music by | Antón García Abril |
| Cinematography | Francisco Sánchez |
| Editing by | Pedro del Rey |
| Distributed by | Blue Underground |
| Release date(s) | 26 July 1976 |
| Running time | 98 min |
| Country | Spain |
| Language | Spanish |
| Budget | ESP 8,853,877 |
Night of the Seagulls (La Noche de las gaviotas) (1975) is a Spanish horror film written and directed by Amando de Ossorio. The film appears to have been inspired by the work of American author H.P. Lovecraft; in particular, the ominous inhabitants of an isolated fishing village, where an ancient fish-god is worshipped, suggest "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and "Dagon". Also, the explanation of the film's cryptic title has echoes in Lovecraft's work: in the movie, we are told that the seagulls seen and heard flying at night are the souls of the virgins who have been sacrificed to the Templars; in Lovecraft's story "The Dunwich Horror", we are told that whippoorwills call out at night when someone is dying trying to capture the soul as it departs the body.
Like The Ghost Galleon, Night of the Seagulls contains no explanation for how the Templars became the "Blind Dead". As in "Tomb of the Blind Dead", the term "Templar" is eschewed. The characters are called "knights of the sea" in Spanish and "horsemen of the sea" in English.
This film also inspired a song by the New York Oi band The Templars, and a song by UK doom metal band Cathedral.
The film is the fourth and final in Ossorio's Blind Dead series.
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The film starts in medieval times, when a young couple is attacked by Templar knights. The man is instantly killed, the woman is carried away to the Templar's castle where she is sacrificed.
The story then continues in the 20th century. A doctor and his wife are moving into a very primitive coast town, where they are met with distrust and hatred from the locals. It doesn't take long before the doctor and his wife find out that the town harbors an ancient evil: Every seven years undead Templars will ride from the sea for seven consecutive nights to demand the sacrifice of a young maiden. The doctor and his wife then try to save one of the maidens, Lucy from her horrible fate, aided by the local village idiot.
Night of the Seagulls has not received a "rotten" score at Rotten Tomatoes, but has a 17% audience share, with 52 people that "want to see", and 246 people "not interested".[1] the film holds a rating of 5.6/10 at the Internet Movie Database.[2]
The film has received positive reviews in online websites. Blood Brothers Film Reviews mentioned that "the series ended on a strong note and this was a nice sendoff to our memorable blind dead characters who would be put to rest indefinably" and has rated the film 2.5/5.[3] Eatmybrains.com has said the film "conjured more moments of genuine horror chemistry than its successors, regardless of the budget", and gave it a rating of 3/5.[4] Passportcinema.com has said that "it isn't anything you haven't seen, but it is one of the better ones in the series.[5] Gutmunchers.com has said that "this movie didn't disappoint and is a wonderful end to the series".[6] Popcornpictures.co.uk has described the film as "a brooding horror flick which delivers the goods with both visual shocks and more spine-tingling moments", and that "although not a patch on the original couple of films, it's still a quality sequel to a series which really does deserve alot [sic] more respect and fame that it gets".[7]
Night of the Seagulls has been released on VHS and DVD format. The Blue Underground DVD includes a theatrical trailer, posters and stills gallery, and an English language print of the film: that is, the credits are in English (although strangely, the post-prologue subtitle identifying the shift from the past to present day, is in Spanish). The film can be viewed with either the English language track or with Spanish-audio and mandatory English subtitle. The Spanish dialogue sounds as dubbed as the English, but it is preferred to the English track. Also, the English subtitles' translation of the Spanish dialogue is occasionally different from the English dub. Although the box cover insists that it is a "definitive edition" containing all the "scenes of extreme violence and nudity", the opening sacrifice seems obviously trunched, with brief flash-edits creating awkward jump cuts. Later scenes of violence are also mild compared to the two entries in the series. Another hint that this English-language print is an alternative version is the fact that the film starts with the scene of the Templars performing a human sacrifice while still alive - like the re-cut English language versions of Tomb of the Blind Dead and Return of the Blind Dead. In both of those films, the original Spanish language versions featured the sacrifice scenes as flashbacks later in the running time, not as pre-credits prologues. The trailer is also from the English language version of the film, and it contains much of the best footage (including the Templars' final-reel assault on the doctor's house), along with one of the worst scenes in the film: when the doctor sets one of the shriveled mummies on fire. The image gallery contains some posters, a set of German lobby cards, and an extensive number of color and black-and-white stills.[8]
The films was also released in a coffin-shaped box which contains all four blind dead films, plus a forty-page booklet called "Knights of Terror", which gives an excellent rundown of the Templar movies and their place in horror film history. The boxset also contains a fifth disc with three behind-the-scenes bonus features: "The Last Templar" - a half hour documentary on writer-director Amando de Ossorio, which was made for Spanish television. It contains his biographical details, and interviews with Spanish critics. The second is "Unearthing the Blind Dead", which provides a rare filmed interview with Ossorio. And the final is "Farewell to Spain's Knight of Horror", which is a special DVD-ROM feature, a reprint of an article written by Mike Hodges upon the occasion of Ossorio's death.[9][10]
As with all the Templar films, the score was provided by Antón García Abril. His slow menacing chants, punctuated with groans and screams, perfectly capture the mood of the Templars. In this case, the usual themes are augmented with some effectively eerie high-pitched wailing music, apparently inspired by the screeching seagulls of the title.[11]
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