Their pagan god has given his command: 7 nights, 7 victims, 7 human hearts!
Written and directed by Amando de Ossorio.
AKA
The Bloodfeast of #the blind dead
Night of the Evil Dead
Night of the Blood Cult
Night of the Death Cult
Terror Beach
Don’t Go Out at Night
The Blind Dead 4
Zombi 8
Amando de Ossorio’s fourth and final Blind Dead film about the undead Knights Templar who made their first appearance in Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972).
Night of the Sea Gulls (title at beginning) starts in medieval times. A lost couple encounter Templars who slay the man and take the woman (Susana Estrada) to be sacrificed.
In the present, Dr. Henry Stein (Víctor Petit) and his wife, Joan (María Kosty), move to a coastal town and receive a frosty reception from the locals. At midnight Henry and Joan hear a bell striking and a strange singing sound and go to the beach to investigate. They see a procession of berobed people but thinking it a local custom of some kind return to their bed. The procession is actually taking a young woman to be sacrificed to the revenants who have returned from their resting place and ridden out to claim her.
Joan meets a local girl called Lucy (Sandra Mozarowsky) and gives her a job at their house. They also meet Teddy (José Antonio Calvo) who wants to stay with them as he’s afraid to go out. A girl, Tilda Flanagan (Julia Saly), comes to their house in obvious distress but is taken away by her parents and other locals, the same procession from the previous night. Tilda, like the first girl, is taken to the beach and offered to the revenants who take her back to their temple.
Henry and Joan go to see Tilda’s parents who lie and say Tilda went to the city.
On the third night the locals come for Tilda…
This film is literally dripping with atmosphere. The locations are superb and beautifully shot. I think the cast is great too. The music by Antón García Abril is perfect. I just love everything about this film. I hold the Blind Dead films in very high regard personally as you can probably tell and that’s because I place atmosphere above everything. There is a little gore in Night of the Sea Gulls and it’s full of excellent imagery, a staple of the Blind Dead series.
Interestingly Night of the Sea Gulls was also released as Zombi 8 according to Wikipedia so it’s one of the unofficial zombi series too. Sea Gulls edges towards its conclusion, and indeed the conclusion of the Blind Dead series, in style and it’s a satisfying conclusion that left at least this Blind Dead fan wanting more.
Also stars Fernando Villena as Flanagan and María Vidal as Mrs. Flanagan.
Other films in the Blind Dead Series:
Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972)
Return of the Evil Dead (1973)
The Ghost Galleon (1974)