The Ghost Galleon (1974)

Movie Info

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A publicity stunt involving models adrift in the ocean goes wrong and their manager Howard Tucker (Jack Taylor), his employee Lillian (Maria Perschy), one of the girl’s roommates Noemi (Bárbara Rey) , and a scientist named Professor Gruber (Carlos Lemos) stage a rescue.  Travelling out upon sea, they encounter a mysterious fog bank and a derelict ship.  Upon the ship, the group discovers terror in the form of the spirits of Knights Templar…trapped in the Templars’ dimension, escaping the Blind Dead might be impossible!

Written and directed by Amando de Ossorio, The Ghost Galleon (El buque maldito) is a Spanish supernatural B-Movie.  The film is the third entry in the Blind Dead series and follows Return of the Blind Dead in 1973.  It also goes by the titles Horror of the Zombies, The Blind Dead 3, and Ship of Zombies.

I got The Ghost Galleon as part of a fifty movie pack under the title Horror of the Zombies.  I ended up finding a better copy of it streaming on Amazon and watched that with no background of the Blind Dead series.  The film works as a stand-alone, but it also feels derivative and underdeveloped.

Can’t we just play bingo?

The set-up for The Ghost Galleon takes too long to establish and is unnecessarily complicated for what the movie is…the characters really need to be on the ship in a couple of minutes and fill out the backstory (if necessary) later.  There is a kidnapping, a publicity stunt, and of course, treasure and despite a quick appearance by the “Dead” early on, it takes too long for the Blind Dead to start killing people…but even with all the set-up I don’t have much interest in the characters created.

The cast is small and primarily made up of B-Movie actors.  Maria Perschy as the employer who sets off all the problems was Austrian but had done a multitude of American productions.  Jack Taylor (aka the scummy boss) was American but primarily did Spanish schlock movies.  Carlos Lemos who plays the professor gets the “fun” of explaining everything that happening to keep the movie going.  I’d at least expect some really fun death but generally they underwhelm.

Don’t forget to tip your servers

What does work in the film is the Blind Dead.  Night of the Living Dead created a market for zombies, and these creatures are kind of a blend of Romero’s zombies and a ghost movie.  They lurch and lumber toward their victims and their look is kind of frightening…but also a bit quaint since they are obviously actors operating puppet-like skeletons.  It seems like the movie could do better with a halfway scary “villain”.

The Ghost Galleon is fortunately rather short and easy to watch with little focus.  There are much worse low-budget horror movies in the same vein and I do admire Amando de Ossorio for providing some chills (scares would be an exaggeration).  The movie in the cliché “it’s not over” ending, and it wasn’t over for the Blind Dead.  The Ghost Galleon was followed by the final entry of the Blind Dead called Night of the Seagulls in 1975.