This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

The trailer for this film severely undersells it. In it, a bevy of shrieking young ladies are endlessly faced with stumbling hordes of skeletal, cowled zombies. The truth is, there is far more to the film than that.Having said that, there are a collective of briskly-dressed girls paraded before us, rarely more so than in the opening shot of three models enduring a photo-shoot orchestrated by a woman in the most extraordinary trousers. She conducts the session whilst smoking, reminding/informing us that little takes place in the 1970s without the accompaniment of a cigarette.Noemi (Bárbara Rey) is concerned about her missing friend, who is on an engaged in a secret publicity stunt on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Having been made aware of this, Noemi is kept prisoner in a bunker until the stunt is over, and she proves to be one of the most wonderfully uncooperative hostages ever. President of the company responsible for all this is Howard Tucker, played by Jack Taylor, who would feature the following year in Franco's 'Female Vampire'. And yet the story mainly concerns that friend, Lillian (Maria Perschy) who, whilst looking for her departed companion Lorena (Margarita Merino) discovers a deserted galleon in the midst of the ocean fog. The galleon is represented by the most charming model, draped in dry ice. It is easy to notice the 'limitations' of special effects from a film from this time, and yet despite that, there is a genuine feeling of unease as the creaking old vessel is explored in a seemingly alternative world of perpetual darkness.Thanks to the trailers, the creatures – the Blind Dead, or Knights Templar – are hardly a surprise, and yet remain hugely effective and creepy, with their withered claws, rotting cowls and dead-eyed skulls. Resting in dusty caskets, their appearance is often enhanced by ghostly chanting on the soundtrack. Filthy, decaying cadavers, they remain unglamorous frighteners to this day – and there are loads of them! There is no escalating tension to their scenes, indeed apart from the monk-like accompaniment, there is no thumping score to accentuate their menace – instead, their relentlessly sluggish deliberation is conducted in silence, creating a very ethereal style of torture and death – if there is such a thing! This is the third (and strangely, the least successful) of four Blind Dead films that form a loose series. Inspired in part by the success of 1968's 'Night of the Living Dead', these films were part of the Spanish horror boom of the early 1970s.

The third of the Blind Dead movies is also the worst. Unlike the previous two entries it is not scary for a moment and doesn't conjure up much in the way of atmosphere.At the beginning of the film three swimsuit models are being photographed by a woman who refers to them as "Chico, Groucho and Harpo". This may be the movie's most memorable scene. Another model arrives and demands to know what happened to her roommate. Apparently the girl has been sent with another model on a boat out into the ocean for a publicity stunt. She and her partner can claim to have been "lost at sea". Uh huh.The girls come across the "ghost galleon" of the film's title and decide to board expecting to find help, despite the fact that the boat looks like something out of the middle ages. For as much time as the movie spends aboard the boat, very little of it is actually explored. Why don't the characters just take a quick look around, surmise that there is nothing usable on the boat, and get off again?The girl's roommate, the bitchy photographer, a kooky academic and a couple of other people set out to find what happened to the girls and also end up trapped on the boat. The blind dead are sleeping off the previous night's killing in coffins in the ship's hold, but soon are trying to kill the remaining characters as well, while they try to make it through the night and attract the attention of passing ships.I'm not sure why this movie didn't work. I think it mostly has to do with the setting. The ship is not interesting, and apparently the filmmakers knew that, because we see so little of it. We never get a sense of it as a place that we can imagine protecting as with the church in Return of the Evil Dead, the previous movie in the series.It is a tradition for the Blind Dead films to save their best moments for the end. In the Ghost Galleon, it is far too little, far too late, and I wasn't scared as much as relieved that I didn't have to spend any more time on that bloody boat.

Plot Synopsis: Sporting goods magnate Howard Tucker sends two models in a speedboat into the Atlantic for a publicity stunt. Contact with the pair is lost, but not before they report being stuck in a fog & coming into contact with a 16th Century galleon. Along with another model, his modelling agent, a henchman & a scientist, Tucker organizes an expedition to find the missing models. They board the galleon where they encounter the blind zombies of the Knights Templar, who were banished to the sea for devil-worship.Film Review: The Ghost Galleon (known in some countries as either Ghost Ship of the Blind Dead or Horror of the Zombies) is the third film in Spanish director Amando De Ossorio's Blind Dead saga. The original film, TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD, was one of the finest zombie films that Spain has ever produced, only matched with the relatively recent effort REC.In keeping with the series' tradition, The Ghost Galleon is less a sequel than an outright remake. As was the case with all the sequels, the rules are changed with each film – here the Knights Templar are devil worshippers who are condemned to sail the seas for eternity.None of the films in the Blind Dead series particularly stand out in terms of script quality, but the writing for The Ghost Galleon is noticeably shoddy. One may get past the idea of a platoon of zombies roaming the seas in a derelict ship, but the idea of a salesman sending a pair of models in a speedboat into the Atlantic shipping lanes for a publicity stunt is ridiculous to say the least – what is the point of this? The models aren't displaying anything & only have a small boat to stay in. Not to mention the fact that the visual effects shown here are ridiculously unconvincing, with the model galleon shown in wide shots being a toy model, while the coffins being thrown overboard look like small Tic-Tac boxes painted brown & being dropped into a pond.The characterisations are, for the most part, decidedly mixed. Jack Taylor & the scientist both switch their opinions as soon as they get on board the galleon – the scientist at first dismisses the idea but later displays remarkable knowledge of the subject & has some practical skills at exorcism. Taylor, on the other hand, has a staunch disbelief of the supernatural that becomes more absurd the longer things go on – even being on the ship, he still doesn't believe it.Despite the poor writing & shonky effects, The Ghost Galleon does manage to entertain, having a modest atmosphere. The shot of the zombies rising from their coffins to the accompaniment of some chanting is undeniably creepy (although the scene might be undermined by the fact that the chanting does tend to sound hysterically funny, especially during the opening credits).

So if you're walking into this film expecting a blood-bath, vicious massacre, you will be disappointed! But if you decide to come in with an open mind about grind-house films, this just might fit your bill. It was screening at the New Beverly on grind-house night and I managed to catch it on a double feature before the House that Vanished. A pretty standard concept, a girl vanishes on a boat, her sister and her friends go to find her and they get sucked into the world of the zombies. I must admit though the whole time I was rooting for the zombies only because it seemed like the characters wanted to die.. With outrageous effects, cheesy liners and slow pacing, I slated this film a four because it was entertaining to watch especially in a theater. Whether the director intended on the film being funny is another story, but boy were the audience laughing that night!