The People Who Own The Dark

The People Who Own the Dark (Ultimo Deseo) (1976)

Runtime: The version I saw was 83 minutes

Directed by: Leon Klimovsky

Starring: Alberto De Mendoza, Paul Naschy, Teresa Gimpera, Nadiuska, Emiliano Redondo

From: Several Spanish companies

I explain why below this was something watched by me; some love it but I could only say it's in the middle of the road. Note that it's from Spain:

Here is a movie I discovered via an article on Blumhouse's website a few months ago concerning obscure horror titles you can watch on Amazon Prime/Amazon Video. Turns out, there are many old obscure titles that can be streamed on Amazon either for free (if you're a Prime member, that is) or for only a few bucks. That makes it a nice compliment to sites like Netflix and Hulu; between those three there's a great variety. The reason why I watched this now is that in a few days it will be leaving Prime; I presume it'll be gone from Amazon Video for good but that's just a presumption. This is a Spanish horror film; I've seen a few in my life, albeit years ago so that's why they weren't reviewed here on Letterboxd. As with most Spanish horror of the past, Paul Naschy is in the cast.

The plot: some rich folks and some ladies “hired” come to a castle where things get all Eyes Wide Shut. Before anything real nasty could begin, though... nuclear war! This is shown via what appears to be an earthquake in the castle; otherwise, things look normal and you don't see anything leveled/destroyed, except for a lack of a lot of people. It was a low-budget production so I can't really carp about that. The big hook is that those who were outside when the bomb hit weren't killed but they were blinded, and somewhat understandably, the blind people start becoming crazy people. In fact, I've heard this compared with The Crazies, and that's what I'll go with.

Eh, this is average in every which way. Things happen, not all of it making sense (at times if you wonder if the blinded suddenly developed Daredevil powers), the hedonist characters aren't always the most likable and again, it obviously has a low budget. Still, I can at least say it's average as the performances are at least fine, it is a creepy plot and there are creepy moments; in addition, where else can you hear someone say, “Yeah, and the Easter Bunny sh*** jellybeans!”? The fact that it came from the guy who was dubbing Paul Naschy made it all the better.

I've seen some people heap a lot of praise on this and I've also seen some hate. As I sometimes do, I am right in the middle. At least Code Red released it on disc in the United States so if you ever wanted to see this... also, I have to note that I saw the shorter American version, which was brought here by none other than Sean S. Cunningham, who I understand later disowned the movie. I think that there is other better Spanish horror to see (I am looking at Tombs of the Blind Dead here) and if you want something with a similar plot, either see the original The Crazies or the remake.