The Ghost Galleon

The Ghost Galleon (El Buque Maldito) (1974)

Runtime: 90 minutes

Directed by: Amando de Ossorio

Starring: Maria Perschy, Jack Taylor (RIP), Barbara Rey, Carlos Lemons, Manuel de Blas

From: Ancla Century Films/Belen Films

RIP Jack Taylor. I know many won’t recognize the name but those well-versed in old European genre movies-usually directed by Jesus Franco-you’ll likely be familiar, and be saddened that he passed away on the 12th at the age of 99. What little I’ve seen of Franco, he’s best described as “hit or miss” with my esoteric tastes & I’ve viewed the infamous Pieces before. However, as a kid I’ve viewed the first two films in Spanish director Amando de Ossorio’s Tombs of the Blind Dead tetralogy of films-the cut versions-and the full versions as adults.

This was a good time to finally view the third in the series. In brief, the lore is that a sect of Knights Templar became cannibals and were executed, crows plucking out their eyes. They (the director thought of them as “mummies” more than “zombies”) rode horses at night to kill.
In this installment, they rode on the titular ghost galleon, an appropriately spooky wooden ship from centuries past. How the ship is first introduced is preposterous: Taylor is a businessman involved in sporting goods who hires a pair of models to get stranded on one of his boats in the middle of the ocean… so that they can get rescued by a ship passing by! No, I don’t get it either.

Furthermore, that plot thread also includes another woman who has sapphic feelings for one of the models, and she’s kept hostage so the scheme isn’t revealed, and she’s unfortunately sexually assaulted. Sleaze was also in the first two movies; my biggest issue: how dreary the film is. “Somnambulistic” is another good term. All the characters-including the one played by Taylor-are just so dull and flat.

The mood & atmosphere are so good, that does plenty of heavy lifting to make the Galleon not a complete waste of time. Unfortunately, for my tastes the movie is too boring, the presence of actual exciting moments in the final act notwithstanding. Franco Files (my term for fans of that director) can better tell you which Jack Taylor films are the “most exciting”; I can say that Pieces is wildly entertaining if not technically “good”; Taylor played a supporting role in that insanity. Tombs of the Blind Dead and Return of the Blind Dead-the original cuts, not any edited versions-are well worth tracking down, IMO. One day I’ll check out the 4th and final in the series, the bizarrely-named Night of the Seagulls.