Amando de Ossorio Rodríguez

Amando de Ossorio (6 April 1918 – 13 January 2001) was one of the foremost Spanish horror film directors during the European horror film surge in the 1970s, known especially for his "Blind Dead" tetralogy. Biography De Ossorio directed a short political film in 1956 called The Black Flag, then spent the next few years doing documentaries and commercials. He was also a talented painter and artist. In 1964, he was hired to direct a few innocuous westerns and comedies, then he moved into horror in 1969 where he made his mark with Malenka, The Vampire's Niece. Amando de Ossorio complained in interviews that right from the start of his directing career, his producers were always tampering with his projects. His first horror film, Malenka, The Vampire's Niece (1969), was written to be a psychological thriller about a young woman who inherits a castle in Europe and is summarily driven crazy by her uncle who tries to convince her that he and she are both vampires. At the end of the film, the uncle's scheme is revealed and explained by her boyfriend to be a hoax. However, after de Ossorio finished the film, the producers decided to make the uncle an actual vampire in the English-language version, and added a low-budget disintegration scene to the finale of the English-dubbed prints that completely contradicted the plot. In 1971, de Ossorio came up with the concept of The Blind Dead, a cult of blind, undead Templar Knights who sucked human blood, rode skeletal ghost-horses and were attracted to their victims by the sound of their heartbeat. The first film, Tombs of the Blind Dead, was so successful, he immediately embarked on a career as a Euro-horror film director. Three more "Blind Dead" films followed in quick succession....Return of the Evil Dead, The Ghost Galleon and Night of the Seagulls.