Noemi (Barbara Rey) hasn’t seen her roommate, Kathy (Blanca Estrada), for a few days. Noemi and Kathy are models who work for Lillian (Maria Perschy). When Noemi confronts Lillian, she learns that Kathy and another model, Lorena (Margarita Merino), were hired out to an entrepreneur named Howard Tucker (Jack Taylor) for a secret project.
The project turns out to be a publicity stunt where the girls pretend to be lost at sea. The two girls are in a boat and in constant contact with Howard and his hired goon, Sergio (Manuel de Blas). Noemi talks with Kathy over the radio for a few minutes. The girls report a strange, warm fog coming in. Then they mention seeing a galleon in the fog. The ship hits their boat and Kathy reports that they are beginning to take on a little water. Lorena begins to panic and decides to get off the boat and board the ship where she is killed by Knights Templar zombies. Eventually Kathy goes looking for Lorena and meets the same fate.
Howard has a helicopter look for the girls and the boat. When they can’t find them, Howard hires Professor Gruber (Carlos Lemos), who is an expert in weather phenomenon and dabbles in ghost galleons, to help. Howard, Gruber, Sergio and Noemi take another boat to the area where they last heard from the girls. They run into the same strange fog and find the galleon. In the bowels of the ship are the coffins of a dozen Knights Templar waiting for victims.
“Ghost Galleon” AKA “El buque maldito” AKA “Horror of the Zombies” AKA “Ship of Zombies” AKA “The Blind Dead 3” was released in 1974 and was directed by Amando de Ossorio. It is a Spanish horror movie and the third in a series of four films, done by de Ossorio, known as the “Blind Dead”. The other films were “Tombs of the Blind Dead” 1972 “Return of the Blind Dead” 1973 and “Night of the Seagulls” 1975.
This is probably the least interesting of the series. There are only a few zombies, and they don’t have any swords, or dead horses, which were my favorite aspect of the Blind Dead series. I have the same complaints as everyone else. After how good one and two were, three comes off rather boring. There is very little blood or gore and no nudity but there is a suggested rape scene. It does have the always creepy Templar zombies and a wonderful atmospheric ghost ship but the special effect of the galleon on fire is pitifully represented by an obvious miniature. The best part of the film is the very ending.
The story is a little different from the previous two films. In this one the captain of the Templar ship has discovered the secret to eternal life, such as it is. The ship and crew are doomed to sail the oceans for eternity but in a different dimension. The story takes aspects of The Flying Dutchman tale as well as the Bermuda Triangle theory and weaves them together with a zombie twist. It’s a nice idea but with very little action to back it up.