In truth, the Blind Dead films were always going to be difficult to sustain, but coming less than a year after Return of the Blind Dead, it’s amazing how quickly the quality threshold nosedives. Tombs of the Blind Dead was a slightly wonky but stylish and original take on the undead genre, and whilst Return was largely a rehash of its predecessor, its quicker pace and silly characters actually made it a good deal more fun. The Ghost Galleon demands a viewing largely for its astonishing premise alone, in which a boatload of swimwear models become stranded at sea during a failed publicity stunt and are soon menaced by the Templars (aka the Blind Dead) and their ghostly ship.

With its heady mix of babes and zombies it feels like de Ossorio is aiming this one squarely at the booming European exploitation market, but to the disappointment of masturbators everywhere it’s actually by far the tamest entry into the series. The leaden pacing means it feels like an eternity before the Templars actually turn up to have their way with the boat girls, but when they do the deaths occur offscreen, meaning the bulk of the film is taken up by the none-too-interesting antics of Howard Tucker, “the famous sporting goods magnate” (his words, not mine) who is determined to ensure that the disappearance of the models doesn’t affect his business too badly. None of the characters here are particularly sympathetic, especially Professor Gruber, who for a man of science is amazingly credulous and superstitious.

Whereas Return of the Blind Dead felt like a worthy sequel, The Ghost Galleon feels like a particularly sloppy attempt to spin the concept into a franchise. The previous films both developed – in different ways – the Templar backstory, in a bid to give the creatures a bit of depth and motivation. Here, there’s none of that; de Ossorio presumes that we already know all the important stuff and essentially uses the Templars as little more than monsters. The nautical setting, although effectively claustrophobic, robs the film of the visual sumptuousness that raised its predecessors above their peers; the slow motion shots of the Templars atop their zombie horses were high points of both films, and their absence is keenly felt here.

That said, the ending is absolutely terrific, as the unstoppable creatures rise out of the water to menace the survivors as they lie panting on the beach. It’s a moment that reminds you keenly of the visual flair that de Ossorio showed earlier, and only serves to remind you how dull the preceding 95 minutes have been. The success of the first two Blind Dead films lay in the panoramic landscapes and the intriguing backstory; both are absent here and the film is all the weaker for it.

In the second film, De Ossorio slightly revises the back story of the Templars, stating that they were defeated by some angry villagers who scalded their eyes before burning them at the stake. Fast forward 500 years, and the same village is preparing to celebrate the anniversary of their victory, but the festivities are cut short when the skeletal Templars return, hungry for blood. It falls to a small, motley group of villagers, holed up in the local church, to try and find a way to defeat them.

The characterisation in Tombs was pretty functional at best, but here it’s taken to a literal extreme. The characters are defined only by the skills or traits that will later help them overcome – or succumb to – the Templar onslaught. Thus the hero Jack is, hilariously, a navy captain turned firework salesman; this back-story seems bewildering at first until it becomes apparent that he’s good at organising people in a crisis, and inevitably he’s able to use fireworks to hold back the zombie onslaught. He also manages to convince the mayor’s wife, an old flame, to leave her husband in record quick time, and their public revelation of their affair – in front of the mayor himself – is eye-poppingly cold. The mayor is a fun caricature of a corrupt public official – an obese man in a suit, complete with sweaty brow and bushy moustache – and his devious attempts to save his own skin are great fun.

Once the survivors reach the church, we’re in familiar territory; the character conflict in a confined environment (with zombies!) is lifted wholesale from Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, and the final break for freedom at the end is heavily reminiscent of Hitchcock’s The Birds. But if you’re going to steal, why not steal from the best? De Ossorio directs proceedings with sufficient aplomb that it’s easy to forgive the familiarity of the setup. The Templars themselves remain impressive, and are imbued with sufficient menace to carry the film.

On the minus side, Return lacks the epic scope of the original, and the confined setting means there’s not much variety to keep the viewer entertained. It’s also abundantly clear that De Ossorio’s budget has been slashed, with the shots of the Templars emerging from their tombs re-used from the first film. Ultimately, Return of the Evil Dead is a very minor horror film, but is a worthy sequel to the original if somewhat throwaway by comparison. And compared to the depths that the series would plumb next, it’s a positive masterpiece…

In much the same way that The Blair Witch Project capitalised on its unexpected success by immediately rushing out a sequel, fans of the diabolical ‘Jigsaw’ had to wait for less than a year for the follow-up to Saw. In light of this it shouldn’t be too surprising that Saw II offers up very little in the way of fresh ideas, but should we really have expected anything else? After all, the strength of the original was in watching helpless victims being psychologically and physically dissected in fiendishly cruel ways. Is this enough to carry a sequel though?

I think it is, just about. Saw II is a little more polished than the first, with the same frantic death scenes but this time layered between more a deliberate approach to telling the story. It helps that we actually get to meet Jigsaw this time (Tobin Bell stealing the show), and though the joust between him and Eric Matthews eventually becomes a little tiresome it does add an interesting dimension to the scenario and is the only really interesting point of reference. The attempts to inject Jigsaw’s motivation with a sense of morality are a little heavy-handed at times, but his rationale of human beings living in a cruel world where violence can (and should) be used for redemption as well as to inflict suffering is something to think about whilst people are having bits hacked out of them. As with the original, we have to wait until the dying seconds to find out the full import of his quasi-philosophy but it does flourish into a cruelly ironic finale which makes up for the boredom that occasionally creeps in during the rest of the film.

This time the scares are played out on a bigger stage, with several human lab-rats provided for our titillation in a sufficiently moody house whose resemblance to the Resident Evil games is, I suspect, more contrived than coincidental. Because of the duel-layered plot the goings on in the house often seem to slip away from the attention of the audience for a bit too long, which means that when the nasty bits do kick off it sometimes feels gratuitous. Unlike the original it is difficult to feel any sympathy with any of Jigsaw’s victims which again makes the elaborate trials that are inflicted on them feel a little hollow. The refreshing originality of Saw meant that subsequent films would always be hard pressed to stretch out what is a pretty finite premise. Saw II just about manages to tread water and will undoubtedly keep fans of the original happy for an hour or so.

Though a sequel, there are many who argue that Dawn is superior to Night of the Living Dead. Personally, I’m not sure that I’d go quite that far but there is no contention that it matches up to the level of intelligent, though-provoking film-making established by Romero in his seminal classic. Thematically I’d agree that Dawn is the most interesting entry into the series. Whereas in Night we were given the merest glimpse of the scale of the calamity that was crashing down on mankind, all the signs in Dawn point to eventual ruin. Indeed, within the first few minutes the themes that Romero would use to frame both Day and Land of the Dead were established-hubris, naivety and sheer human stupidity. Despite the astonishing implications of the dead returning to life and killing off the living for Fran’s employers the only thing that matters is keeping up the ratings, and though the red-neck hunting party look pretty secure when they’re fending off zombie stragglers you just know that one concerted attack would see their cohesion collapse.

Romero’s bitterness is obvious in his chronicle. The societal tensions that he dissected so well in Night have gone unchecked almost a decade later and it’s clear that people are just not listening. Whereas in the 1960s race and the demise of traditional sources of authority were the fault-lines, by the 1970s this has been exacerbated by the continuing rise of capitalism followed by the post-1973 crisis of confidence. People have been lulled into a new and false sense of security by their material possessions, and Romero delights in showing how utterly worthless they during his zombie revolution. Peter is the perfect embodiment of this. At first sight he seems most likely to adapt to the gravity of the situation, shooting a member of his own team in order to inject some rationality into proceedings. However, he is also the one who pressures the team into establishing themselves in the Mall, and his final internal struggle with whether or not to kill himself signals his recognition that he’s been utterly seduced and allowed his guard to fall. If even seeming heroes like Peter are flawed what chance of the rest of us got? Romero obviously thinks very little, as the rest of the series shows.

Without Romero’s stylistic prowess the continuity between the initial bleak message in Night and its development here might have been lost but, aside from the tell-tale horrendous hair-cuts, there is an almost seamless link across the spanning decade. This is important as for all we know what is happening to Fran and company is occurring at the same time as Ben and Barbara are trapped in the farmhouse. It is a little mischievous of Romero to offer no clues as to how rapid the descent of man would be, but there is a suggestion that the car that the red-necks blow up was the one that Barbara trashed in Night and the overall cynicism of his message suggests that it wouldn’t take very long. The injection of humour in Dawn is welcome, something underscored by the excellent Goblin score. Again though it feeds into the depression that mankind is bowled over so easily. If the zombies can have custard pies splattered in their faces and the rings stolen from their fingers, why on earth are they kicking the crap out of us? This is something that Tom Savini’s Night of the Living Dead remake touches on (with Barbara literally walking through the zombies to safety) but here the question is left hanging, as is the ultimate fate of Fran and Peter. Apparently Romero wanted an alternate ending where Fran, distraught at Peter’s suicide, stuck her head into the helicopter’s rotor blades and was only thwarted by the lack of technological means to pull this off in style (the cumbersome attempt at the airfield early in the movie is probably the weakest of Savini’s special effects). It is our good fortune that this was the case as the final flight is Romero’s last chance to kick humanity while it is down, offering viewers a fleeting cause for false optimism. For this reason alone Dawn is probably the most accessible of the Dead series and is essential viewing for all, especially those who spend a bit too much time shopping…..

First up, the acting in Revolt has to be some of the worst I’ve ever encountered on film. After ten minutes it becomes apparent that we can expect nothing from the leads – Dean Jagger and Dorothy Stone – and the only character with even the faintest hint of intrigue about him is (with Roy D’Arcy shining in the role) criminally underused. The script is truly awful, feeling as though it has been tacked together by rummaging around at the bottom of a shredder and gluing together the remnants of better movies. The Halperins clearly didn’t really care about the story as such, and contented themselves with devising a plausible scenario on which to ground a White Zombie follow-up. There are some moments of promise here, with the Cambodian mythology scenes offering the briefest moment of hope to those looking for a continuation of the excellent work the Halperins did in establishing the terror of black magic in White Zombie. This is quickly trodden underfoot though, and the heavy-handed love tryst that provides the sedentary core of the story resurfaces. What’s worse is that it’s obvious that the Halperins are trying to emulate the success of their earlier classic by transplanting sections of it directly into Revolt (most obviously in the superimposing of Lugosi’s eyes during the trance scenes); the jilted lover act premise is at the heart of this, but unlike White Zombie there isn’t enough of an internal narrative in Revolt to sustain the leaps of faith necessary for audience engagement.

Lasting only 64 minutes, Revolt of the Zombie feels like an interminable ordeal. The acting is so bad that it transcends ineffectual and becomes genuinely off-putting. Once this happens the threadbare script provides no safety net, and the pointlessness of the plot becomes inescapable. I can’t blame the Halerpins for wanting to cash in on their White Zombie success, but it’s such a shame that they didn’t use the opportunity to develop on the themes that made the original so captivating. Definitely one to avoid.

In between the two Frankenstein films, Whale directed The Invisible Man, a very successful blend of horror and comedy. This more lighthearted approach is self-evident in Bride from the opening scenes, where a woman’s horrified reaction to the monster’s survival is played more for laughs than scares. But whereas the Invisible Man’s invisible-ness lent itself to a certain amount of slapstick comedy (aided by the character’s vicious but snappy one-liners), here it feels rather out of place. Rather than enhancing each other, the horror and the comedy sit rather uncomfortably, as if you’re actually watching two separate films taped together. Worse, the tone of the humour feels all wrong; there’s a sense of conscious self-parody, which is a shame as there’s nothing intrinsically silly about the first film that lends itself to parody. The self-destructive way Whale tears down the delicate suspense of the earlier movie with camp comedy is both sad and petty; it’s well documented that he was reluctant to direct a Frankenstein sequel, but taking the piss on camera doesn’t strike me as being very professional. It also means Bride has dated significantly faster than its predecessor.

This is a shame, as when the mugging stops there’s some really good stuff here that’s easily on a par with Frankenstein. Basically, the plot takes a bunch of storylines from the novel that weren’t used the last time and spins a sequel out of them. This is a sound move, as the novel itself is an underappreciated masterpiece, and it means we get to see gems like the monster’s friendship with the blind man – easily Karloff’s most moving monster moment. Inevitably, Karloff’s just as fabulous the second time round, and even though the actor was opposed to the monster speaking, he pulls it off with aplomb, without detracting from the character’s bruised, awkward tenderness. His tour de force performance also shows up Elsa Lanchester’s performance as the eponymous Bride as being stilted and overly stylised, although her hair shows a clear influence on Marge Simpson. Luckily, her screen time is limited.

As with most Universal monster movies, the whole thing looks tremendous as well, and the climactic sequences with the creation of the Bride are spectacularly compelling. Whale’s direction is more grandiose, and the sets are jaw-dropping, making this a really slick blockbuster. It’s just a shame about the script; the self-mockery doesn’t sit well and cheapens the memory of the first film. I’m not saying horror and comedy can’t mix – the first film had some sublimely comic moments – but the way Whale waves two fingers at the conventions he established isn’t particularly impressive. Obviously history disagrees with me but although I’d recommend seeing it, I’d advise you don’t believe the hype.

Where do you begin with this mess of a film? Primarily, there’s the sense that Nakata and screenwriter Ehren Kruger are making it up as they go along, so listlessly do they pick at imagery and plot points from the previous film(s) before carelessly tossing in new elements. The original was driven by the race against time to solve Samara’s curse before Aidan died; without that countdown, the plot’s almost completely freeform, with Aidan (now apparently channelling Samara) acting as a magnet for all sorts of supernatural phenomena. Cue a CGI deer attack (that’s right) which seems to come from nowhere and head the same way. Frustratingly, this also pushes David Dorfman’s utterly irritating Aidan to centre stage, effectively making this yet another spooky kid movie. Aidan falls ill and is hospitalised, and his mother Rachel is suspected of abuse, until Aidan manages to make his doctor kill herself (in one of the film’s few genuinely shocking moments).

Rachel then decides that Samara’s curse lives on simply because… she just wants a mother who’ll love her. At this point, the movie abandons the Ring story altogether and becomes a complete re-tread of Nakata’s own Dark Water (recently remade in the States… are you confused yet?), complete with spooky running taps and water that won’t behave as it should. Totally illogical, and utterly lazy, Nakata may as well have stepped in front of the camera at this point and apologised for having completely run out of ideas. Anyway, Rachel somehow then finds herself ‘within’ the deadly videotape, complete with pointlessly 2-D surroundings and scanlines, and decides that actually Samara doesn’t want to be loved; she then dispatches her down the well with a single line that brings what remains of the film’s credibility crashing down around its ears. Job done.

Having nailed my colours to the mast as being a devotee of the original film, this film made me reassess my view of Nakata’s work. I still think the original Ring is a visionary, ground-breaking piece, but I’m not so sure about what he’s done since; Dark Water is a great film but very similar to Ring (both in story and style), and the Japanese Ring 2 offered up a reasonably compelling remix of the first film. Ring Two was always going to be a make or break film, and unfortunately he proves himself to be a one trick pony, doomed to retell the same story with diminishing returns (if you include Dark Water, this is the fourth time he’s done it). His boredom is reflected on the screen, and save for a few moments of excitement, is likely to be shared by his audience. Gore Verbinski’s film is way better than this; whether The Ring Two has killed the franchise remains to be seen, but if we get a Ring Three, then some fresh blood is desperately needed.

I’m not going to add to the acres of critical analysis that already surround Nakata’s Ring, but in essence the film success lies in the way it lifts the haunting imagery from Suzuki’s novels and translates it into a compelling ghost story, junking all of the pseudo-science that drags the novels down. Suzuki often seems like he’s embarrassed to be writing horror, and so every fantastical element like a killer videotape has a rather dodgy scientific explanation that’s neither good science nor dramatically necessary. Iida’s problem is that he works far more slavishly to Suzuki’s novel than Nakata, making The Spiral more of a medical thriller than a horror. In an astonishingly boring interview on the DVD, Iida explains that he was far more interesting in treating the story as science fiction rather than horror and it shows. The book’s problems are magnified on the screen; “science gone mad” rather than scares is the order of the day, but it comes across as contrived rather than interesting, with characters in lab coats making leaps of logic that even the 60s Batman series would have winced at. And ultimately, it’s not all that interesting; revealing the video virus to be a mutation of smallpox may be more credible, but it hardly as arresting as a scraggy black-haired woman lurching out of the television.

But despite this, The Spiral is not a bad film. Put aside the silly science and there’s an interesting human drama that’s played out; Andou’s guilt over the death of his son leads him to a terrible moral dilemma, but interestingly, the implications of his decision don’t become clear until the end of the film, long after he has made his choice. In a nice nod to Ring’s conclusion, the ending is quietly devastating, and beautifully played out. The performances are solid if unspectacular, and there’s some great Sadako stuff, even if her appearance and use here is entirely at odds with how she appears in Ring. In fact, despite The Spiral following directly on from Ring, there’s very little continuity between the two films; one suspects that Nakata and Iida never compared notes during filming, and unfortunately for the latter, it’s made his film all the easier to drop from from the ‘Ring Cycle’.

Ultimately though, as someone who approached the film having been wowed by Nakata’s film and the power of the overall concept, it’s hard not to be disappointed by The Spiral, and although in itself it’s nowhere near as bad as its history would suggest, it’s still a very minor film. Nakata’s own Ring 2 is a whole lot better – although basically a rather messy remix of the first film’s imagery, he at least realised that the imagery is the centre of the story’s appeal, and the key to translating the novels successfully onto the screen. Frankly, after the legendary conclusion to Ring, talking heads in a lab simply doesn’t cut it.