THE PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK (1975)

MATT’S REVIEW:

“Post-Apocalypse brings out the worst in everybody.”

My fellow ShockMarathoner, Tom Scalzo, uttered these soon-to-be famous words during the screening of The People Who Own the Dark, a film that threatens to delve into the realms of hardcore pornography before settling as a slight variation on the zombie film.

That’s right, if someone were to watch the first ten minutes or so, he’d think he was being set up for something resembling the famous party in Eyes Wide Shut. Having read the synopsis of the film at the video store, we were quite surprised by this setup. “I thought this was about blind people who go crazy,” I said. “Me too,” said Charlie. Oh well, if we had to settle for the goings-on in a basement of pleasure, so be it!

Just before things get going in this basement, however, some sort of nuclear catastrophe strikes every human being in town blind—except for the revelers in the basement. From there, the film essentially becomes a zombie picture, only the zombies are blind people.

From what I gleaned from the movie, the radiation merely made everyone blind—not crazy. However, every one of these blind people is mad! I mean like crazy mad! They so resent the few citizens who are still able to see that they want to kill them. I don’t get it. Don’t you think reason would prevail among some of the blind folk? That someone would be able to maintain order in this unfortunate, yet not altogether hopeless situation?

Apparently not. The blind people are out to kill the main characters and that’s that.
One of those main characters, a portly gentleman, soon finds himself unable to handle the psychological impact of what’s happened in the world. He deals with this problem by adopting the behaviors of a dog. That’s right. For the remainder of the film, he walks on all fours, barks, and eats his meals off a plate on the floor. DogMan, as we affectionately dubbed him, was nominated for Best Supporting Actor—no small accomplishment. For you see, Best Supporting Actor is traditionally the most competitive category of all the ShockMarathon Awards.

If you haven’t guessed already, this movie is Spanish. That’s a major strike against it. And it never really recovers from its foreignness. The shocking ending is pretty good, and I liked DogMan. But overall, The People Who Own the Dark is below average.