This scarred and sightless sailor has better vision than everyone else, even though he's a poor musician

Andrew is picked up by Peter (Mark Damon), the other outsider on the island who kept Chris' father company. When we are introduced to Peter's sister Mary (Patty Shepard), she is seen teaching some kids in a decrepit old classroom... and the kids are shown clearly singing a song in Turkish, so that clinched their ethnic identity.

It's not long before Chris releases the entombed vampire on the island, after enlisting the help of the now-slightly warmed up villagers. Blind Abdul Hamid (Frank Brana), who knows how to play only one song on his accordion, gives the standard prophesies of doom... to no avail. (He will go on to exclaim: "You fool, you freed the vampire, and my dog lies dead to prove it!") The writing is on the wall: the skeptical scientist will have to deal with the forces of superstition, once the bogeyman (or bogeywoman, in this case) is let loose.

The vampire is Hannah, identified as the wife of the 13th-century French crusader-king Louis VII; the tomb says she died in 1269, and was interred by her infidel-slaughtering royal fiancé because she was turned into a bloodsucker (once her ship was lost at sea and she and the ship's crew were marooned on this accursed island); Louis shows up too late to rescue her bride, and hasn't the heart to kill her after destroying the rest of the vampires. Therefore, the king has her sealed underneath four tons of marble, where she will lie around for seven centuries, having nothing to do but twiddle her thumbs.

However, from a historical perspective...

Louis VII reigned in France from 1137-1180, having caused his holy terror during 1148's Second Crusade... when he was wed to Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor never sported fangs, as she had her marriage to the dour Frenchman annulled, and wound up as the wife of England's Henry II (what are the chances of a woman being courted by not one, but TWO kings? Even though Henry was just a prince at the time...), later going on to spawn King Richard I (the Lion-Heartand one). So probably the date on Hannah's tomb should have been 1169, and not 1269.

Teresa Gimpera is Hannah, the homecoming queen vampire

Louis IX (1214-1270) would have been the crusader king (he went on the Sixth Crusade in 1248) during Hannah's time, but he was really into the Christianity business (known as Saint Louis) and most likely would have frowned upon allowing a profanely unholy beast from Hell to go on living. As portrayed by Teresa Gimpera, Hannah certainly is easy on the eyes... but her beauty probably wouldn't have carried much weight with her religious fanatic husband-to-be.

There is one interesting point in the film, when Hannah sheds tears... possibly indicating having gone bonkers after many long years of entombment. She's a sensitive vampire... one who walks very, very slowly, and with a semi-smile, most of the time.

Chris displays his puckering-up ability

Meanwhile, Chris falls in love with Mary... in predictable fashion. In fact, Chris has no problem at all in getting the girl, and the resulting romance is pretty unbelievable.... while comfortingly formulaic.

Peter heartily approves, giving us a chance to learn more about the island's past and Peter's failed attempts at being a writer. Unfortunately, for the sake of suspense, the viewers are already aware that Peter is one of the "villains," from the prologue... where he was seen murdering Chris' father, with the help of a one-eyed "wild man" dressed in a woolly suit.

 

 The Spanish production was the last film directed by Julio Salvador, before he passed away in 1974... originally entitled La Tumba de la Isla Maldita (Tomb of the Cursed Island); Ray Danton is the solely credited director, indicating he re-edited this previous version, along with shooting extra footage for the English language version.

In the cast populated mainly by American and Spanish actors, I was curious to see which roles would go to the Turks. After all, the visitors were shooting fairly far away from home... surely some of the people in the movie would have needed to be recruited from among the locals. (And the extras obviously appear to have been from the region... especially the ones who stand around in wooden fashion.)

Adnan's doomed dad

We have a young Turkish character named Adnan, who is seen in one shot with flies disturbingly walking all over him. He is an obvious American, the son of old-time Hollywood actor, Jack La Rue. Then there is the actor playing Adnan's father... one of the vampire's victims who begs his fellow villagers to kill him, uttering the unforgettable phrase, "MY MIND IS GONE!" However, once again, the actor is an American (Edward Walsh)... who received his vampire training as the assistant from the "Count Yorga" films.

Abdul Hamid, the blind sailor, was played by the Spaniard, Francisco "Frank" Braña (who also happened to be in all of the Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood "Man with No Name" movies).

There is a little "subplot" in the film featuring two of the kids in Mary's classroom (among the rest who pretended to understand Mary's English), who are warned not to play in the graveyard. By the way, there must have been quite a few Christians buried in the Turkish graveyard:

The Turkish graveyard

I guess this is where the remains of the 1.5 million Armenians must have been buried... since their "en masse"-acred corpses couldn't be found  anywhere else!

Zora and her worry beads

At any rate, the lead kids in the cast is where Turkish actors were finally allowed to shine... Jem Osmanoglu played the little boy, and Shera Osman appeared as Zora, the fair girl.

However, neither of these children were professional actors, and must have been rounded up from whatever little bodies readily available. Wasn't there at least one professional Turkish actor that the producers could have considered for a somewhat juicy part? Granted, maybe not too many Turkish actors spoke English flawlessly in 1973, but all the other "Turks" in the film spoke with accents... so this couldn't have been an insurmountable obstacle.

After all, in the only heartily "pro-Turk" Western film production I'm aware of... George Lucas' Indiana Jones Chronicles, from 1992... the cast was filled with Turkish actors, speaking very acceptable English. Couldn't CRYPT OF THE LIVING DEAD have given one lousy job to a professional Turkish actor?

Well, there was one meaty role the producers figured could be handled by a Turk.

The Wild Man

The "Wild Man" was played by Turkish actor Ihsan Gedik, and his job was to go around brutally killing people..!