Night of the Seagulls (La Noche de las gaviotas) (1975) is a Spanish horror film written and directed by Amando de Ossorio. It was also distributed on video as Night of the Death Cult or Don't Go Out At Night!. The film appears to have been inspired by the work of American author H.P. Lovecraft; in particular, the ominous inhabitants of an isolated fishing village, where an ancient fish-god is worshipped, suggest "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and "Dagon". Also, the explanation of the film's cryptic title has echoes in Lovecraft's work: in the movie, we are told that the seagulls seen and heard flying at night are the souls of the virgins who have been sacrificed to the Templars; in Lovecraft's story "The Dunwich Horror", we are told that whippoorwills call out at night when someone is dying trying to capture the soul as it departs the body.
Like The Ghost Galleon, Night of the Seagulls contains no explanation for how the Templars became the "Blind Dead". As in "Tomb of the Blind Dead", the term "Templar" is eschewed. The characters are called "knights of the sea" in Spanish and "horsemen of the sea" in English.
This film also inspired a song by the New York Oi band The Templars, and a song by UK doom metal band Cathedral.
The film is the fourth and final in Ossorio's Blind Dead series.
Famous quotes containing the word night:
“Haven’t you heard, though,
About the ships where war has found them out
At sea, about the towns where war has come
Through opening clouds at night with droning speed
Further o’erhead than all but stars and angels
And children in the ships and in the towns?”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)