The Day of the Beast (1995)

MARCH 31, 2021

GENRE: COMEDIC, RELIGIOUS
SOURCE: 4K UHD BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I vaguely recall reading about The Day of the Beast (Spanish: El día de la bestia) in Fangoria back in the mid-90s when it was released, but at that time I was still a good Catholic boy going to church every week, so its sacrilegious subject matter would have scared me off (longtime readers know I didn't even watch The Exorcist until I was in college). But now that I have a different view on organized religion, in particular Catholicism (long story short: if it works for you, great! I'm just gonna be the best person I can be and hope for the best), such elements don't phase me. Also, I'm aware that this particular film has been hard to find in the US, with some fans resorting to VHS quality bootleg DVDs, so I am tickled that it jumped a format or two and has been released on 4K UHD by the good folks at Severin.

(While we're on the subject: how about a 4K Cathy's Curse, Sev? Maybe in ultra high def it'll make sense?)

Ironically, after watching the movie I came to the conclusion that had I watched it as a teen, I not only might have liked it more, but it also might have sped up my exodus from committing nearly two hours of my weekend to going to church every week (I'm counting travel time). The plot is wonderfully inventive: a priest believes that the Antichrist will be born that evening (Christmas Eve, in fact) and thus begins committing horrible sins in order to invoke the devil, just so he can kill him and save the world. Along the way he teams up with a metalhead and a phony TV personality who writes about the occult, and the unlikely trio try to find signs and perform the necessary rituals in order to prevent the destruction of mankind in their own roundabout way. It's violent, very funny in spots, and ultimately (spoiler for 25 year old movie ahead) ends with the message that devoting one's life to Christ will leave you with nothing.

I mean, I don't think it's that dire in reality, but the sentiment of how thankless it is definitely rings true. When you add in all of the terrible beliefs they still try to impose on their members (i.e. "homosexuality is a sin") while routinely covering up ACTUAL sins like the sexual assault of children, not to mention the fact that living by their rules more or less confines you to a life of boredom (if you steal your neighbor's newspaper or shout "I hate you!" at your parents if they ground you, and die before confessing, you'll burn in Hell for eternity. Seems reasonable!), you realize that this is not a particularly great organization to revolve your life around when it's the only one you got. Alex de la Iglesia (ironic name!) takes it to the extreme here, yes, but again: the general idea is right on point.

As a movie though, I wish I liked it a little more. It starts off kind of amazing, with our hero Cura (Álex Angulo) telling his plan in secret to a fellow priest, who agrees to help him but is then crushed by a giant cross. We then watch Cura commit several crimes around the city, from petty theft (from a homeless guy) to what might be murder, as he approaches a street mime that is perched on a railing and tips him back, having him fall however far to whatever landing is below. Honestly I could have watched 90 minutes of this, but the damn plot has to get in the way and spoil things, and by that I mean he stops sinning at random and begins actively trying to invoke the devil with a ritual. Some of this stuff works fine (there's a great sequence where he attempts to extract virgin blood from a woman at the same motel, while the lady who runs it tries to stop him with a shotgun), but the film never quite reaches the outlandish highs of its first ten minutes.

It also takes a while to get to one of its best character beats. We know that Cavan, the aforementioned TV guy, is full of shit when we first meet him, but part of the fun is him not only gradually realizing that the Devil is real, but also becoming more assertive than Cura with regards to the "save the world" plan. At a certain point Cura gets disillusioned, but Cavan - who was beaten and kidnapped so Cura could force him to help - keeps fighting the good fight and even figures out the key piece of information on his own. The third guy in the trio, the metalhead who assists Cura throughout, never really does much of anything and is borderline annoying after a while (there's a bit where he keeps laughing and seemingly trying to kill himself, dragging out the sequence for eternity), so I couldn't help but wish it was just a two-hander between Cura and Cazan, giving the latter a little more time to shine.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a pretty good movie (and the transfer is immaculate, should go without saying), but after I saw and enjoyed Witching & Bitching a while back, everyone kept telling me that it wasn't anywhere nearly as good as this, and this was his masterpiece, etc. (even de la Iglesia himself says it's his best film), so maybe I was just expecting a little more. And again, perhaps I waited a bit too long to see it, not only for what it might have inspired in my own personal belief system, but also because I've been spoiled by an additional 25 years of content that also bastardizes these ideas. The Preacher comic (I didn't watch the show), movies like Dogma and mother!, and the aforementioned real world issues have already desensitized me to the idea of bastardizing their ideas. Also, even though this movie barely qualifies as horror in my eyes (the filmmakers call it one, so I follow suit), the pre-Scream mid-90s was hardly a high point for the genre, so it might have gotten a little boost simply for being unique at a time when such things were in perilously low supply, which again won't help it much *now*.

There's a full length documentary called Herederos de la bestia on the included standard Blu-ray (the UHD disc only has the feature, an annoying practice but the one the studios will be going with, I guess) which gets into that stuff a little bit, including the fact that Pedro Almodóvar was asked to produce but he chickened out over the content. But most of it is your standard retrospective documentary, about de la Iglesia's prior accomplishments, the casting, the issues with shooting in Madrid on their budget, the not-great critical reaction it got when it premiered, etc. There's a brief but lovely tribute to Angulo, who passed away a few years ago (in a car accident; unless I missed it the doc doesn't explain how he died), and some insight from other Spanish filmmakers like Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, so it's a well rounded doc and a nice complement to the feature. Severin also offers one of the filmmaker's old shorts titled Mirindas Asesinas ("Murderous Mirindas") that also stars Angulo, as well as a handful of interviews (including one with de la Iglesia), though I should note all but one are in Spanish (as is the doc) so if you're not fluent you better keep your reading glasses handy if you want to go through all of them.

Severin has also released de la Iglesia's followup Perdita Durango (released in the US in a cut form as Dance with the Devil), so fans of the filmmaker should be stoked that they're finally being given a proper presentation here. He's an interesting guy no doubt, and thankfully jumps around genres (sometimes within a single film) to keep things fresh for both himself and his audience, but the tradeoff is that not every movie is going to click. I was hoping to like this a little more, but it was still good enough to keep wanting to see what else I've missed (and no, I haven't watched 30 Coins yet, you don't need to comment! My queue is endless and I'll get to it... someday?). I'll always prefer to not connect to something from a filmmaker who is swinging for the fences than see something completely forgettable that's right in my wheelhouse (i.e. a slasher I can't remember a thing about a day later).

What say you?

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