Day of the Beast (El día de la Bestia)

  

Day of the Beast (El día de la Bestia)

1995

Director-Álex de la Iglesia

Cast- Álex Angulo, Armando De Razza, Santiago Segura, Terele Pávez, Nathalie Seseña

From Spain

            

     This ranks as one of my favorite films partly because of its creativity but also because how well it walks the line between horror and comedy. Many films try and they end up being neither funny nor scary. But Day of the Beast succeeds.

            

    Father Angel is a priest who has discovered numerological clues that predict the birth of the Anti-Christ. He plans to stop the birth, but though he knows the time (Christmas), he doesn’t know the place. He plans to sell his soul to the Devil to find out, but first he has to convince Satan that he’s one of the boys. Father Angel sets about on a spree of sin which brings him in contact with Josia Maria, a fan of heavy metal, particularly the Satanic variety. They decide that they need expert advice so they kidnap “Professor” Cavan, a television psychic and self-proffered occult expert.

           

   

   Cavan, who tries to convince the duo that he is really a fraud, begrudgingly helps Father Angel set up a ceremony to sell his soul. To the surprise of everyone the Devil shows up in a particularly scary scene. The trio then set about trying to find the birthplace while being chased by the police for a murder that Father Angel committed while trying to get his hands on some virgin’s blood. The movie culminates with another meeting with the Devil which is scarier than the first.

            

    As previously stated, Day of the Beast has quite a bit of humor. It begins early in the film where we see a priest squashed by a giant cross. Much of the humor is obvious slapstick but there is also a fair amount of social satire. A gang of murderous vandals are spraying graffiti and murdering people but the trio keep looking for supernatural hints, perhaps implying that we look for invented evil when real evil is right in front of us. The setting of Christmas Eve night results in some interesting juxtapositions of music and imagery.

       

   It was directed by Álex de la Iglesia wh oas directed several occult films including Dance with the Devil and Witching and Bitching and produced the excellent Erementari.   Day of the Beast’s greatest strength is its compact cast.  The characters are interesting and the actors sell their performances, especially Alex Angulo who seems so earnest in his desire to do bad things. Josia Maria approaches the madness of their quest with glee. Professor Cavan, a charlatan by profession, becomes an obsessive believer. These three “wise men” will keep you engaged as the story unfolds. A well done film.