El Dia de la Bestia (The Day of the Beast) Review

Movie: El Dia de la Bestia (The Day of the Beast)
By: Orlok666
Date: April 13, 2011

The Day of the Beast is upon us!

The Day of the Beast is upon us! Get rid of all your lousy Mayan calendar predictions! The day of days will be on the 25th of December (*cough* 1995 *cough*)! While it's 2011 now and the world is still doing it's turns around the sun 1995 did left us with good a horror / comedy by director Álex de la Iglesia.

Premonition

A priest (Álex Angulo) storms into a church asking for forgiveness for all the sins he is going to commit for he intends to act as sinful as he can and thus attract the devil. Why? He deciphered a code that indicates that the day the Antichrist will be born is coming soon. And that the devil is working in less mysterious ways that his adversary becomes clear in the very first scene where a priest is robbed from his life. It happens in a macabre humoristic way that will set the mark for the rest of the movie.

How to become a sinner?

First of all go to some major city (Madrid), rob cripple beggars of their money, give a dying man his last rites by saying ‘I hope you rot in hell!’ and don’t forget to give those freaky looking mime artists a little push. Next stop: a record shop filled with heavy metal stuff sold by death metalhead José María (Santiago Segura). Our priest gets a cassette and a concert flyer of the band Satannica handed over and picks up some books on the occult as well. When our priest Angel and metalhead José run into each other again the priest decides to ask José to help him to sell his soul to the devil and they both decide to kidnap the cheeky tv-occultist Cavan. They need him aiding them in their mission to stop the Antichrist from being born. The quest to find the place where the Antichrist will be born makes the trio climb down Cavan’s apartment, go through a heavy metalclub (aptly called ‘Infierno’) and finally finding the place the mark of the devil leads them to…

Dynamic trio

The sinful priest, the childish metalhead and the over the top tv-occultist make a perfect group that doesn’t fully know what they’re doing. The whole movie is filled with a sort macabre black humor often caused by the priest at first when he starts stealing people and finds other ways to do evil. Next to that José’s family is quite a dysfunctional one with a bossy mother and a apathetic granddad that keeps walking around naked. Also sensationalistic tv-occultist Cavan is a caricature and he’s selling an image to his tv-crowd. This trio is the core of the movie and they work perfectly together. Álex Angola plays Father Angel as a bit of a fumbling priest that suddenly has to commit lots of sins to be able to get in contact with the devil and is truly funny in the movie. Also Santiago Segura is great as the naïve and childish metalhead José that just loves to be on the roll with the ‘evil’ priest. He’s really funny throughout the movie and a moment for him to shine is when they hold Cavan hostage in his own apartment and José is playing around with the African masks and it becomes clear that he’s the man when you need a drug of any sort! Armando De Razza as Cavan has a bit more of a serious role as the occultist but he takes it well over the top while providing room for Angulo and Segura to shine.

Horror & humor

The movie is filled with black humor and weird situations that come by in order to call upon the devil and all the measures that are needed for it. The horror lies mostly in the story itself, the atmosphere of Madrid and some more absurd and violent scenes. Apart from the opening also a scene where Cavan goes into a store to buy some drinks is a brilliant display of death and a morbid humor going hand in hand. As time progresses Madrid becomes more and more violent and this also goes for the movie. It gets more dark and violent as the time of the birth is approaching. Stores brutally robbed, people are getting beat up in the streets and set aflame by gangs. The end did feel a little rushed and left me a little bit unsatisfied regarding to what the movie was building up to. That aside it still it gives a great example of a darkish horror with some twisted fun! This excellent movie really makes me looking forward to Álex de la Iglesia’s latest effort: ‘Balada triste de trompeta’.