Browse: Home / El DIA DE LA BESTIA (1995)

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • Attention Must Be Paid: Hank Worden
  • Disney Byways: "Donald's Golf Game"
  • The Solute Book Club: MILKMAN Discussion (by Essie)
  • The Friday Article Roundup: For All You Sexy Beasts
  • The very late and half-assed end-of-year TV writeup for 2021

El DIA DE LA BESTIA (1995)

Posted By Julius Kassendorf on October 28, 2014 in Reviews | 6 Responses

For the most part, the genre of Christmas Horror is made up of stalkers. Killer Santas and snowmen are par for the course, with Gremlins being the main exception. Nobody ever tackled Christmas quite like Alex de la Iglesia.

El Dia de la Bestia takes place over the course of 2 days before Christmas. Father Cura, a priest and theology professor, has decoded Revelations. He discovered it’s a puzzle revealing the date for the birth of the antichrist, that Christmas. He believes the birth will happen somewhere in Madrid, but doesn’t know where or why or how. In order to figure out where it will happen, he has to sell his soul to the devil. Of course, the devil wouldn’t trust a priest, so he has to taint his soul by committing a crime spree while keeping an eye out for messages that clue him into the universe at large.

The whole movie isn’t nearly as blasphemous as the setup leads you to believe. Sure, it opens with a priest being killed by a falling stone cross in a church, but the film is uninterested in deep philosophical discussion or dissecting religious belief. I don’t think Iglesia has a straight-faced bone in his body. Instead, Bestia is a blackly comic horror movie that is far more interested in mocking the occult than even in mocking Christianity.

Iglesia really displays what he’s good at here, making a movie that plays to the cheap seats. From the beginning of his career, his motto seems to be, “Go big or go home.” With Bestia, he keeps true to his nature by stepping on the gas pedal and never letting it go. There’s a roving gang of Nationalists killing homeless people and foreigners while leaving their graffiti “Clean Up Madrid.” There’s a television occult psychic who sells books on how to contact Satan. There’s an old man who shows up naked from time to time. Iglesia keeps Cura waffling between obsessed and delusional.

When I thought about writing about Bestia, I had been hoping this would have been a Bootleg Discovery. It has only seen an official VHS release in the US, but hasn’t had a legitimate DVD release yet. Even Scarecrow, where I rented the film, only has the film in a PAL/Region 2 format. But, sadly, I can’t even find it on legit streaming websites. It’s a damned shame, because this is one of Iglesia’s most successful ventures, earning him a Goya for Best Director (and being nominated for Best Film).

Go forth and watch. If only because Spanish-Oscar-winning blasphemous horror comedies about the intersection of Christmas and the apocalypse don’t come around that often.

Posted in Reviews | Tagged 1995, Alex de la Iglasia, El Dia de la Bestia, Horror, Horror Comedy, Spain

About the Author

Julius Kassendorf

Julius Kassendorf is the founder of The-Solute, and previously founded The Other FIlms and Project Runaways in 2013. There, he dabbled in form within reviews to better textualize thought processes about the medium of film.

Previously, he has blogged at other, now-defunct, websites that you probably haven’t heard of, and had a boyfriend in Canada for many years. Julius resides in Seattle, where he enjoys the full life of the Seattle Film Community.

Julius’ commanding rule about film: Don’t Be Common. He believes the worst thing in the world is for a film to be like every other film, with a secondary crime of being a film with little to no ambition.

Related Posts

Year of the Month: Désirée I. Guzzetta on the Infectious Complexity of THE HOST→

Guest Review: Lydia Lomeli on X→

Year of the VAMPIRE WARS: BATTLE FOR THE UNIVERSE Previews→

Film on the Internet: SUPERHOST→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    30718 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    26432 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    18917 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    17710 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • Yvonne, or: CASABLANCA In One Character and Three Scenes

    9572 views / Posted August 21, 2014
  • An interesting final role, at least

    Attention Must Be Paid: Hank Worden

    May 28, 2022 / Gillianren
  • One bird yells at another

    Disney Byways: “Donald’s Golf Game”

    May 27, 2022 / Gillianren
  • The Troubles did not do a body good.

    The Solute Book Club: MILKMAN Discussion (by Essie)

    May 27, 2022 / The Ploughman
  • ...or at least Beasts.

    The Friday Article Roundup: For All You Sexy Beasts

    May 27, 2022 / The Ploughman
  • The very late and half-assed end-of-year TV writeup for 2021

    May 26, 2022 / Ruck Cohlchez

Last Tweets

  • Attention Must Be Paid: Hank Worden - https://t.co/Kkahne4RwM, 13 hours ago
  • Disney Byways: “Donald’s Golf Game” - https://t.co/LkKoHd9WiO, May 28
  • THE SOLUTE BOOK CLUB: Join today's discussion on MILKMAN by Anna Burns: https://t.co/MYRnuYJELB, May 27

©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

Menu

  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login
Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!