The Day of the Beast

The Day of the Beast (El Dia De La Bestia) (1995)

Runtime: 99 minutes

Directed by: Alex de la Iglesia

Starring: Alex Angulo, Armando De Razza, Santiago Segura, Terele Pavez, Nathalie Sesena

From: A few different Spanish and Italian companies

After literally years, I finally pulled the trigger on viewing this Spanish horror-comedy. The premise sounded intriguing yet for reasons that can’t be quantified, I always put off giving the film a shot until last night. In hindsight, this should have seen around Christmas; the plot revolves around a Spanish priest discovering that the Antichrist will be born Christmas morn—in hindsight, it makes sense for the Antichrist to be born on that date also.

The opening act is our priest protagonist Angel committing constant blasphemy in an attempt to pledge himself to Satan for the purposes of preventing the Antichrist from ending the world. He teams up with a death metal fan working at a record store and a charlatan occult TV show host (no, not Zak Baggins!) to stop this plot during Christmas Eve in Madrid. Now, Angel also believes that the birth will happen in Madrid. It relates to the chaos in the city and how far-right A-holes are spray-painting messages to “Clean Up Madrid” while committing horrific crimes.

There are comments that could be made, but it’s best I take a vow of silence and move on instead!

The movie itself is not blasphemous so those of you religious should not automatically reject the film. That’s unless you are staunchly against comedic deaths, cursing, a rabbit being chopped up by the vile mother of the death metal fan, or an old man constantly nude from the waist down. Day of the Beast is an increasingly absurd, riotous comedy where our ersatz Three Wise Men experience plenty of chaos in less than 24 hours; I dare not spoil anything further-except that this is more comedy than horror, although the latter is usually an undercurrent.

Mix in an interesting-and fitting-& this was a gem that I was a fool for not viewing/reviewing years ago. The film still feels fresh 3 decades after the fact; in the future I’ll check out more from Alex de la Iglesia.