dayofthebeast

It's Christmas 1995. After decades of studying the bible the catholic priest Angel Berriatura is certain that the anti-christ will be born on December 25 in Madrid. He doesn't know the exact time and place though , so he sets off for Spain's beautyful capital. As soon as he arrives he starts acting pretty improperly for a man of the church. He doesn't care much for a car crash victim , but instead whispers to the dying man that he will rot in hell just seconds before he passes away with terror in his eyes. The priest goes on with stealing from the poor and scratching cars with his keys. As a final flattery to evil (in order to bring him closer to the devil) , he enters a record store to buy the most satanic Heavy Metal records it has to offer. The somewhat confused clerk , a huge and typically dumb headbanger , befriends the priest and takes him to his place.

Together they set out to find the place where the devil's son will see the light of day. They find another ally ( after abducting , torturing , and almost killing him and his girlfriend) in Prof. Canvas, a host for a tv show about all things wierd and supernatural. The threesome perform a satanic ritual that contains the usual ingredients like pentagrams , the blood of a virgin, and acid pills for the lack of mushrooms. And lo and behold , Satan appears before them in the shape of a really evil looking goat ! Now that convinces even the sceptical Canvas , and off the three are to stop the Lord of Darkness. But the heralds of the apocalypse - a group of vigilantes who brutally kill the city bums - are already running wild in the streets. Are the priest and his friends too late?

Director wunderkind Alex de la Iglesia had to face highest expectations for his follow-up to his wild and extremely successful debut feature Accion Mutante. And boy , he didn't dissapoint ! Day of the Beast did not only top Accion at the box-office , it's also much better in many ways. The all too well-known story of the anti-christ's coming is told surprisingly fast-paced and fluently , whereas Accion Mutante was rather episodic. Every time Day is about to get lost in predictability Iglesia's typical sense of dark humour saves the day. Iglesia also wisely decided to stay away from slapstick this time (except for the wonderful sequence that is strongly reminiscent of Harold Loyd's infamous tower watch scetch) and instead lets the wierd but always good-hearted characters carry the humour. But the movie does not only make you laugh , it also delivers some quite memorable shocks like the scene where the bum is set on fire and tumbles down in front of the preacher , and gets downright creepy in the final minutes.

Some viewers may be dissapointed by the end twist which reveals that the priest was wrong and that the whole devil sightings were to blame on the bad acid the three dropped during the ritual. But if you think about it for a while you'll see that this is not only the most logical (OK, logic shouldn't matter much in a horror film) but also the most satisfying ending as it turns the whole film in retrospect from a horror/comedy into a satire about people who completely forget about real life in their search for the 'truth out there'. I guess we all know who they are.