[critical] The Day of the Beast

The priest Ángel Beriartúa has decoded the Gospels and is able to determine the day of the birth of the Antichrist. According to this message, the Antichrist will be born on December 25, 1995 in Madrid, where he starts a wave of vandalism and crime.

On the other hand, it ignores all of the place where he will come to the world. Convinced that it is necessary to stop the birth of the satanic, the priest is joined to a fan of death metal, Jose Maria (Santiago Segura), try by all means to find out where the event will take place. It will, therefore, make every effort to discover it, seeking to attract the favors of the Devil. In a Madrid excited, it’s going to find two companions to help him in his task : the hard rocker José María and professor Cavan.

Author’s Note

[rating:7/10]

• Release Date : July 23, 1997

• Directed by Álex de la Iglesia

• Movie Spanish

• With Alex Angulo, Armando De Razza, Santiago Segura

• Duration : 1h43min

• Original title : El Día de la bestia

• Trailer :

Comedy horror Spanish done by the one who will be at the origin of Perdita Durango and The Crime Farpait, The Day of the Beast followed, a duo highly unlikely a priest of the basque country and a fan of heavy metal in a quest of the Antechrist : we will understand in the plain reading of this pitch that the treatment of the film is highly absurd. And do not be mistaken : multiple replicas very shifted as the scenes that are all the same come as the film to emphasize the madness that hugs the main characters in the face of “simple” people during the Christmas holidays.

However, the opposition between these oddball characters and “normality” is not the simple expression of humour in this film : some of the secondary characters are just as much up to the boutistes in their reactions (aggression, naivety, etc.) and other scenes saw outright farce (the scene in the stairway). However, we did not deal with a simple comedy in which horror would only be the excuse to swing and gags and situations incongruent. Mastering the codes of a genre film, De La Iglesia sets up an atmosphere of worrying throughout the foil which will hold often the viewer in suspense : we wonder all the time if the film is not going to pay in the gore or real horror.

I don gâcherai not have the pleasure of viewing, revealing how far this film goes, but we shall nevertheless be able to detect that behind this amalgam of humor, barred and horror is hidden a social message which tends to be more disturbing without doubt that the subject of the film itself is filled with very often the “institutions” of the targets of the Devil and the end of which will open to another reading of this whole absurd, more “social” than free.

Of course, we should not expect a photograph worthy of production in the united states because of the origin and age of this film, but this film is a UFO welcome in european cinema. On the Day of the Beast allows you to play with the religious universe, metalheads and institutional (media, etc) in a recess horrific and very funny, and deserves a widely watched in the second degree that this kind of film suggests.