(1971)
Dir - Miguel Madrid
Overall: MEH
There is a lot going on in Miguel Madrid's The Butcher of Binbrook, (Necrophagus, Graveyard of Horror); too much in fact, which makes its silliness increase tenfold as things plow along. Formulaic, Euro-horror nonsense is present such as the same tiny handful of stock musical cues played over and over again, said musical cues popping up arbitrarily and being cut off at a dime due to the slap-dash editing, American dubbing that makes every performance preposterously melodramatic, shady family members held up in a creepy castle, a greedy/physically unappealing graveyard keeper, (good ole lazy-eyed Víctor Israel), loosey-goosey scientific experiments, blaring noises showing up every time that a different character enters a room, a deformed monster that looks like a child made his mask out of rubber and plastic, plus more camera zooms than Willie Nelson has blunts. Madrid's story is hilariously convoluted as if he had a quota to meet by throwing in so many characters and schemes as to leave the audience on the edge of their seat instead of howling at how nonsensical it all is. Some weird moments are produced here or there though and when the awful music shuts the hell up, Madrid can build a mild level of suspense with creepy noises and startling scenery.
(1973)
Dir - Victor Erice
Overall: GOOD
The debut from the highly sporadic filmmaker Victor Erice The Spirit of the Beehive, (El espíritu de la colmena),
is a renowned work in Spanish cinema and one that very tenderly
portrays dread through childlike imagination. Sneaking past the
Francoist censors by way of exclusively subtle symbolism towards the
right wing government, it is no accident that the film is set at the
tail end of the Spanish Civil War where a small, well-to-do family in a
remote, countryside village go about their existence with a barely
penetrable aura of melancholy. As the adults seem preoccupied with
nostalgic longings, their two children are brought up in a world of
poisonous mushrooms, deserting soldiers, and sporadic visits from a
traveling movie theater company whose showing of James Whale's seminal,
1931 Frankenstein casts a particularly potent spell on the
youngest, played wonderfully by seven year old Ana Torrent. Erice's
tone is incredibly deliberate; very little happens in the film yet the
viewer still feels that the younger characters could be in danger at any
moment, if not from death, than from some sort of mental
vulnerability. Those familiar with the subdued, arthouse presentation
will feel much more at home here than genre hounds who are clamoring for
immediate reveals, but it is quite beautiful stuff in any capacity.
(1976)
Dir - Gonzalo Suárez
Overall: MEH
Moody with fittingly subdued performances and a somewhat aloof narrative, Beatriz is a less sensationalized bit of Euro-trash than most. Director Gonzalo Suárez and screenwriter Santiago Moncada adapt Ramón del Valle-Inclán's story "Beatriz y Mi hermana Antonia" about a Countess' home invaded by a witch's curse, a mysterious Friar, and rapist bandits. The supernatural elements are underplayed as a servant girl sacrifices the soul of her Lady's daughter, (the title character played by Sandra Mozarowsky who is oddly not the main focus), which are inconclusively portrayed to be the work of the Devil. It has the usual exploitation elements of women being nonchalantly abused, coupled with religious dogma taken as factual by vulnerable people in such a period, isolated setting. It is difficult to grasp the movie's themes though as it never lands anywhere profound and just goes from scene to scene in a repetitive fashion where very little happens besides a young boy trying to get people to take him seriously, his sister sick in bed and then inexplicably in love with the aforementioned friar, and of course random outbursts of rape. It is photographed well by Carlos Suárez and has more of an arthouse presentation than an unintentionally silly one for low budget genre exports of the era, but nothing more than that.
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