This obscure piece of Spanish horror had been very hard to find until just a few years ago with its DVD release.  The only film by director Claudio Guerin, who either fell from or jumped from (depending on who you listen to)the bell tower used in the movie on the last day of filming, this little film is undeniably influenced by Luis Bunuel, Salvador Dali, and others in the surrealist film movement.

John (Renaud Verley) was forcibly committed to an asylum by his aunt after his mother died mysteriously so he wouldn’t “waste” his inheritance and leave nothing for his aunt and three lovely cousins.  Released after four years, John wastes no time in playing cruel practical jokes on family and friends as well as plotting their inevitable demise.

John’s jokes include recording his ex-lover’s bedroom conversations, pretending to rip his own eyeballs out, pretending to molest his neighbor while she is passed out, and even convincing people his three cousins are ghosts.  And in a gloriously demented practical joke, he enters a bar in full torso body cast and convinces an acquaintance to hold his penis as he urinates in the bathroom, only to remove the fake cast once his friend has zipped him up!  While these jokes are cruel, it’s nothing compared to the plans he has for his family who betrayed him and sent him to the asylum.

As the film unfolds, we periodically see a bell being towed across the countryside towards the town church, which has commissioned the new bell.  As John rapes and kills his way through his extended family, he is finally caught and walled up in the bell tower, tied by his neck to be used as a counterweight to the new bell which will be rung for the first time the next morning.  Of course, when this happens, John will be hanged.  But John is so brilliant—or so mad—that he has even planned for his revenge to continue in the event he is caught and killed.  So while he dies at the end of a ringing bell, the final twist is that he completes his revenge from beyond the grave, having his final enemy killed even while he hangs dead in the bell tower.

While this film is slow, it is famous as one of the few subversive films that was allowed to be made under Generalissimo Franco’s regime in 1970’s Spain.  At the time, Franco held firm dictatorial and censorial power and few films were produced that weren’t created under his regime’s strict control.  Seen as an attack on Franco, fascism, state religion, and the middle-class bourgeoisie of Spain, the film was cut of its more graphic sequences and rarely seen uncut until recently.

Featuring absolutely gorgeous Spanish coastal scenery, creepy 400-year-old Spanish castles, and a gothic atmosphere, the film also uses plenty of surrealistic trappings as well, such as a scene with a hermit speaking through tree branches.  At first the viewer doesn’t know where the disembodied voice in the woods originates, but as one looks carefully, one can see a dirty face hidden in the branches.  There are other scenes that are used to throw the viewer off kilter.  For example, in one scene John and one of his pretty cousins are in a dark bedroom and we hear an argument about sex and cruelty as nude photographs are flashed by the screen courtesy of a flashlight.  The viewer assumes the two cousins are having a lover’s quarrel only to find out once the lights come on that they are listening to a conversation that John had recorded earlier.  There is an incestuous rape that occurs mostly off screen while the viewer watches an old family film containing both John and the cousin he is raping.  The film shows a young girl—clearly now the adult being raped—as she is in some kind of distress.  The overall effect is quite interesting—we see the girl of the past in obvious distress as we hear her present form being raped.  The film certainly gives the viewer a definite sense of unease.

Juan Bardem, Javier (No Country for Old Men) Bardem’s father finished editing and post production chores uncredited so the film could be released.  And Maribel Martin (of The Blood-Spattered Bride fame) also stars as one of the cousins.

As I mentioned before, the film moves slowly but methodically, and while the scenery is beautiful, the plot is sordid (incest, rape, murder, pedophilia, etc.), and the film itself is visually interesting, ultimately it’s a bit boring.  I can understand how this film met with controversy in Franco’s Spain and around the world as it depicts several taboos as well as an extended scene of cattle being slaughtered and butchered in graphic detail; but with the removal of the slaughter scene, there really isn’t much to offend today’s viewer.

The film is interesting in an historical context and is visually superb, and if you are a student of surrealist film, this movie may also interest you, but I can really only recommend the film to fans of 70’s European horror.  For completists only.