La noche de la ira

First, I must state I'm quite surprise - and even somewhat saddened - to notice there are so few votes for this film, and only one other user-comment apart from mine. It's strange, because an uncut and marvelously restored version of "La Noche de le Ira" - aka "Blood Hunt" - is available on BluRay for quite a long time already.

I call upon all of you, fellow cult fanatics & collectors out there, to seek this one out! It makes a wonderful addition to any collection, and the film itself is also greatly entertaining, grim, nasty, and shocking. The other review on the page, from my old pal The_Void who regrettable is inactive nowadays, isn't so optimistic as mine, but I understand, because it's most likely based on a badly dubbed and poorly bootlegged version.

So far for my contribution to promote this Spanish cult-jewel, and to help emerge it from obscurity. "Blood Hunt" is a clever and engaging variation on the ancient action/thriller formula of hunting human beings for sport. Extremely popular since the early days of cinema already, thanks to the landmark "The Most Dangerous Game", and copied to a wide variety of settings over the years, like prison camps in "The Woman Hunt" and "Blood Camp Thatcher", big cities in "Surviving the Game" and "Hard Target" or vicious foreign countries in the recent "The Hunt". "Blood Hunt" takes in a secluded Spanish community and, moreover, it's more than just a sick game; - it's a memorial event!

The newly arrived doctor Lieman gradually, and much to his disgust, discover that the entire town participates in the annual hunting down of a large group of homeless drug-addicts that are first kidnapped and imprisoned in what superficially looks like a kind of rehabilitation clinic. They are set free and relentlessly pursued on the 15th of May, because on the same day in 1978, several respectable villagers got killed when drug-addicts invaded their town's festival and committed robberies. When the good doctor tries to put a stop to the macabre tradition, he's declared an outcast as well.

To be honest, "Blood Hunt" is somewhat overlong and occasionally too slow-paced during the first hour. On the other hand, I really admire how the relatively unknown director Javier Elorrieta patiently builds up tension and takes his time to make clear who are the genuine monsters in town, and who the cowardly followers. In terms of violence and bloodshed, there are two undeniable highlights in the film, namely the flashback to spring 1978, and the outrageous finale. The performances are very good, although there aren't many familiar faces. Aldo Sambrell is a famous Spanish cult-figure, but he's the only one I recognized. Agustin Gonzalez plays the town's hateful leader, and he's very disturbing and a dead ringer for Eli Walach. Another villain who impresses is Aramis Ney as the clinic proprietor, whose minion carry around heavy shotgun and dress in black leather raincoats. Creepy!

Violent and tense film with some strong scenes and very well starred by Patxi Andión. A new doctor (the soon-to-be deceased actor/singer Patxi Andión) arrives in a small Spanish town. He is a doctor who is dedicated to healing and doing his job with total conviction of what he does. As soon as he starts to meet people, he notices the strange behavior of the population and is surprised. The young people make fun of him, the local chieftain and wealthy man named Gonzalo (Agustín González) seems to be a kind of leader and meanwhile some neighbors invite him to leave the town when he tries to ask about the situation. All his questions go unanswered. His neighbor (Beatriz Elorrieta, the director's sister) is the town teacher, she is a charming and pretty young woman, and lives with her younger sister. The newly arrived doctor and the teacher develop a sincere friendship from the first moment, which grows into love, but this gives rise to the jealousy of a third one -who considers that she is reserved exclusively for him- and it results in fateful consequences.

A fairly acceptable thriller with loud action, violent events, unexpected plot twists and a spectacular finale full of terrible happenings. Javier Elorrieta's "La noche de la ira" is a chilling story with some terror and revenge, full of underlying social and political criticism, exploring the situation of drug addicts who were rampant at that time; Fortunately, thanks to methadone and the proper treatments, the painful effects of drug addiction were slowly and partially alleviated. The film explores crime and punishment, and the effects that both have on society.

The film turns out to be a crossover between the subgenres of 'quinquis' and 'revenge', in the style of Michael Winner's Death Wish with Charles Bronson, and one cannot disregard the influence of 'The Most Dangerous Game' a novel by Richard Connell that has had many film versions (the most classic is the one directed by Irving Pichel, Ernest B. Schoedsack, starring Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong) dealing with the subject of human hunting. And the film also has some resemblance to 'Coto de caza' (1983) by Jorge Grau, in this one also a lawyer (played by Assumpta Serna) of good principles who believes in the social regeneration of criminals is involved in an outbreak of violence when she is forcibly attacked, resulting in the usual final vendetta.

In addition to the two main artists, Patxi Andión and Beatriz Elorrieta, in ¨La noche de la ira¨ there are a number of already established Spanish supporting actors, such as: Aldo Sambrell, Lina Canalejas, Terele Pávez, José Vivó, Lola Gaos and a special mention for Agustín González who excels as the local chieftain; as well as others who are about to take off such as: Alejandra Grepi, Tony Fuentes, Valentín Paredes and Isabel Ordaz.

The film is very eighties style, both in the direction, as in the usual marks developed in the American thrillers of the 80s; as well as in the tense music made with the usual synthesizer following the canons of that time. And also adding nice songs in English such as: ¨Oh Lord¨ with music by Javier Elorrieta himself and performed by Doris Cales.

The film was professionally directed by Javier Elorrieta. It was not a box office success and was harshly criticized by Spanish critics, although not abroad, where it has a "cult" status in certain quarters. Javier Elorrieta is the son of the prolific and late director José María Elorrieta, a filmmaker who directed all kinds of film genres. Following his father, Javier began directing a Western in 1975 entitled "If you want to live... shoot" with James Philbrook and Frank Braña, actors who acted alongside his ancestor and he followed by a very good film: ¨The long night of the white canes¨ (1979) with José María Rodero and Quique San Francisco playing two blind men in a state of grace. After that, Javier specialized in the horror thriller genre such as: ¨Noche de la ira¨, ¨Pacto de Brujas¨ , ¨Rojo intenso¨ and also in comedy such as: ¨Demasiado caliente para tí , ¨Los gusanos no lleva bufanda (The naked target)¨ in which none other than Anthony Perkins worked; being his greatest success a new version of ¨Sangre y arena¨ (Blood and Sand 1989) starring international actors such as Sharon Stone and Chris Rydell. La noche de la ira 1985 is a decent thriller of acceptable and passable realization that is necessary to rediscover, but for which it is perfect remastering is necessary, since the existing copies are really lousy. So we ask that the 'Spanish Film Library' or the production company or whoever is involved carry out a good image cleaning so that we can enjoy it in all its splendor, since it rightly deserves it.

Ever since The Most Dangerous Game was released in 1932, there have been films copying the central plot idea. These have ranged from trash (Jess Franco's Tender Flesh) to commercial efforts such as Surviving the Game and Hard Target. The Most Dangerous Game's influence apparently also spread to the obscure realms of cinema; and Blood Hunt takes heavy influence from the classic horror film. The plot of this one isn't just a rip off, however, and to writer Joaquín Oristrell's credit, the film has some original elements. In fact, the plot is rather weird and I don't know how he came up with it! We focus on a small Spanish village. A new doctor turns up and immediately realises that the people there are a bit strange. He eventually discovers a 'clinic' for drug users; but is surprised when he discovers that the clinic more closely resembles a prison. The doctor then finds out that some years earlier, a bunch of drug users caused the death of some villagers; and the locals are taking revenge by keeping other drug users prisoner...only to release and hunt them down as sport.

The plot sounds very interesting and certainly seems like it's enough to build an intriguing film from. While the film does have its moments; it's just not interesting enough overall, and that's what lets it down. The film is very much of the 'slow burning' persuasion, and it's actually rather boring for the majority of the runtime; the central doctor character doesn't help things much either as the character does not have a lot of interesting elements about him. All this is not helped by the poor dubbing, and I'd much rather have seen the film in its original Spanish with subtitles. The music is rather strange too and doesn't always fit the film. Thankfully, it does get more interesting as it moves along and the big action scene is good, although really over the top in terms of dramatics. You get the impression from very early on that the film is building towards something and we do get a pay off with the ending, which is good...although it's debatable as to whether or not it was worth the wait. Overall, this is an obscure film; and while it does certainly sound interesting...I wouldn't say it's worth the hassle of tracking down.