THE DAY OF THE BEAST (1995) (Severin Films 4K Ultra HD Review)

THE DAY OF THE BEAST (1995) 

Label: Severin Films

Region Code: Region-FREE

Rating: Unrated

Duration: 104 Minutes 
Video: 2160p UHD, 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Audio: English-Dubbed DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo, Spanish DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 Surround with Optional English Subtitles 

Director:  Álex de la Iglesia 

Cast: Álex Angulo, Santiago Segura, Armando De Razza,

Terele Pávez, Nathalie Seseña

Oh Hell yeah, Severin have jumped into the 4K UHD game! But before we get into the video stats for this particular 

release let's get into the movie itself. The Day of the Beast (1995) is the second film from Spanish filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia, following his cult film debut Accion Mutante (1993) and coming two years before Perdita Durango (1997), the latter of which Severin have simultaneously released on UHD. The depraved and blasphemous Satanic black comedy tells the tale of a rogue priest and theology professor named Cura (Álex Angulo, Pan's Labyrinth), whom has not only discovered and deciphered a cryptogram in the Holy Bible's Book of Revelations, but the exact date that The Antichrist will be born, and it just happens to be the very next day, on Christmas Eve in Madrid! 

At the start of the film Cura tells another Priest of this discovery, and of his plan to stop The Antichrist from being born, which involves him having to commit as many mortal sins as possible in a very short amount of time, after which he will summon Old Scratch himself. It turns out that Satan is none too pleased by Cura's plan, and the other Priest is squashed by a gigantic stone cross moments after Cura speaks to him. 

Cura exits the Church and wastes not time before embarking on his sinful odyssey, his spree begins with stealing money from a street performer and lifting a book from a store, cursing a dying man before swiping his wallet, and pushing a mime down flights of stairs! Realizing that he does not have the Satanic know-how to raise the Devil on his own the Priest enlists the help of an acid-dropping death metal record store clerk named José María (Santiago Segura, Beyond Re-Animator) and huckster TV psychic Cavan (Armando De Razza) to assist him. 

The Day of the Beast (1995) is gleefully sinful in it's satanic absurdity, I took great pleasure in seeing the Priest partaking in sin to achieve his goals, even listening to death metal music backwards with the help of Satanist death-metaller Jose, and even though TV psychic Cavan turns out to be a  fraud his occult knowledge comes in handy when the time comes to summon the Devil. Their Devil rousing adventure is fraught with comical errors, most notably the extraction of virgin blood from the the sexy Mina (Nathalie Seseña) which results in the death of Jose's mother Rosario (Terele Pávez, Witching and Bitching), which he does nto seem to concerned by, and a Satanic ritual that could be attributed more to the homemade LSD and virgin blood-infused sacrament the trio ingest than the arrival of the Devil as a horned black goat! 

The charm in this one is the delightful sinful set-up and the string bond of the trio, even though Cavan has to initially be tied up and forced to comply with a beating to the head by the priest. He eventually comes around, but the satanic rocker needs very little enticing, he full-blooded jumps into it with very little arm twisting, after initially being charmed that the priest showed up at his record shop looking for metal album with backward masked subliminal messages. The set-up of the flick is strong and quickly established, though I do think it is a tiny bit bloated at 104-mintes, but I never checked out of it, I was in from start to finish. The film doesn't get too deep into anything it sets up, probably for the better, just go with it, but it does start to meander a bit, but it's so devilishly cheeky and fun that I can forgive it. The gore is not anything special, we get some bloody gunshot wounds, blunt force trauma, cigarette burns on the bottom of a foot, someone is set on fire, an electrocution, and a rabbit gets it head cut-off, but not a gore-film by any means, the most shocking visual is probably seeing Jose's grandpa's dick which shows up a few times. 

Without even realizing it I have been watching the films of 

Álex de la Iglesia for a few years now, including The Last Circus (2010), Witching and Bitching (2013), The Oxford Murders (2008) and most recently the HBO mini-series  30 Coins (2021) which is fantastic. It was not until I watched this that I started putting the pieces together that these were all the work of a singular force, and now watching his earlier films it has exponentially increased my love of Álex de la Iglesia's demented vision, you certainly see a though-line when lining his body of work up against each other. 

Audio/Video: Severin Films debut 4K UHD offering is director Álex de la Iglesia's second feature film,  The Day of the Beast (1995), which  arrives on 4K UHD in 2160p HD framed in 1.85:1 widescreen, with HDR Dolby Vision color-grading. This is a brand new 4K scan of the original camera negative and it's in great shape with nary any film damage to take not of. My initial impression was not one of eye-popping UHD amazement, but it does look filmic and true to the source. Grain looks mostly natural throughout, appearing  heavier in the darker lit scenes, of which there is many. Fine detail is pleasing in the close-ups of clothing textures, the satanic writings and artwork seen throughout, but it is modest. There is not a lot of depth to the image, it looks quite flat in spots, particularly during scenes that are heavy with optical effects, like the finale or when our intrepid trio ends up scaling the outside of a skyscraper, traversing an enormous neon Schwepp's ginger ale sign. The colors scheme a bit muted as well, though comparing the Blu-ray to the UHD the HDR Dolby Vision certainly punches up the primaries and deepens the blacks, shadow detail, and contrast throughout, The most afflicted looking part of the film is the finale that takes place atop an unfinished skyscraper, there's a strong chromatic aberration inherent to the lo-fi optical effects that is probably made worse by the UHD presentation. Severin give this cult 90's flick a solid UHD presentation, it might not have the stunning visual impact of other titles on UHD but it is an authentic looking and true to the source.  

There is no Dolby Atmos on Severin's debut UHD, but both the UHD and Blu-ray audio comes by way of DTS-HD MA English-dubbed 2.0 Stereo or Spanish 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 Surround with optional English subtitles. The English track is serviceable but flat, the Spanish 5.1 offered the most robust and dynamic offering to my ears, with solid use of the surrounds during the more action-ier moments. Dialogue comes through strong, as does the score from Battista Lena and metal tunes from Def Con Dos and Ktulu sound great, and also get some 

The only extras on the UHD disc are a pair of trailers for the film, the main extras are found on the Blu-ray disc, beginning with an 81-minute documentary Heirs Of The Beast, which offers behind-the-scenes footage of the making of the film, as well as talking heads discussing the significance and impact of the film with input from festival programmers, critics and directors like Jaume Balaguero, and Pacao Plaza, it's a great doc. 

We also get a 28-minute interview with director Álex de la Iglesia, 20-minutes with actor Actor Armando De Razza  who played the Priest, 17-minutees with Actress Maria Grazia Cucinotta, and 3-minutes with Director Of Photography Flavio Martínez Labiano. Additionally we get 4-minutes of trailers for the film, plus a 20-minute black and white short film by Álex de la Iglesia from 1990. All of the interviews are in Spanish with English subtitles, with the exception of the Flavio Martínez Labiano interview. 

The two-disc releases arrives in a dual-hub black keepcase with a reversible sleeve of artwork featuring the English and Spanish title options with different artwork for each, and in this instance the English artwork blows away the Spanish option, in my opinion. The discs inside feature the English artwork option with the striking red background, the only difference is one has a UHD logo while the other has Blu-ray log on it. This release also includes an attractive, somewhat flimsy, slipcover featuring the English title with the red and black colors reversed, it makes for a striking slip. The reverse side of the slip features the original movie poster with same key artwork with a slightly different layout accompanied by a blurb from Guillermo del Toro. 

Special Features:
- Heirs Of The Beast - Feature Length Documentary by Diego López and David Pizarro on the Making and Cultural Impact of DAY OF THE BEAST (81 min) 
- Antichrist Superstar - Interview with Director Alex De La Iglesia (28 min) 
- The Man Who Saved the World - Interview with Actor Armando De Razza (20 min) 
- Beauty and the Beast - Interview with Actress Maria Grazia Cucinotta (17 min) 
- Shooting The Beast - Interview with Director Of Photography Flavio Martínez Labiano (3 min) 
- Mirindas Asesinas (1990) Short Film by Alex De La Iglesia (12 min) 
- Trailers (4 min) 
- Slipcase on UHD & Blu-ray
- Reversible UHD & Blu-ray wrap

Now that Severin have jumped into the UHD game, cult film fans best hold onto their eyeballs because their first three UHD titles have made clear that they are committed to the weird, the wild, and and wonderful, with this release being followed up by Álex de la Iglesia's Perdita Durango (1997), and Alejandro Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre ( 1989). We keep hearing about the death of physical media but labels like Severin Films are keeping the flame alive with outstanding and offbeat cinema like The Day of the Beast! 

Screenshots from the Blu-ray:

 

Extras: